Into the Park-part 1

Here it is, my day off and I needed something to do. So I decided I wanted to go into the park to see some wildlife. I had heard the Tundra Wilderness tour was good for sighting animals.

So, I walked up to the front desk of the hotel to see what time the bus was leaving and just to my luck it was sitting right outside about to leave. Man, was that good timing.

I hopped on to the bus, which was packed full of tourists all rarin' to go. I see them come in and out of the store on a regular basis and they come from all around and they are usually older….but all so happy to be there.

We left the canyon and turned on to Park Rd. heading west towards Mt. McKinley.

Our bus driver was spouting out the facts left and right just as we began. And, don't worry, I won't bore you with the facts. I thought a lot of them were very interesting so I actually took a journal and wrote most of them down….and Yeeesss…that's how big a nerd I am. It made the trip go by a little faster, that's for sure.

We went through Savage River on into Mt. Wright, where the first set of Dall Sheep were spotted. They looked like little white specks up on a super tall mountain. And of course all the tourists get there binoculars out to try to find the Sheep. I knew we could get closer than that somewhere else. And I was right, about 5 miles down the road we saw some more. I took a picture but they're just too far away to get a good shot.

Our next find was a group of bear taking a nap out on an icy cold glacier. Pretty cool that my first bear sighting was when they were all asleep.

You'll have to zoom it up a bunch to really see them.

Next, we stopped at Polychrome Pass for a little break. I think this was one of the best parts of the trip because he let us out to walk around a bit. There was some crazy wind that day so it was cold out there but I sure did enjoy the scenery.

This is what we saw on one side of the road

And this is what we saw on the other: