Alaska summer highlights #2

 Thanks to Groupon Coupon we were able to take the train up to Denali Park for three days. It was an eight hour ride. We sat up top in the observation deck, and had a fancy diner car underneath.

Our first hike in the park was taking the free shuttle out to Granite Creek. This is 15 miles into the park. Any other shuttle you have to pay for. No sign of bears, but we did get treated to the state bird, the Willow Ptarmigan, and her six chicks.

You can see two of the chicks behind her.

Arctic Ground Squirrels were all over the place. They have a beautiful speckled fur.

The green shuttle bus would drop off campers and hikers at different spots along the way to the creek.

The next day we got up early to take a special bus that was a "Tundra Nature Tour". Spotting animals is all pot luck. You never know what you will see and when.  On this bus the driver had a spotting camera on board. When an animal was far away, she could set it up and put it on a screen for all of us to see.

   

We had one glimpse of Denali on our way in before all the clouds moved in.

This is an example of the driver using her camera to project the "spot" out on the hill that happened to be a bear.  We were able to see a mom with her two cubs playing on her this way.

Big, big country....This area eventually had three different river systems coming together.