Denali National Park and Preserve

Until the 11th day of our Alaska cruisetour when we took the Tundra Wilderness Tour to Denali National Park and Preserve, we hadn't had the opportunity to see any living big game. We saw the stuffed versions at the Wildlife Display Museum at the Westmark Inn in Beaver Creek and at the Denali Visitor Center but there's nothing like the real thing. At this point in our trip, you might say we felt 'wildlife' deprived. We had all hoped to spot some big game along the road or railroad tracks as we traveled through the Yukon Territory and Alaska but it didn't happen. At one point we thought we had spotted a black bear on the highway but were vastly disappointed when it turned out to be just a "Canis lupis familiaris" or dog.

At around 2:30pm on August 3, our group of 40 hopped on the Tundra Wilderness Tour bus, which you might find a bit tight if you're particularly tall or large. Only a single road goes into Denali which leads 93 miles into the wilderness and private vehicles are only allowed on the first 15 miles in order to reduce congestion and preserve the natural resources of the park. Park service buses and commercial outfitters, however, make trips as far back as the lodgings at Kantishna at the end of the road and they carry 350,000 visitors each summer.

River White, our bus driver and trained interpretive naturalist, promised he would stop on a dime for wildlife sightings and he didn't let us down! We saw Dall sheep grazing on a steep cliff face, grizzlies feasting on soapberries (in a single day, the grizzly can eat 200,000 soapberries!), caribou roaming in the tundra and one lone moose. One caribou seemed to be blissfully unaware of the bears in a feeding frenzy below him. I thought we were very lucky to see all of these beautiful animals in one trip because believe it or not, they don't make appointments with tourists!

The National Park Service offers the following three tours of Denali:

• The Denali Natural History Tour, a 4 1/2 to 5 hour tour 17 miles into the park


• The Tundra Wilderness Tour, a 7 to 8 hour tour that generally goes 53 miles into the park; however, because Denali (Mt. McKinley) was visible on our tour, albeit barely, we were able to go another eight miles down the road to Stony Hill Overlook


• Kantishna Experience, a 12 to 14 hour journey to the end of the road

The Kantishna Experience would be wonderful but a 12 to 14 hour journey in the tour bus would be a bit much. If you decide to go to Kantishna, you should seriously consider spending the night there.

More photos of Denali National Park and Preserve

A video of Mama grizzly and her cub: