Alaska’s Denali National Park & Preserve: Hours of Wildlife, Wild Scenery and Wild Stories

Forty pairs of eyes scan the countryside looking for movement, any movement. With binoculars and cameras at the ready, we hoped for a bear or a moose, but were willing to settle for some Dall sheep high up the mountain.

Not a passenger aboard the bus maintained a semblance of composure. We scurried like kids from one side to the other, eager to be the first to announce the next sighting. Such was my introduction to the Tundra Wilderness Tour, a 5-5 1/2 hour excursion into Denali National Park & Preserve, one of the highlights of my Gray Line Adventure Tour through interior Alaska.

Denali National Park is larger than the state of Massachusetts and tenderly watched over by Denali –- “the high one” — at over 20,000 feet the highest mountain in North America. Weather can be an issue. For current conditions, please follow this link here: https://www.nps.gov/dena/planyourvisit/conditions.htm.

Alaska’s Mount Denali Wilderness Tour Introduces You to Wildlife and Beautiful Scenery

On an African safari, the goal is to spot the Big Five — lion, leopard, rhino, elephant, cape buffalo. In Alaska, the concept is the same — just the names are different: moose, bear, wolf, caribou and Dall sheep.

But when we initially stopped to see a rabbit — okay, our guide called it a Snowshoe Hare — I thought, “This is not a good sign.” In truth, you can’t always accurately decipher what you see in the distance. Snowfills are mistaken for sheep and large boulders for bears. Hopes rise and are dashed and the guide takes refuge in another Snowshoe Hare.

But this is a tour for the long haul and you’re not likely to be disappointed. And even more impressive, our driver/guide, with infectious enthusiasm, kept up a constant patter covering vegetation, history, animal lore and Alaska peccadilloes along with personal experiences and other tantalizing tidbits for more than five hours. The fact that it was still interesting by that fifth hour is even more of a phenomenal accomplishment.

The Commentary on Alaska’s Mount Denali Wilderness Tour is as Interesting as What You See Out the Window

The running commentary accompanied our guide’s driving along narrow, winding roads clutching the mountainside while he rapidly gazed right and left for any movement that might indicate animal activity. It was a heroic act of multi-tasking I didn’t want to think too much about.

And there was always something to see. Throughout the tour, we saw numerous Dall sheep, occasional moose, caribou (the North American relative to the reindeer), the ubiquitous snowshoe hares and other native wildlife.

And should the animals play hard to get for a period of time, just lifting your eyes to the proverbial snow-capped mountains in the distance is enough to keep you enthralled until the next native creature reveals itself.

Because the bus is so big, the sound of recognition travels like a wave from front to back. There’s always a risk the animal the front has viewed is gone by the time the back of the bus catches up.

But never fear. On the off-chance you miss the mama moose and her calf or the Dall sheep straddling a steep slope, it will magically appear on the TV screens lowered above the seats in the bus. Close-up images from the driver’s video camera are reflected on the drop-down screens.

I was torn between resenting seeing my ”in the wild” Alaska wildlife resembling a Discovery Channel documentary and feeling grateful I could see them at all.

TVs on the Bus Bring the Visions of Distant Wild Animals Up Close and Personal

But, in truth, I was in it for the bears. Earlier in the trip, I had discovered that we were there too early in the year (June instead of July) for the peak running season of the sockeye salmon. Therefore, we were too early for the bears to gather around the streams just waiting for those happily spawning salmon to fly into their mouths. My own mouth had been watering at the very thought of watching such a spectacle.

So once in Denali, I hoped at least to finally get my chance to see bears. Our guide kept reassuring us we would certainly see grizzlies. But by hour number five, when only a glimpse of brown had been seen once in the far distance, he finally, guiltily, sorrowfully, very apologetically acknowledged that maybe we wouldn’t this trip.

And then suddenly, the cry went out –- waves of wows traveled along the bus — as a momma and two bear cubs came into view. “Hallelujah,” cried one excited passenger; “Thank goodness, we paid $5000 to see that critter,” noted another.

Our guide admitted he was getting quite nervous. Only 20 times in 18 seasons had he not seen a bear. It was far away and clearly wasn’t catching any fish, but I did feel some sense of vindication.

At the end of the trip, our guide played back the video that captured the highlights of our bus trip from hare to bear and all the other denizens of Denali in between. This included the many Dall sheep, mama moose with twins, caribou, golden eagle, ground squirrels, ptarmigans (the state bird) and bears. We just missed Alaska’s Big Five by one wolf.

Not surprisingly, like the ubiquitous gift shop at the end of every museum tour, the video was for sale.

But Denali was only one stop on the Gray Line escorted Alaska Explorer Tour. There were also glaciers, mountains, gold mining history and native cultures. Plus whale watching tours, frontier towns, backcountry and a myriad of experiences I’ve had nowhere else.

In the process, I learned to appreciate not only America’s Last Frontier but the hardy, independent-minded people who inhabit it. Still next time, I want to see more bears.

If you go:

For more information, visit  https://www.denaliparkvillage.com/tours/tundra-wilderness-tour or call 888-452-1737.88-452-1737

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Rambling Writers

Fyllis Hockman and Victor Block are a husband-wife team of experienced travel journalists who have gallivanted throughout the United States, and to nearly 80 countries around the world, and written about what they have seen, done and learned.Their articles have appeared in newspapers across the country and on websites across the Internet, and they each have won numerous writing awards. They love to explore new destinations and cultures and uncover off-the-beaten-path attractions.

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