Denali Park and Tundra Wilderness Tour

 


This was a very long day!

Our Tundra Wilderness Tour started at 5:30am. And we weren't even on the earliest one! Of course even getting up at 4:30am it's full daylight. This tour is part of every Holland America package. It's a Park Service tour, and goes to mile 43 on the Denali Park road. The road used to go further, but a section of it melted away! If you want to travel on this road you can't go by car, you have to take one of the park buses. Denali is a wilderness area, and they want to keep it that way, and don't want the animals habituated to people. It's a huge park, so we only saw a small part. You travel from the boreal forest up to the tree-less tundra. There are some small bushes, grass and wildflowers. We had a great driver/guide who gave us lots of interesting information about the history, the animals and how they survive in this harsh climate. The tour was about 5 1/2 hours. There were several rest stops, and a snack box and water provided. We were lucky enough to see a male and a female grizzly bear, and lots of Dall sheep.  

Mount Denali was hidden in cloud, common for this time of year. But all in all, a very worth-while tour and I would recommend over the shorter tour that just goes to mile 17.








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