Quick Road Trip To Denali National Park July 17-18 2012 - Part 2

Now for part 2 of this trip...

On the drive up to the park, we stopped at an overlook where we could see Denali (a.k.a. "The Mountain" or Mt. McKinley). The sky was quite hazy with smoke from the record wildfire season in Siberia, which added a nice pink hue to the sunset (at about 11pm).

And while we were there, we saw a black bear wandering around the river basin.

Just HAD to catch the reflection. :)

Time to cross this section of the braided river.

Swimming...

Made it! No problem at all.

What's he got his eye on? There's apparently something he sees...

I didn't even see the eagle sitting there until the bear was almost to it and the eagle flew over to this tree. Sneaky!

Eventually the bear crossed the main braid of the river which was moving quite swiftly. Pretty impressive to see how well he could swim in that current.

We stayed at the Denali Hostel, which I just learned about this year since some friends stayed there during their visit to Denali National Park. We were able to get a cabin just for ourselves, and it was right by a river that we could hear from the cabin. Not too bad... I'd definitely stay there again!

Our cabin. :)

Some photos from the rest of our time in the park... this first photo is along the trail from the Visitor's Center to the Denali Kennels.

Along the Savage River... mile 15... the farthest you can drive your own vehicle into the park without a special permit.

We then went to do another short hike and found this relaxing spot. That rocky shore at the middle-left part of the photo is where we sat for about an hour just taking in the sunshine, lack of busyness, and sound of the "babbling" creek.

Looking the opposite direction as the last photo... a.k.a. downstream.

On the drive home, we saw some lenticular clouds forming over the peaks of the mountains. Add in sunset right behind Denali as we got to the overlook we had stopped at the night before, and you've got some pretty special views.

The last part of this trip to share is the great flowers along the way.

Fireweed...

Bog Star...

Tall Jacob's Ladder (I think)...

Monkshood...

Chiming Bells...

Siberian Aster...

Tundra Rose

One more fireweed shot from the drive home.

'Til next time...

Quick Road Trip To Denali National Park July 17-18 2012 - Part 1

I've been watching the puppy cam at Denali National Park since it came online this year, and have become "somewhat" familiar with the 3 puppies that were born this year. :) I realized that I'm only a few hours away from them... and can go see them in person. Some common days off with a coworker and a couple beautiful days led to this becoming a reality. Part 1 of this post is all dogs... Part 2 will be other photos/video from the rest of the trip.

So... the dogs. :) The kennels are only a couple miles from the visitor's center along the Park Road. There are shuttles to the kennels for the free demonstrations that they do each day, but a) we missed them and b) the hike isn't a bad one. We actually ended up missing the demonstration altogether, but you can visit the dogs anytime during the day and it was still well worth the trip. In fact, the crowds all left soon after the demonstration since they had taken the shuttle, so we had the dogs to ourselves. Can't complain about that!

The puppies... this year's litter was named after local mines... I believe gold mines. Each year the puppies are named with a different theme (many mushers seem to do this), everything from movies to candy bars to mountain peaks, etc.  The Denali puppies in particular are generally themes that have to do with the park, so trail names, mountain peaks, flowers, etc. could be themes used.

First, here's Annie. The foxy lady. :)

With Annie here is Polly. They're both trying to get a blade of dead grass from the other side of the fence.

The 3rd puppy of this year's litter is a boy named Lucky.

There are many moments where they're all within the same foot of space.

There's that blade of grass (sticking out of Annie's mouth... see it?)

And now... a couple series of photos that made me realize that Lucky is a bit of an instigator. The park rangers say he's definitely not the dominant one of the group, but clearly he doesn't just sit back and watch life go by, either.

A little video of them in action...

Denali Sled Dog Puppies (More) from Mary-Beth Schreck on Vimeo.


The second series... starting with Lucky eyeing the bone that Annie has...

Annie says, "Hey... I was using that! Where do you think you're going?"

The victor. ;)

Or is Annie the victor? She quickly got the bone back from Lucky.

Yet again... here's Lucky pickin' on Annie! I definitely saw them playing the most... sometimes Polly would get involved but fairly rarely.

It's time to go for a walk! This is Sultana, the mom of these adorable puppies.

Puppies don't need leashes... they get to explore their surroundings and get used to all sorts of things on their own. I've heard that Polly has been the fastest on their walks, which may indicate she's a leader. And look here... they're hardly out of their kennel and Polly is clearly up front.

Coming back from the walk...

Ah, so that's how they get them to go back in the kennel so easily. It's lunch time!! That food was gone in just a minute or so. Whew!

Let's see lunch time in action. Still photos just don't capture what's going on here.

Denali Sled Dog Puppies from Mary-Beth Schreck on Vimeo.


Puppy kisses... so sweet.

Alright, one more series. I'll give Polly a break for this one... he isn't ALWAYS instigating. :)

Clearly, Annie is telling Polly some sort of secret here.

And apparently it's not a secret about Lucky, because then Annie goes over to fill him in too. Makes me wonder if it's a secret about us. haha.

 One more "portrait" of the sisters... Polly on the left and Annie on the right.

And Lucky... with his floppy ears and blue eyes.

It's not all about the puppies... there are several (20 to 25) other sled dogs at the Denali kennels. Some of them were particularly cute and/or sweet... these are a couple of our favorites.

Carpe and Emily became fast friends. Carpe just turned 1 year old this past week.

These dogs weren't the least bit concerned about us. They were all so friendly and clearly used to so many different people petting them, getting in their faces, etc. 

'Til next time...