Tuesday, June 15 - "On a Clear Day....." - Our outing in the wilderness

After breakfast, we headed out on the hotel shuttle to the Wilderness Access Center where we met our "Green Bus" for our day trip into Denali. There is one road into the park and the Green Buses were the mode of transport that we chose. Since our shuttle got us to the center just moments before boarding, we ended up in the last row of the bus, which wasn't as bad as we thought it might be. We had a very entertaining driver, who gave us all sorts of information on the park and what we might be seeing. He instructed us to yell "Stop!" if there were wildlife sightings, so he could stop and we all could take pictures. Unfortunately, there weren't many animals on our trip in - although there was a moose in the bus loading area, along with a wolf and some Dall sheep in the distance enroute.
Instead, our big treat was a tremendous view of Mt. McKinley in all its glory, a sight not seen everyday (on average the mountain can be fully seen around 17 days in June, the rest of the time it is fully or partially obscured by clouds.) It was certainly an amazing sight. We got within approximately 35 miles of it. Our furthest destination in the park was the Eilson Center, which had many interesting displays. We spent some time outdoors, following the trails, but it was quite chilly and VERY windy. Originally we had planned to hop on and off the Green Bus all day and hike over the tundra, but that didn't seem such a good idea with the weather conditions being what they were. After our outdoor time, we boarded another green bus for the trip back to the Visitor's Center. We were much luckier in the wildlife department. First a fox running down the side of the road and then, best of all, two big grizzlies standing in the middle of the road. That stopped traffic in both directions for quite awhile! The sighting was well documented with all the cameras. We arrived back at the Visitors center around 4:30, picked up some dinner there to take back to the cabin and headed back. We spent the evening resting and preparing for our next day's travels.