Because I Can: Kantishna Tour

Day 39 Saturday July 23, 2016 Denali National Park, Teklanika River Campground, site 36

0 towing miles

It started out as a drizzly cloudy foggy rainy day. Not a good day for a bus tour of the Park road all the way to the 92.5 mile marker and back. But we were in Denali and that’s all that mattered.

The bus picked us up at 08:55 at the bus stop outside the campground entrance. It was already nearly full because most of the passengers started out at the Wilderness Center near the park entrance.

We had an excellent driver who narrated everything about the whole route. The history, the animals, the geology, glaciation, mining, lodges, road building, and on and on. He had been driving that route for 18 years.

When an animal is sighted someone calls out and the driver will stop and position the bus as needed so everyone can see and photograph it. The people on the bus share their positions to allow others to see and get a chance at photos, too. We are not allowed off the bus, and we are to be quiet and keep our heads and arms in the bus. They do not want the animals to be acclimated to people.

We had scheduled stops along the way about every hour. One of the longer stops was at the Eielson Visitor Center. There are some short trails in the area, but longer than the length of the stop. The system allows you to get off the bus if you wish and catch another one on the way back. The shuttle system is very flexible.

The driver would point out where Denali would be if we could see it, but it was not to be today. It was enclosed in clouds as is the case 67% of the time.

We went all the way to Wonder Lake, which is the last campground on the road at mile 85. But our tour went on for 7.5 more miles into a section of the Park that was private at one time. There were several lodges there that are still operating today. The lodge buses are allowed to use the Park Road to shuttle clients to and from the lodge and on day excursions. There was also a town there at one time called Kantishna. It was a mining town, but no longer exists.

The entire trip was full of breath taking scenery and lots of wildlife. Here’s some scenery. I don’t even know where to start I have so many pictures.

Let’s start at on the way to Polychrome Pass:

And at Polychrome Pass:

And then Eielson Visitor Center:

Looking toward Denali. It's right behind all that mist.

This was our best view of Denali. This is what it's supposed to look like.

By then our bus looked like our trailer.

Taken at Eielson Visitor Center.

Here some shots at Wonder Lake:

Note the loon in the water.

I’ll throw the rest of these in because they are pretty and many are taken on the way back. As the day went on it was cloudy, sunny, raining, cold, hot. It varied all day and so did the appearance of the scenery.

These colorful mountains were in the Polychrome area..

Now we get to the wildlife section of the program. Lots of grizzly bears, caribou, a few moose, ptarmigan, golden eagles, Dall sheep, loons, and a spruce grouse.