Back from Denali

Well, we did it. We spent three nights and two and a half days in Denali! Denali National Park and Preserve is absolutely the most amazing place I have ever been. It's so awesome (in the awe inspiring sense of the word) that I'm already planning a camping trip back. We saw so much wildlife in their natural habitat. Denali has six million acres of untouched wilderness. Hiking up a mountain you have to remember to call out "Hey Bear!" to let any four legged residents know that you're passing through.

A Grizzly!

Speaking of bears, we saw multiple ones throughout our stay in Denali. On two occasions we saw a golden colored grizzly with her two cubs. They were like half a mile away but you could see them really well in the binoculars. On the day we saw them the second time we saw another golden grizzly about half an hour later. He was alone and eating berries on a hillside. Along with bears we saw caribou, wolves, Dall sheep, arctic ground squirrels (yes they are actual ground squirrels, not chipmunks...), pika, a ptarmigan, and many other birds.

Bachelor Dall Sheep hanging out nearby.

We stayed in the Murie Science and Learning Center's field school campsite and had a sort of "class" each day with them. Margi, our super-mega-awesome naturalist guide, led us on hikes each day as well. We climbed up Igloo mountain the second night we were in Denali. That was the most fun I've ever had on a hike. We made it about halfway-ish up the mountain maybe and every ten to fifteen minutes of hiking got us to a gorgeous new spot to look out over the park.
Overall it was an amazing camping trip and there is so much that I could say about it but it's really late and I'm pretty tired. We left Denali and got into Fairbanks yesterday. We went to the Eskimo Olympics last night and checked out a gold mine and the Museum of the North at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks today. Tomorrow we're doing laundry and going to Pioneer Park (where we have been informed that there are NO amusement park rides).