On Saturday we drove the park road as far as you are allowed to take your car. This point is 13 miles into the park at the location of the Savage River. There is a two mile hike along the river (one mile in and one mile out) which we decided to take. The following pictures are a snowshoe hare (checkout the back feet), an ground squirrel and a couple of ptarmigan. The story goes that the town of Chicken, AK is named after the ptarmigan. The people naming the town couldn’t spell ptarmigan so the named the town Chicken.
Now for the bad news. After crossing the small bridge over the river and with still a mile to go back to the car Doris tripped over a rock in the trail, fell and broke her right arm. We first hiked the mile back to the car. There are really no medical facilities to speak of in the park or anywhere nearby. We drove to Fairbanks Memorial Hospital emergency room about 110 miles away where she was able to get really excellent care. The break was near the end of the radius bone next to the wrist. She now has a temporary splint which will need to be replaced with cast in a few days once the swelling stops and begins to go down. Since Fairbanks may be the only location along our route back towards the lower 48 for the next 1000 to 1500 miles with an orthopedic specialist we will end up spending a few extra days in Fairbanks.
As they say a picture is worth a thousand words. The picture on the left is the wrist area before setting the fracture and the one on the right was taken through the temporary splint after setting the fracture.
On Tuesday we took the shuttle bus tour of Denali NP. The weather had been cloudy and overcast for several days and we had no expectation of seeing Mt. McKinley and we didn’t. At least we did have the great view from Talkeetna.
We were able to see brown bears, Dall sheep, a moose, a wolf and too many caribou to count. The original purpose of creating Denali NP was to preserve the wildlife. However the uniqueness of the park is really the geology associated with the Alaska Mountain Range and the creation of Mt. McKinley.
Below is one of the large male caribou along the tour.
We encountered the following strolling caribou road block which was eventually broken up by a bus coming from the opposite direction.
The next photo is of the very rare and seldom photographed Caribou Tree.
One of the more interesting encounters was a wolf walking along the road searching for a ground squirrel dinner. Once he located the den he began digging for dinner which he eventually had. (Our bus guide identified the animal as a wolf and it may be considering the long legs and very large feet. However we think the coloring very much resembles a coyote.)
The following was the best we could do for a moose shot.
And finally the wounded hiker.
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