Denali Park: The Road Lottery

Somewhere along the Denali Park Road.

OK, so just 'cause I live in Alaska doesn't mean I get out that much. In fact, I would venture to say that there are many Alaskans who just don't get out as much as we should into this state where we reside - I am at least one of these many.

Each fall the National Park Service allows four days, following the tourist season, of private vehicles to drive the Denali Park Road. During the summer only Park buses are permitted into the depths of the Park - usually loaded with camera toting tourists who sway the bus from side to side as they smudge nose to window in search of the sometimes evasive wildlife.

Only 400 vehicles per day for this four day span are permitted and permits for doing so are obtained through a lottery drawing held mid to late summer. This road lottery is perhaps a guarded secret of many Alaskans, as in fact, it is very popular with the locals, however, submission of an entry is open to anyone.

I was blessed with a friend in Fairbanks who offered the use of her pass for this past Friday. And so, around 9 am or so on Friday morning a car load of us ventured into the park flashing our special permit to the poor rangers at the 15-mile marker (Savage River) reciting the rules of the road for each vehicle going beyond this usual point of buses only.

It was a cloudy day, maybe 50 degrees F, and even lower with the blowing wind. Our hopes were high for wildlife and a nice day yet the reality of the weather and the first few miles past the 15-mile marker limited our enthusiastic perspective.

Yet, in spite of our altered sense of anticipation, we begin to note blue clouds in the road ahead and not too long into the first few miles we spotted our first auto flock - a phenomenon known to occur when wildlife is spotted within view of the road. Mind you it's rather easy to initiate such a thing - all it takes is stopping along the road, pulling out a pair of binoculars or a camera and looking off into the distance arbitrarily and, BAM!, you now have your own auto flock!

The day turned out to be quite marvelous. The clouds brought out the color in the late fall country. The sun would peek through from time to time illuminating the not-so-far-off mountains and even presenting us with a full rainbow on the ride out near Panorama Pass. The mountains were beautiful, although there was no sign of Denali amongst the clouds.

Over the course of the day we spyed upon 27 Dall sheep (a number of which were full curl or better), 10 wolf (two crossing the road in front of us), 7 Toklat grizzly bears (a sow and two cubs crossing directly in front of us - i.e. the car had to skid to a stop), maybe an osprey (pretty certain), one bull moose from quite a distance, and various ground animals and small birds.

I posted some pictures here or try the link under Photo Albums on the right sidebar. Now, I have a new camera and while at the Park I was attempting some new things with the camera, thus, some pictures have been digitally enhanced - I know, I also feel like this is cheating, but my excuse is I am still learning the camera...

I need to get out more. I would recommend the same to you.