Denali Princess Lodge

As we set off on another bus journey we are not surprised to find that out bus driver Chris is a fountain of knowledge about many things along the way. It seems that the one of the accomplishments of the Princess bus drivers is to be as knowledgeable as possible about the routes they drive and the places they take visitors to. As a guide I understand that this is their job but these guys are just great.

As we drive along the highway there isn't much opportunity for photos except a couple of exceptional ones. Hurricane Gulch and The Igloo. Hurricane Gulch is the deepest gulch along the highway and the Statue of Liberty could fit under the bridge we passed over, so very deep!

Hurricane Gulch

Igloo Hotel????

The other interesting sight was and igloo by the side of the road. Chris our driver explained that there were a couple of guys who thought it would be a good idea to open a hotel in the shape of an igloo on the highway as a tourist idea. When it was inspected the inspector found there was no emergency exits and the place was full of asbestos! It would have cost too much to rectify the faults so they ended up just abandoning it. It has now become an interesting site on the way between Mt McKinley and Denali.

We arrived in Denali to a drizzly afternoon but that was ok we had been very lucky up until now. We checked into our rooms and had some lunch before having a bit of a wander around. The lodge is on the Nenana River with Mt Healy in the background.

Cheryl and I upgraded our tour for the next day to a longer but better one according to all the posts we had read on the Princess Facebook page. As this tour started at 1pm and would go for 7 hours, John, Peter and I went across to the shops to see what we could buy to take with us the next day as we would definitely be missing dinner times at the lodge. We found a few options to consider.

I did some blogging and we had dinner and off to bed ready for another day in the captive atmosphere of Princess cruises.

Day Two Denali Princess Lodge

 We started today relaxing getting ready for our tour in the afternoon as there wasn't much else to do until the time came.

We left the lodge at 1pm on an old fashioned school type bus very different from the coaches we had been travelling on. After buying some food to take with us we got on the bus and there were some snack boxes with water for all the passengers. All of the contents were recyclable, as part of the National Parks aim is to be zero waste in the coming years. The water was in an aluminium bottle and all the wrappers from the snacks were being recycled as well and the food waste will go into a composting system. Since the introduction they have reduced the waste by 50%. A great achievement.

We start our tour with Bruce who is sour guide. He sounds a bit like Jack Nicholson very laconic. He was very knowledgeable about the park and the environment into which we were venturing. He used to be a dog musher so had lots of experience with landscape as well as the animals we would be seeing.

As we were driving our first wildlife sighting were ptarmigans by the side of the road. These birds are brown and white during the summer months but in winter they turn white to blend in with the snow.

Our next sighting is a mumma grizzly and her cubs by the side of the river. It is on the wrong side of the bus for me to see but Bruce has a camera mounted which he trained on the bears and then there were screen which flipped down and you could see it as you were actually looking at them. Very cool indeed.

As we drove deeper into the park, our next wildlife sighting was a caribou up on the ridge line, eventually we would go approximately 90 miles into the park which you can only do on this tour. mind you there were multiple buses doing this trip.

The scenery was fabulous with so many stunning vistas changing around every corner. The commentary from Bruce was really good and we saw lots of wildlife as we went on our journey. We stopped at the point where regular visitors can't go past and 2 rangers got on board to show us some moves to let us know what animals we had seen because we were supposed to be quiet when near the animals. It was amazing the sights we were seeing.

We saw more grizzly bears and more caribou along the way.

We stopped at a point called Polychrome Pass, it gets it name from the colourful volcanic rocks that you can see from the lookout, but the name could also be applied to the colourful vegetation, streams, mountains and glaciers in the area.

The many vistas along the road also included the braided Savage River. There were lots of these in Alaska as they are formed by the glaciers sending down a lot of sediment which forms channels as the river or creek flows down from the mountains.

After lots of wildlife sightings and beautiful vistas we made our way back to the lodge and finished the evening with a few drinks in the Grizzly Bar. Another day finished and packing for the next day needed to be done.

Some extra photos