Denali Trip 3 - Bears, Wolf video

Thursday was a great animal viewing day. Lots of caribou, hares, ptarmigan. A Northern Harrier. At the Teklanika River bus stop the tour bus passengers were using the facilities and out on the deck looking out over the river. Way over on the other side was a mother grizzly with three cubs, probably last year's. With the binoculars you could see them enjoying themselves first on the ice and then in the brush. There was also a herd of about 20 caribou grazing its way slowly toward the bears, maybe a mile or two off. But we wanted to walk. The road is blocked off for cars at that point, but you can walk. We quickly got down to the bridge over the river. And then continued on along the road for an hour. Part of the time we walked with a young Spanish couple who were going on to camp for a couple of days. They were equipped with their bear proof food containers (the park supplies those to backpackers) and their bear spray. They weren't happy that there were no rental bikes available this early in the season, but were enjoying the fact that we had the road pretty much to ourselves and the various park service vehicles. At mile 33 we said goodbye and turned around as they continued on.

When we got back to the bus stop the four bears were still there, and a quarter mile up the road cars were parked looking at another two bears playing on the ice shelf. I'm sure the giant telephoto lenses people had are great, but you have to wonder about their phallic symbolism. Anyway, I decided to try a little video since maybe the movement would show up better than I could get with a still. Had to push the telephoto all the way so it's pretty rough, but it gives you an idea. The second part of the video (and don't worry, it's very short) is much better. It's a wolf that came onto the road about 15 minutes later as we were driving along.

It crossed the road and disappeared. Some cars stopped to find out what we were stopped for, but they couldn't find the wolf. After they left, we saw it again, loping through the brush. Fortunately for the others, it was pretty fast, and a mile or two later we saw the cars stopped along the road watching the wolf continue at very good speed. Again, the pictures are great. This documentation rather than photography.