Each year Denali National Park opens up what they call a Road Lottery for the park. Throughout the summer if you want to go into the park you must go by bus. Upon closing the season they open the park for three days to 400 private vehicles per day allowing you to drive as far as you can. In May thousands of people apply for the lottery we were fortunate enough to receive a pass for Sunday.
Many years it is beginning to snow so the wildlife is being forced down from the mountain and you can't make it very far into the park due to weather and roads. We were fortunate to go on a cold, brisk day but it was absolutely, amazingly beautiful. As you can tell we had some morning fog but it burnt off relatively soon and we were able to see Mt. McKinley the entire day (actually several days). Many people travel to Alaska and never even get a look at the mountain so we were very fortunate. We lucked out by avoiding the snow by a few days.
As you can tell the beautiful fall colors were out in full forces (to the point I couldn't decide what photos to post - sorry for the abundance). We saw many bears, I think about nine in total and was able to drive to the far end of the park, Wonder Lake.
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| Morning fog |
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| Sunrise with Mt. McKinley |
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| Sunrise on Mt. McKinley |
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| Fall colors |
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| A cow and calf moose on the hillside. |
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| Bear heading down the hill grazing on blueberries. |
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| A few people taking photos of the bear. |
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| Hanging out the window, literally:). |
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| Ptarmigan on the hillside, changing colors for winter. |
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| Dall Sheep rams |
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| Wonder Lake |
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