Alaska 1: Denali

During the entire flight from Seattle to Anchorage, a thick blanket of clouds is all I can see through the airplane window. But then, as the plane starts to descend, the mountain scenery comes into view, and boom, a spectre of Brocken! RIP and thank you, Galen Rowell, for alerting a generation of photographers to this interesting optical phenomenon. Later we spot a more conventional rainbow during an after-dinner stroll around University Lake right behind our Anchorage hotel.

Approaching Anchorage: Greetings from a Brocken spectre (lower right)! The angle of the sun and the size of the water droplets have to be right but this is not an uncommon sight from a plane.

Anchorage: A terrestrially-observed rainbow reflects on University Lake. At 10pm, it is still very light and all the dogs in town seem to be out strolling with us.

On our way from Anchorage to our first major stop, Denali National Park, we pull off the highway at a view point for Mt. McKinley. Visitors in front of a large map are debating where the mighty peak is. We finally figure out it is covered in clouds and not seen, which is often the case in the summer.   

Denali View Point: a typical summer scene - the vast scale, mountains, fireweed... and the missing Mt. McKinley

The long drive is made worse by frequent road construction. We arrive two hours late at our B&B located on Stampede Road off the main highway and away from the hustle and bustle immediately outside the National Park entrance. If you keep going further west from where we are staying, the road ends and you will ultimately hit the site where Chris McCandeless perished, whose ill-fated adventure in Alaska became widely known through a book and the 2007 Sean Penn movie, "Into the Wild." People have been going to this site to pay homage, which itself is a dangerous trek. A young Swiss woman was killed while crossing Teklanika River a few years ago. There is a safe alternative - just check out the identical Hollywood version of the "magic bus," used in the movie. It is now parked at the popular restaurant in Healy, "49th State Brewing Company."

Bus 142: A replica of the abandoned Fairbanks bus, the last abode of Chris McCandless. I call this a genuine fake since it is the one featured in the movie "Into the Wild." 

I am glad to find that the road into Denali National Park is only accessed by a shuttle bus, just like on our last visit. What also has not changed is our luck - on a clear June day 19 years ago, we had Mt. McKinley in its full glorious view in front of us, which is a rare sight. Again this time the tallest mountain in North America decides to reveal itself to us.

Denali National Park: The snow-covered Mt. McKinley, with the highest peak over 20,000 ft, towers over the lower mountain range in front.

Our shuttle bus driver is animated but provides little information. It makes us miss the driver last time we were here who is an Iditarod winner and had the amazing ability to spot animals. Who can forget a guy named Bruce Lee? We stop at Eielson Vistor Center and take a short ranger-guided walk, which allows us to get on a different return bus. All in all, it was a decent day - we saw, in addition to a bunch of caribou, a moose hiding near a water hole, several Dall sheep way up, a glimpse of a blonde bear moving behind willows, gyrfalcons on a ridge, a golden eagle below our eye level, and a ptarmigan on a tree.

Denali National Park: the first caribou sighting - these guys came down the road and veered off into the woods right next my bus window.

Denali National Park: We are getting closer to Mt. McKinley but the southern peak is gathering clouds. 

Denali National Park: the stunning vista at Polychrome Pass

Denali National Park: at Eielson Station, we run into a guy (right) who just returned from summiting Mt. Mckinley. After 17 days in the mountains he is reunited with his relieved parents. 

Denali National Park: Bravery or stupidity? Or simply nature. The two bull moose who locked horns till they both died are immortalized at Eielson Station. 

Denali National Park: the number of buses seems to have increased dramatically in the last two decades.

Denali National Park: even shooting through the window of a moving bus can yield a decent result with a fast shutter speed when the scenery is so captivating.

Denali National Park: spotting animals from the bus is a collaborative effort - passengers are instructed to shout, "Stop! XY at Z o'clock!" After a while, some tree branches start to look like caribou antlers. 

Back at the B&B: two moose calves in the woods - the mother must not be far behind.

Here she is!

Moose: it turns out they came for an artificial salt lick.

Palmer: here you can get your caribou fix by trying your hand, literally, at feeding the domestic version in a reindeer farm.