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Category Archives: Alaska

Brown Bears in Denali

In Alaska they like to refer to grizzly bears as brown bears which is fine but it can get confusing because sometimes our black bears are brown but they are certainly not grizzly. The bears spend much of their time digging in the soil with their powerful claws. We learned that they eat a plant called Eskimo potato. This is also the plant that Christopher McCandless from the non-fiction book, Into the Wild, ate and according to the author, its seeds may have been what eventually killed him.

We saw several grizzly/brown bears in Denali. There was one that we saw once or twice a day because it was hanging out in the Savage River area pretty much all of the time. The trails in that area were closed because of the bear. Near as we could tell, the bear was just enjoying entertaining the tourists and photographers and making the caribou scamper occasionally. Sometimes the tourists and photographers were too close and a park service employee asked them to scamper out of the way so the bear could cross the road. I made sure to keep other tourists and photographers between me and the bear.

These photos are all of the Savage River bear.

Just hanging around
Caribou just hanging around
I wonder if I can scare those caribou
Let’s go hang out with the rest of the group
Does this angle make my butt look big?
I am not nearly as close as it might appear
When the bear moved over to the base of the hill below the road I wondered if it was safe.
Those claws are mostly used for digging
There was a park service employee next to me during this time.
Nap time
Is that a tourist I smell?
Stop and scratch

 

This bear caused a bear jam with traffic in both directions including buses. It had to move pretty quickly to get beyond the vehicles and then make a mad dash across the road.

 

This is the only bear that was truly too close to us. We were on foot when it came calmly out of the willows to our right and then walked up the road ahead of us. It disappeared around the corner and we were hoping it was moving on as that was the direction we needed to go to return to the car. But no, it turned around and came back towards us before disappearing into the trees on the left side of the photo. It was nerve-wracking to think about walking there. Luckily a dump truck came by and the driver gave us a ride. We saw others walking there and nothing bad happened. At the overlook near our car, we saw that the bear had gone down to the river and hikers down there had scampered away. Ken had bear spray and the bear never was threatening to us but still, we didn’t want to become statistics. This photo was made with a small point and shoot camera while the ones above were made with a long telephoto lens.

Caribou in Denali

We arrived in Denali in the afternoon and after seeing the visitors’ center we drove on the one road that is open to cars. Because we were just ahead of the ‘summer’ season, cars were allowed thirty miles into the park. Normally, they can only go fifteen miles and visitors must takes buses to see more. As we approached the Savage River area, Ken said “I sure hope we see a caribou.” Around the next corner, there they were – five of them waiting to cross the road. And then there were a few more! I said, “I sure hope we see a wolverine.” But that didn’t work.

According to the park literature, the Denali herd once numbered over 20,000 animals. Currently there are less than 2,000. We saw them each time we went into the park and once we saw one next to the highway outside of the park. They reminded me of white-tailed deer because the underside of their tails is white and sometimes when they run, the tail stands up straight like the deer.

I felt pretty lucky to see them!

More Denali Wildlife

We enjoyed lots of wildlife watching while in Denali. Here are a few of the smaller animals.

Wilson’s Warbler. This tiny bird weighs a quarter of an ounce and migrates from Mexico and Central America to Alaska. Amazing.
White-crowned Sparrow
Arctic ground squirrel
I think ground squirrels are some of the cutest little animals.
Always on alert
Snowshoe hare. Like the ptarmigan, this rabbit is pure white in the winter.
More Mew Gulls
I think this bird wanted Ken’s lunch.
And this one wanted my lunch.

Rock Ptarmigan in Denali

A lot of images of one type of bird, I know. You should see all the ones I left out. It was a new bird for my life list and being a grouse, it was very amenable to having its photo made. We saw only one female and several males and all of them on the edge of the roads. And aren’t they just the cutest? This is their breeding plumage. In the winter, they are pure white.

Look at how his eyebrows went up when those last two flew into his territory. He chased them away.

Moose in Denali

We saw several moose while in Denali and in fact, had also seen them in Homer. They seem to be comfortable around people. The ones we saw in the park were near the road, the rv dump station and the visitors’ center. We were told to get away from moose if they pinned their ears back and looked at us. I thought they moved their ears back and forth quite a bit so am not sure I saw any angry moose or just twitchy moose (meese?). They are incredibly big and if I felt threatened by one, I would move out of the way as quickly as possible

One ear forward, one ear back. What does that mean?
This yearling is growing his first set of antlers.
We forgot to ask why it had blue paint on its side.
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