Denali through the windshield

You don't interfere with a wolf, even if he blocks the road

Copyright 2007 Lydia Hinshaw

DENALI NATIONAL PARK, AK -- The longer I stay here, the more it takes to surprise me.
Nearly a week ago, coming back from a six-plus-hour bus run into the Park, I came upon the scene above: A wolf, using the road because it's easier to travel in than the thick willow (all-purpose Denali name for underbrush) on either side, wound up with a park ranger escort (in the first vehicle) followed by a wolf-jam of motorhomes.
I stopped the bus to let the procession pass, and to give my passengers the opportunity to shoot pictures out the windows. We'd traveled more than 100 miles at this point, and were less than 10 miles from the end of the trip. The wolf sighting completed our Denali "big five." We'd seen moose, bear, caribou and Dall sheep earlier.
Later in the week, another group of customers and I happened upon the young grizzly below as he dined on road-kill. We sat in the rain and watched him for several minutes. Grizzly bears are omnivores, but here in Denali, there are few fish and meat is hard to come by. So a bear eats mostly veggies and grabs what meat he can. And he's certainly not going to turn down a protein snack just because it has tread-marks.
Snowshoe hares and arctic ground squirrels often fail to make it safely across the road, but one animal's tragic accident is another's good fortune.

Road-kill led to this bear-watching opportunity