A spring cub, half-hiding in the willowsCopyright 2007 Lydia Hinshaw
DENALI NATIONAL PARK, AK -- The last thing I wanted to do on my day off was get on a bus.
Prince Charming, who doesn't travel into the park every workday, looks at things differently. Wednesday he convinced me to go along on a bus trip to Kantishna, the end of the Park Road, 92 miles from the park entrance.
It took 12 hours or so, and the weather was uncooperative. Low clouds hid Mount McKinley. Misting rain and flying mud obscured the windows.
The best part was that I got to take the good camera and the long lens on a bus. My favorite result is this one, a grizzly spring cub (meaning one born this spring) following his mother through a willow thicket. I just managed to get his face through a gap in the vegetation.
Spring cubs are dark-colored with light bands around their necks. This little fellow will remain with his mother until he's three years old, provided she can protect him from various predators, including adult male grizzlies. When he's three, it will be time for him to be on his own, and his mom will chase him off. The following spring, she will have a new cub, or twins, or triplets.
Since the Prince and I were employee standbys on the bus, we got whatever seats were left over and thus didn't get to sit together. I recognized my seatmate as a fellow North Carolinian as soon as he said hello. Between wildlife sightings, we talked Wake Forest basketball from way back when. Both of us are old enough to remember Bones McKinney and Len Chappell, a couple of names that hadn't surfaced in my memory for years.
Prince Charming, who doesn't travel into the park every workday, looks at things differently. Wednesday he convinced me to go along on a bus trip to Kantishna, the end of the Park Road, 92 miles from the park entrance.
It took 12 hours or so, and the weather was uncooperative. Low clouds hid Mount McKinley. Misting rain and flying mud obscured the windows.
The best part was that I got to take the good camera and the long lens on a bus. My favorite result is this one, a grizzly spring cub (meaning one born this spring) following his mother through a willow thicket. I just managed to get his face through a gap in the vegetation.
Spring cubs are dark-colored with light bands around their necks. This little fellow will remain with his mother until he's three years old, provided she can protect him from various predators, including adult male grizzlies. When he's three, it will be time for him to be on his own, and his mom will chase him off. The following spring, she will have a new cub, or twins, or triplets.
Since the Prince and I were employee standbys on the bus, we got whatever seats were left over and thus didn't get to sit together. I recognized my seatmate as a fellow North Carolinian as soon as he said hello. Between wildlife sightings, we talked Wake Forest basketball from way back when. Both of us are old enough to remember Bones McKinney and Len Chappell, a couple of names that hadn't surfaced in my memory for years.
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