Once a year, in late September, Denali National Park opens up the Park to private vehicles. But as you can guess, if the opening was unregulated everyone would rush in with chaos resulting. To keep things under control the Park holds a lottery from which 100 lucky winners per day (for 4 days) are allowed to drive their private vehicles the length of the Park road. Normally the only way to get further back into the heart of the park is by joining a bus full of 40 other tourist. The bus is not a bad way to see things. It keeps congestion down and makes the area nicer for wildlife. At the same time it is hard to pass up the opportunity to drive your own vehicle around being able to set your own pace and go off on hikes as you wish. As you might suspect, since I'm writing this, Beck and I won a pass in the lottery this year to drive the road. What a treat it was. Being able to see Denali is always hit or miss. The mountain creates it's own weather and seems to enjoy playing hide and seek with visitors. We were in luck. We left Fairbanks early in the morning in the clouds. It looked as if we were in for a wet day which would have been fine, the Park if full of wildlife and the colors were in full swing so we knew there was still had a great chance of seeing the unexpected. As we got closer to the Park the sky started to open up. By the time we were at the Park entrance there was nothing but blue sky over head and Denali looking down on us from a distance. The whole day ended up surpassing our expectations. Wildlife sightings included sheep, grizzles, caribou, ground squirrel and a number of raptors.Monday, October 6, 2008
Denali Road Lottery
Once a year, in late September, Denali National Park opens up the Park to private vehicles. But as you can guess, if the opening was unregulated everyone would rush in with chaos resulting. To keep things under control the Park holds a lottery from which 100 lucky winners per day (for 4 days) are allowed to drive their private vehicles the length of the Park road. Normally the only way to get further back into the heart of the park is by joining a bus full of 40 other tourist. The bus is not a bad way to see things. It keeps congestion down and makes the area nicer for wildlife. At the same time it is hard to pass up the opportunity to drive your own vehicle around being able to set your own pace and go off on hikes as you wish. As you might suspect, since I'm writing this, Beck and I won a pass in the lottery this year to drive the road. What a treat it was. Being able to see Denali is always hit or miss. The mountain creates it's own weather and seems to enjoy playing hide and seek with visitors. We were in luck. We left Fairbanks early in the morning in the clouds. It looked as if we were in for a wet day which would have been fine, the Park if full of wildlife and the colors were in full swing so we knew there was still had a great chance of seeing the unexpected. As we got closer to the Park the sky started to open up. By the time we were at the Park entrance there was nothing but blue sky over head and Denali looking down on us from a distance. The whole day ended up surpassing our expectations. Wildlife sightings included sheep, grizzles, caribou, ground squirrel and a number of raptors.