Caitlin, Adam and I hopped on the bus for an 8 hour tour of Denali National Park. We were supposed to get on the backpackers bus, but ended up on the tour bus. Our backpacks full of camping gear were shoved in the back. The ride was an welcomed rest to the previous few days of making the most of the Alaskan summer sun. There was a decent size forest fire in the area which left us with little chance of the seeing big mountains.
There was still plenty other things to see, and our bus driver made even the ground squirrels (we called them tundra dogs) seem interesting. We got to stop at visitors centers, viewpoints, saw a lot of beers, caribou, mountain goats, and even a black wolf! Seeing a grizzly from inside a bus is much less nerve racking then seeing one out in the backcountry with only a can of spray in your hand. If you only have a little time to be in Denali, I would definitely recommend the bus ride.
It seemed like the majority of the people on the bus, had either some gray hair or a lot of white hair. So when we hopped out of the bus at one of our last stops, most of them went into grandparent mode. The bus which had once been bustling with noise, and conversation now was completely quiet as we grab our packs and headed out into the deep backcountry of Denali NP. Of course we didn’t tell anyone we were only going to hike less than a mile from the road just out of site and then set up camp… that information was on a need to know basis. I am pretty sure some of them were thinking we were heading out to our deaths.
As we marched out to our resting place (see cover photo, photo cred: Adam) the bus took off, these are some of the conversations I imagined went on at it pulled away.
“Well, they seemed like nice kids, I hope they make it.”
“Oh my goodness! They know about the bears out there right!? Did they have bear spray with them? What about a gun?”
“Those kids, those kids are gonna die out there.”
Despite all of the odds, we made it out alive. And thankfully we were able to say that about the next adventure.
for my friends who are moms 