Day 15 Sunday, May 4, 2008

Well, Hank & Becky picked up Carl (since he had the day off) at 8:00 am to make one last trip through the park before catching the train.

Becky drove this morning and at about the 10th mile in A MOOSE! There really are Moose in Denali National Park.

Had a beautiful drive through to mile 30 (as far as you can go right now) then turned around and headed back. No Lynx today. But, I suppose as a follow up on the wolf rescue story, we saw the pair of wolves that we had seen on Thursday evening. The patient seems to be doing well. Here is the link to a story about the wolf in the Anchorage Newspaper.
http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/wildlife/wolves/story/397299.html

Got a really good shot of the mate this time.
Heading down the Denali road hill in the Carl-mobile to the train station. This is the first railroad bridge heading south out of Denali.

We managed to get back to the train station by 11:45 for Becky & Hank to catch the 12:15 train to Anchorage but the train didn't get there until 12:50.

B&H will probably get into Anchorage tonight about 8:30. Here's proof that they actually boarded the train.



Just so Becky & Hank know that Carl didn't let them down he picked up three fellow workers from ARAMARK and took them out to the park to see what could be seen.

First stop - Park headquarters to check in on the National Park System's only team of sled dogs. It was sleeping time for them but they welcomed our attention to them with friendly tail wags.
Pix of just two --




Next stop -- Eat Your Heart Out Hank -- FIVE MOOSE in one place.


Then out past where we had seen the herd of caribou on day 14 we saw four caribou close enough to the road to see there racks. Here are three of them.


Then a lone bull moose. Note the beginnings of this year's antlers.
He was beginning to kneel down to drink water. He was such a handsome moose we should post a complete photograph of him.

So the train was quite peaceful; excellent chicken caesar salad.

bh & hh saw seven (7!) moose from the train.

And here's the context for this canyon.

Staying at the International Hostel in Anchorage. $250 through Saturday night. (Brown hat guy in train boarding picture showed up at the same hostel in Anchorage.)

Keep checking for Carl's followup blog for his summer activities in Alaska.