Train arrives at Noon, camper bus leaves at 1pm and we need to pick up all our paperwork.
The camper bus drives us 85 miles into the park and drops us at the Wonder Lake campground - just the two of us, two mountain bikes, two days food and two hundred starving Grizzly bears.
The train trip was really great, I highly recommend it and I highly recommend going `Adventure class`. At the Denali Depot we collected our bikes, loaded our gear and got our campground checked in and the bus tickets. We cached about 10 lbs of food at the park entrance campground, ate our lunch and got into the camper bus.
Waiting for the camper bus at Riley Creek bus stop.
Denali is incredibly gorgeous, especially at this time of year. The tundra is doing `fall color`. Wendell is amused that I am writing while sitting on the bus. But I look up occasionally to admire the view. It's a six hour ride so I'm sure there will be plenty of opportunity. Except for a smidgeon of rain we have gotten lucky with our weather. The air is really clear so you can see much further than down south, and the edges of the mountains so far away are pretty crisp. Something only a nearsighted person can appreciate as much as I do. There are really cute short birch trees and Black Spruce trees, about 12 feet tall but with really big trunks because they are actually pretty old. They look like the trees in my Halloween Village. The first hour of the camper bus ride was cool, but though it was pretty the last 5 hours began to suck. I just prefer to be out doing something, even if it's just walking, than watching it roll by our window. We saw some wildlife, moose, wolverine, bear and caribou, but seeing the owl in flight close up at the campground was more fun than seeing the bear from far away. But seeing the bear from far away was probably more fun than seeing a bear close up. No aurora borealis last night, we'll check again tonight.
Thanks to Mike S. for the excellent messkit and Gwen for the perfect spatula and spoon.
Spyderco, bike bottle, canteen cup and Spam …
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