Day 47
8/6/26 Thursday
Moose for breakfast. We had breakfast this morning at Jana’s camper. Lance cooked us scrambled eggs (delicious) and Moose bacon! I had never had moose meat of any sort and this bacon was delicious. Fortified with a good breakfast and lunches and snacks packed we were ready to hike the Sable Mountain trail.
All aboard the green bus. We pre-reserved at checkin a shuttle ride to the East Fork end this morning at 10:10am. This is the same place where we biked yesterday. We hopped on board the bus which was almost full… our campground is the last stop. We planned to ride it to the end of the line to see animals again then back to where our trailhead started.
Denali shows up! We enjoyed seeing more caribou… even the one we saw yesterday was back in his white ash deposit area! There was a grizzly bear (far away) and best of all Denali (Mt McKinley) made a rare appearance this morning!! Even the bus driver remarked how rare it’s been this summer. She’s seen it only about 3 times. Now I can cross that off the bucket list. Thank you Denali and Alaska weather. Today is partly cloudy but mostly a sunny, warmish day. There’s a short bathroom break at the East End bridge and then back on the same bus to the trailhead. A few other people got off earlier to hike but just the 4 of us at the Sable Mountain trailhead.
Hiking the primitive trail. This trail was labeled moderately difficult. It was also called a primitive trail. That means the park does very little trail maintenance. That was the truth! It was 4 miles long.
We started off following a creek and bobbing and weaving through the overgrown willows and shrub bushes. Then occasionally crossing over and back on the creek. A few times we easily got off trail and then found our way back. It was slow moving.
Bear! Bear! Finally we climbed up and out of the creek bottom into the open tundra. No sooner did we get out in the open and Jana looked up and hollared at Lance in front…Bear! Bear! Sure enough above us (about 200yds) were two cubs (at least 2 yr olds). They caught our scent and stood up and then Mama must have heard us because she came bounding from out of sight and came up to her cubs. She took a few seconds to assess us and quickly they all got moving uphill and into the rocky hillside and headed much further away. That was a tense 10 seconds. We stood and watched to make certain they were all following her. She had to come back to get them once… but they were clearly far away by then. They went over a ridge and were gone. We watched until they were gone and honestly she was up really high in just seconds.
If you look closely at the sow you will see she is a cream colored on top but her legs are brown. These are called Toklat Grizzlies. They are unique to the Denali area. (Lance mentioned it might be caused by of some of the minerals in Denali.). Any wildlife biologists out here know this answer?
I have a few videos of all of them covering some ground getting out of there that are fun to watch. It gives you a real feel for their size and speed.
We were aware there were bears in this area because we weren’t hiking far from yesterday’s bicycle l/bear incident. We had 3 bear sprays and Lance did bring a gun. But none of those options were ever needed. It was the closest I’ve ever been to bears without the safety of a vehicle. I’ve got to say it was unnerving and amazing to watch all at the same time. Especially once we knew she wasn’t threatened by us and we weren’t going to be hurt either!
That took some of the wind out of our sails to continue hiking very far…at least Jana and I. We did continued on the trail but definitely staying in the open hillside area where we could see.
lunch spot.
Savage River. We easily walked out of the trail and caught the green bus back but we stayed on the bus all the way to the Savage River. We wanted to hike some more and there was a well maintained, heavily traveled, easy river trail that was two miles. Piece of cake… no bear worries.. and pretty.
Moose x 2. By this time it was time to head back to camp…6pm by now. We caught the green bus back to our campground. We were invited for dinner again. This time we shared in bringing part of dinner but the main course was Moose tenderloin steaks.
Bear x 2. It was colder wind tonight so we gathered in Lance’s truck camper for dinner. While munching on appetizers Jana was facing the door to the river and once again she shouts, Bear! Bear! We whipped our heads around in time to see a sow and a cub walk up the path from the river right in front of the truck and then ease over into the trees between campsites! Wow oh wow!
There is a video of them waking through the forest.
They strolled through the camp and then suddenly we saw them again coming back on the road in the front of the truck! They caught people off guard that were sitting outside eating dinner I’m sure. It didn’t seem like they were searching for food. We were thinking she was acting like she was looking for a place to lay low and be closer to people to protect her cub from the boar that’s also in this area. We had heard she was in the area but thought she had two cubs. If so… she only has one now!
So that made for quite a Denali NP day! There sure are a lot of bears that call this home.. amongst all the other wildlife.
Once again… Alaska delivers. We are content with this national park visit.
Tomorrow we leave and begin our return trip toward the lower 48. There is more we want to see but for a couple of days we plan to get in some mileage before slowing down to drive the Cassiar Highway south to Vancouver BC. We are headed to Fairbanks to spend one night. That’s not fair to Fairbanks to not stay a day or two but we made the choice.
cinnicrew 