Tundra Wilderness Tour
We woke up early on the third morning of our vacation and were excited because today was the day that we were scheduled to go on our Tundra Wilderness Tour. We had booked the tour online about 2 months before our arrival so it's always iffy as to what the weather will be like when the date arrives. When we had checked in to the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge I decided to check with the tour coordinators there to confirm the time of the tour. Good thing because the confirmation that we got when we booked the tour, gave a pick up time of 5:30 AM. When we checked at the desk, our actual time was 7:50 AM! That's quite a difference and would have been a really long time to sit in the lobby waiting for the correct tour. Tip: I would highly recommend double checking your times either at the hotel or by calling the tour company!
After having read some reviews of the tour on TripAdvisor, we had also decided to order a boxed lunch from our hotel cafe instead of relying on the boxed lunch that the tour provided. If you plan on being hungry sometime during the 8 hour trip, I would recommend that you pack your own lunch or order a boxed lunch. The tour does provide a small snack and water bottles but it really is just a snack.
The tours meet in the lobby of the hotels or at the visitor's center at designated pick up spots. Be sure you are there about half an hour ahead of your schedule. There are lots of tours scheduled at the same pick up spot about 10 minutes apart so be sure you know your tour number and wait for the correct bus to pick you up.
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| Tundra Wilderness Tour #10 |
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| Inside of the tour bus of the Tundra Wilderness Tour |
For those of you new to Denali National Park. It is different than most parks in that you can only drive a few miles into the park on your own. After that cut-off point, you have a few choices to get further into the park.....1. Hike, 2. Take the free bus service offered by the park service (Green Buses) or 3. Take a narrated tour into the park. (Tan Buses). The tour company offers different tours which go different mileages into the park and take different amounts of time. The prices are a little steep but for first time visitors especially, I would recommend taking the narrated tour so you see a little bit more. Both the green and the tan buses are school buses. The tan tour buses are modified school buses with more comfortable seating and video cameras so you can see the wildlife on the monitors. There are no restrooms on either bus.....the tour buses are NOT like tour buses you would take with a group on a trip!
Setting Reasonable Expectations for the tour:
A couple things to keep in mind on this tour that will help set your expectations a little better:
1. The driver has to watch the road since it is quite windy and there are areas with no guard rails so he/she will NOT be pointing out the wildlife along the way. It is up to you and your fellow passengers to spot the wildlife and call out for the driver to stop so that you can view it. Once stopped the driver will use the video camera and ask that you pull your video monitors down. You are welcome to open the windows and take pictures/video and use your binoculars to view the animals. There are buses in front of and behind you so you can only stay in one spot so long.
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| Caribou as seen with a zoom lens from the bus |
2. Definitely take binoculars!!! If you own a camera with a long lens....take the longest lens you have! These animals are in their own habitats and not real easy to spot. They are far away...although the drive did tell of instances that they came near the bus. The ones that we saw were very far away and difficult to see with the naked eye. Luckily we had a couple of very good spotters on our tour and they were able to see them in time for us to stop and take a look.
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| Restrooms along the way in Denali National Park |
3. There are no restrooms. The buses do make restroom stops approximately every 1 1/2 hours. There are lots of restrooms at each stop and it's easy to get out and back on the buses. They don't make stops in between so be sure you use the facilities at the prearranged stops.
4. There is no designated "picnic" time. You are welcome to eat your boxed lunch on the bus at any time that you feel hungry. The only stop is at the end of the route before you turn back around for a quick cup of hot chocolate by where Denali is located.
5. You probably will NOT see Denali. The statistics say that the mountain is only visible 30% of the time...our driver actually said it is closer to 20%. The views of the mountains and the rivers and wildlife are still beautiful but don't expect to see the mountain or you will be disappointed.
6. Don't expect the narration on the tour to be all that informative unless you interact with the driver and ask questions. I don't know if all drivers are the same but ours was quite willing to answer any questions we had but didn't offer much information up on his own.
Knowing these things ahead of time will make your experience a little better or at least keep your expectations in check. It's a long trip and if you think you are going to see Denali and have wildlife coming up to your bus...you will be sadly disappointed in the tour and the amount that you paid for it.
And Away We Go.....
So our bus picks us up outside the lobby of our hotel right on time. We load onto the bus and choose a seat and we head off to Denali National Park. Our bus makes another stop at one of the centers to pick up passengers and then we are off on our 8 hour adventure. The weather was pretty iffy looking from the forecast but it turned out to be a nice day....just a bit overcast. We were hopeful of catching a glimpse of Denali (or Mt. McKinley) but the cloudiness didn't bode well for viewing the mountain.
We settled into our seats and drove a little ways when we came across our first wildlife of the day. Let me just point out here that I realized quite early on in the tour that I am horrible at spotting animals! Even when someone is telling me where they are....I am horrible at spotting animals!! My son was much better at it and I usually just handed him the camera and said, shoot something! I had my Nikon Coolpix with the zoom lens but wish I had had my Canon with a long lens for this outing. The wildlife really was far away and not all over the place...you are lucky to see wildlife at all on some days I would guess. Our first spotting was a herd of Caribou...
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| Caribou by the River |
We drove quite a bit further and saw some beautiful scenery. There are two areas where you can see Denali if it is visible that day. No luck at the first one for us.....heavy cloud cover!
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| Some of the beautiful scenery in Denali National Park |
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| Where Denali would have been if it had been visible. |
So once you get to the first area and the mountain isn't out, you start getting the feeling that it isn't going to be your lucky day! We headed on a bit further and did see our first Grizzly Bear. They are blonde....who would have known!!
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| Grizzly Bear at Denali National Park |
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| Grizzly Bear doing bear things! |
It was at this point that our driver informed us that Grizzly bears are not social. They are usually alone unless with the mama bears are with their cubs. Keep this in mind for a bit later in the story!
We drove a ways further....again beautiful scenery...not a lot of wildlife.....no Denali. We finally got to the end of our road...the spot where Denali was supposed to be center stage.....uh...no...not today! Nothing but clouds. We did make a stop here and have a cup of hot chocolate before heading back. If you were lucky enough to be there on a day that Denali was "out" I think this would have been a wonderful view and breathtaking sight. Since it was behind the clouds...it was a little less than spectacular.
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| The Family in front of the spot where Denali should be. Nothing but clouds this day! |
There is only one road through the park so once you hit the end of your designated tour, you turn around and head back the same roadway. On the way back we encountered some Dahl Sheep on the side of a mountain. The driver referred to them as "microdottage" which was quite accurate because they were really far away!
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| Dahl Sheep on the side of the mountain. |
After this was when things got a little interesting on our tour. People were settling in and getting ready to return when our resident "spotters" saw some bears! Now remember what I said earlier about Grizzly bears being solitary creatures? Well first they spotted one bear....then another...
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| Bear Number 1 |
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| Bear number 2 meets Bear number 1 |
At this point we are asking the driver why they are so close together. We were all expecting a bit of a spat....well....that's not exactly what happened.....
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| There may be some new bear cubs next spring! |
The tour company does make a video of the tour available at the end of the tour. It is something that you order...you do not take it home with you. Ours still hasn't arrived and it's been about 4 weeks since we were there so I guess it takes some time. You get stock video from the tour and then they add the footage from your personal tour on to it. Take a pen with you if you plan on ordering it right then and turning it into the bus driver. They don't have pens and mailing it in delays the receipt of the video.
After the small video sales pitch, we headed back to the hotel for the evening. Here are my thoughts regarding the Tundra Wilderness Tour:
1. It's worth it if this is your first time visiting Denali. The narration and the help spotting the wildlife and pointing out places of interest is worth the money for the tour. If you are going back and want to take the drive through again, you may want to do the free version on the NPS buses. It's the same road...just less stopping.
2. Don't have these great expectations that you are going to see bears up close and personal and that you are going to actually see Denali. Most people don't see the mountain and this isn't the zoo so wildlife sightings are a bit of a wild card.
3. If I was going back to Alaska for a second trip, I would probably not make a second trip to the Denali area but rather focus on other areas and more glaciers.
The End of the Day
By the time we got back from our tour, it was almost time for our dinner reservations back at the King Salmon Restaurant. We had hoped to be able to make the 4:00 PM show of the Sled Dog Demonstration but we didn't have time to make the trip back in after our bus arrived back at the hotel. This was something that we definitely wanted to see before we left the Denali National Park Area so we rearranged our next day to make sure we could fit it in! All in all it was a good day....long but worthwhile and interesting!
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