Tag 143 and 144: Denali National Park - lots of wildlife and great mountains

From our overnight spot by the river, we set off for Fairbanks in the morning. There, we restocked our supplies at a Walmart. I already knew these gigantic supermarkets from 2014, but just like back then, I was really impressed by their size. Afterwards, we visited a small but extensive airplane museum. In comparison to Seattle, they focused more on small and locally flown planes. With the sun still shining brightly, we headed to Denali National Park, which was 200km away. There, we picked up our reserved bus tickets for the next day and then found an available spot at a nearby campground. We had homemade cheese spaetzle for dinner, it was delicious.

Our alarm went off at 6 o'clock this morning because the bus ride through Denali National Park started an hour later. When we got on the bus, we were greeted by a very enthusiastic bus driver. She took us into the national park for 5.5 hours and then back out for the same amount of time. Along the way, we saw a wolf, a total of eight grizzly bears, a caribou, and many bald eagles. We were incredibly lucky with the weather again today. Normally, Mt. Denali or formerly known as Mt. McKinley is shrouded in clouds and hard to see. We were told that only about 10 percent of visitors get to see the massive mountain as clearly as we did today. After a total of over 11 hours on the bus, we arrived at the campground feeling quite exhausted but also very impressed by the day.