9/11 - Our last day off in Denali

First, some context.  After watching the presidential debate Tuesday night, neither Susan nor I could get the gravity of this 9/11 date off our minds.  We have been privileged by the freedoms to explore...not just Denali...but all 42 of the national parks we've visited.  (21 remaining; no, we won't make them all.)  The nearly 3,000 innocent people who died on 9/11 pass for each one of us.  We are grateful yet saddened that they stood in the breech for us.  

While time marches on, our days in this magnificent (and huge!) Denali National Park and Preserve are numbered.  On Monday Sept 16th, we catch a shuttle to Fairbanks and fly home (all night and all day!) on Sept 17th...and look forward to catching up with family and friends when we get home.  It'll be nice (really nice) to sleep in a comfortable bed again.  😊  So our last day off in Denali was the 43 mile bus ride back out to the East Fork of the Toklat River.  

After nearly 2 weeks of on and off rain and cloudy skies, the sun was out...and so was "the high one"...Denali!  

On the way out the Park Road, other mountains of the Alaska Range came into view.  This one...appropriately...is called Flat Top and has some fall colors thrown in.

The rugged Alaska Range, the 2nd largest range in the state stretching 600 miles from the Alaska-Canada border all the way to the Alaska Peninsula, is roughly the distance from Atlanta to Washington, DC.  (The Brooks Range is 720 miles long and also is exclusively inside the borders of Alaska.)

The East Fork of the Toklat River is truly a braided river!

Besides the beautiful blue skies and incredible mountains, we did see some wildlife along the way.  We sighted 2 grizzly bears along the drive back to the park entrance, but I could not get a good picture.  One blonde one was moving across the hillside at a pretty good pace, headed somewhere!  The other was a dark brown griz, but was in a lot of brush very far away.  Good with binoculars; not so good with a camera.  We also saw Dall Sheep (the reason the park was created in 1917)...

 

and a cute fox headed back to its den.  

 

Last week, I mentioned fall colors in my blog, and that will come!  They have been spectacular! In the meantime, we're looking forward to being home and catching up with you.