Denali tundra tour

We began our first full day in Denali with a tundra tour. I was gonna say at the crack of dawn. But with only about 4ish hours of a somewhat darkened sky at night that far north and so near the summer solstice, it meant we set off to spot tundra critters at 7 am when the sun had been up for hours. Lo and behold, the driver pointed out another great view of Mt McKinley off in the distance and told us (again) how lucky we were to have such a clear view of the tallest peak in North America. 

We started the critter spotting tour a bit slow with a lone caribou. I circled the caribou in both pics because you might have missed it otherwise. The day before, we had already seen several moose on the train ride to Denali, including a mama moose with twins. Unfortunately, I wasn't quick enough to snap a pic of them. Further down the tundra trail, we began to see arctic ground squirrels, which I initially thought were prairie dogs. 

Finally, we were treated to the sight of a mama grizzly and her year old cub. We initially spied them in the brush. We were thrilled when they came closer to the road, eventually crossing over. Then they put on a show, scratching around looking for something to eat. They had beautiful fur and didn't seem fazed by the two buses full of us park tourists with our cameras, trying to get a pic or video.