Grizzly Bear Gets a Good Scratch!

On my first full day of visiting Denali National Park, I was fortunate to not only get a good view of Mount McKinley which had been hidden by clouds for many days, but to also get some extraordinary views of grizzly bears.  In the images below you are seeing the same bear from my previous post and, above, my sketch of that bear.       

Just over the rise in the image above and below, is the Stony Hill pull off, where vehicles can pull over to take in the view.  The Stony Hill area lies between the Toklat River camp and Eielson Visitor Center, at mile 66.  The only vehicles on the road are buses and the few vehicles that have special permits.  Road restrictions are one of the key preservation features of this national park:  private vehicles are restricted beyond Mile 15 to preserve the integrity of the wilderness and wildlife viewing.  And to help with perspective, the Eielson Visitor Center is an eight-hour drive from the Wilderness Access Center near the entrance of the park where visitors catch shuttles to the wilderness.

I will let the images below speak for themselves--a bear thoroughly enjoying a favorite scratching/rubbing spot.  Bears are also believed to rub and scratch to scent mark, leaving information for other bears in the area.  

We most often hear about the fierceness of the grizzly bear as a top predator. What you see in this post and the previous, is a more rounded glimpse of the daily life of this omnivorous species.  The images are a bit like an impressionist paintings, fuzzy.  The distance was out of range for the 200 mm lens I was using, but, nonetheless, an intimate look into a seldom seen behavior.  My impression from the postures--pure pleasure!

Mount McKinley and our Stony Hill grizzly, Denali National Park and Preserve.


Links and Resources:

Click this link to view all my posts on Denali National Park and Preserve.  To see all posts on my visit to Alaska in the fall of 2012, visit Alaska

Denali National Park and Preserve
Grizzly Bear
Bear behavior
Bear Safety

Denali--The Mountain

"The mountain is out!"

This expression has specific meaning when you are in Denali National Park and Preserve and refers to the most sought after geological feature for many park visitors when they come to the park--Mount McKinley.  More often than not, the mountain is hidden by clouds, so it was a surprise to hear these words on the morning of my second day in Denali, especially after arriving in steady rain on the previous day!  We wasted no time.  

Mt McKinley, with its summit elevation of 20,230 ft above sea level, is the tallest mountain in the United States and in North America, and the third tallest in the world next to Mt Everest, in Tibet at 29,029 ft, and Aconcaqua, in Argentina at 22,837 ft. This feature makes the mountain a notorious and popular mountaineering site.  1223 registered climbers climbed the mountain in 2012 before the season closed--498 of those climbers made it to the summit.

View from Eielson Visitor's Center

Besides the incredible beauty and mystique surrounding this mountain, it's also fascinating to consider its geological history and the fact that the mountain is continuing to change. Mt McKinley is considered a granitic pluton, a mass of magma or lava that cooled and hardened beneath the earth's surface.  Over tens of millions of years the mountain was up lifted by tectonic pressures imposed by the collision between the Pacific plate and the North American plate, large segments of the earth's crust that shift and overlap over time in a process called subduction. These pressures formed the mountain and surrounding range and continue to influence them.

Above and below, views of Mt McKinley from the Wonder Lake area.

Earthquakes occur along the Denali Fault line, which runs through the park and the Alaska Range, and glaciers advance and retreat making this mountain and its surrounding valley alive with change and movement.  In fact, geologists report that Mt McKinley continues to grow taller by 1 millimeter each year.

I could only absorb a small amount of this fascinating geological history while visiting Denali from Sept 1st through 6th and since that time.  I brought home many books to enjoy at my leisure!  I encourage you to visit some of the links below that offer more interesting details about the history of the mountain formations and their dynamic influence on the land and ecosystems around them.

Up Coming:  More about Mt McKinley and its glaciers, Wonder Lake, and Wildlife Encounters

Links and Resources:

Click this link to view all my posts on Denali National Park and Preserve.  To see all posts on my visit to Alaska in the fall of 2012, visit Alaska

Mt McKinley's geological history
Ecological Overview of Denali National Park and Preserve
Geological Features of Mt McKinley
Wiki on Mount McKinley
Mountaineering in Denali, current climbing activity
Glaciers in Denali National Park