Denali - The Caribou Drama Scene

Tuesday was our last day on the shuttle into the park.  The day was bright and gave reason for promise of a better day than the day before.  It definitely did not disappoint!  In fact, we had an AMAZING day.  Our driver was Ben, who was superb.   He gave us great insight into the lives of the various animals that call Denali National Park home.

Shortly after he picked us up at Tek CG, we found our first grizzly bear just as we entered the Igloo Canyon area.  It was foraging along a creek in a ravine.  A few minutes later, we saw another bear, this time climbing up out of a deep ravine.  Both were several hundred yards away from the road.

From there, we continued on towards Eielson.  As we ventured into the Sable Pass area, Ben sighted a sow with a couple of cubs; probably “cubs of the year” born earlier this spring.  The sow could be seen eating and digging while the two youngsters played and then had to run to catch up with her.  When they stopped, they could be seen playing and tumbling on the tundra.  Their play today would help to develop their skills for later as adults.

Already behind schedule by about 10 minutes, we made our next stop at a location near Highway Pass that would have us lose another 15 minutes.   It was the one that while more than 1,000 yards away, would be burned in my memory as one of my all-time top experiences in Denali.

Admittedly, the bus passengers were starting to fall into a lull, many has passed out asleep or were chatting in their native language about who knows what.  David was on one side of the bus sighting, while I was on the other.  He noticed some “brown dots” (caribou) scattering up on a high plateau. With the naked eye, they looked like ants.  We yelled for Ben to stop the bus!

With the window dropped, I began to photograph the Caribou Drama on the hillside.  Even with my longest telephoto lens (70-300mm) fully extended, I could not really tell what I was seeing.  Someone at the front of the bus yelled “GRIZZLY” and then it was clear.  This small herd of 12 to 15 caribou, females with young yearlings, had wandered into ambush with a bear hiding over the ridge waiting for them to get close enough attack.

(NOTE: You will want to click on these photos to enlarge them!)

 

It was clear that the caribou could not see the bear.  From the time that I captured my first photo of him until he was atop the ridge chasing the herd, just three seconds had elapsed.  It was an amazing minute or so, with the bear apparently unsuccessful in bringing down its prey.  I say apparently because the reports from others up in the front of the bus was that there were two bears and that a large caribou made a defensive charge towards the bear seen at the front of the herd.  Since my vantage point was at the rear, and my camera was focused there, I only saw the one bear.

It was an amazing thing to witness; truly a National Geographic moment in the wilderness of Denali.  It is unfortunate that the shuttle bus environment is so bad for photography.  It is practically impossible to get a stable position, without movement.  Often shooting out of the bus window, you get bumped or the bus rocks with the movement of the people inside.  I did the best I could, knowing that given the distance and the shooting conditions, I’d be lucky to get any images that captured that moment of life and death.

As predicted, the dispatcher at Eielson asked Ben why we were so late into the Visitor Center.  He just chuckled and said, “It was one of those drives in that you just had to be there to believe.”   As they walked off, I heard Ben tell the story of the grizzly bear stalking the caribou.  It seemed he was as amazed by the experience as we were.

At Eielson, David and I caught a bus out to Wonder Lake in hopes of seeing a moose in the kettle ponds.  We were one of two couples put on the empty 12:30pm “sweeper bus.”  Our driver was a very lame guy by the name of Paul.  He was not very social and gave zero commentary for the next three and a half hours!

The only time he did speak to us was during the return to Eielson from Wonder Lake when a very young caribou was in front of us, walking along the road.  She was small, almost tiny, and seemingly separated from her mom and lost.  She would walk for several yards, and then stop to look around.  She could be seen vocalizing and then tilting her head and moving her ears as if to be moving a satellite receiver to capture a signal.  With no response, she continued on down the road, occasionally stopping to take water from a pothole in the road.  It was sad to think of what could be expected to be the outcome for such a small, young calf.  This was also along the section of the road that we had seen the grizzly bear just a couple of days ago.  Surely if he was anywhere in the area, he could be expected to find his next meal practically at his doorstep.

Back at Eielson, the dispatcher put about 20 hikers on the bus with us.  (The other couple who had boarded with us at Eielson got off at the “Y” in the road to hike out to Kantishna.)  The hikers had all had a full day and were seemingly exhausted from their day.  There was one family that spoke broken English who were as interested in sighting wildlife as we were.  The seven of us were the only ones really paying attention to the environs, and could expect that if we wanted to see animals, it would be us (and not Paul) who would need to find them.

As we crossed through Thoroughfare Pass, I did see a golden brown bear down in a little ravine.  I yelled “STOP” to which got a “WHAT?” from the driver.  I said “BEAR” and he then accommodated my request.  With the bear about 100 yards from the road, I expected that Paul would have turned off the bus to allow us an opportunity to observe in silence while photographing without the rumble of the bus engine.  Nope, with about a 30 second stop, he barked “Here we go” and off we went.  I so did not like this guy and wished it wasn’t so far to the next stop at Toklat to catch a new bus.  But alas, we made due and continued on with Paul.

Scheduled to be at the Tek CG at 4:30pm, Paul had to have been proud of making it back early. We were dropped off at 4:05pm . . . irritated that he could have surely afforded a little more time at the bear viewing back at Thoroughfare Pass.  That said, it had been a great morning of viewing and we were not going to let the afternoon with Paul detract from that.

Dinner back at the RV was the second night of spaghetti with the leftover sauce from Sunday night.  We got an early night to bed. 

David with Mt. Denali behind him