Wolves, moose and bears oh my!

So we made it back alive and well after three days in the beautiful Denali park. If the start of our day in the park was a prediction of anything we could have been in for some trouble. It was just shy of 6am when a good size porcupine came running towards us in the parking lot full speed ahead... lucky we had our hiking poles ready in hand for protection:) But alas that was petty much our closest encounter of the day.

Apparently many of the tourists who visit Denali don't make it off the "safari" as we call it... and wouldn't even consider putting down their big cameras and binoculars to run with the game as we chose to do. Our luck did help us stay clear of any of the blond grizzly bears, wolves or moose  while on foot (we also sang our hearts out to lets those guys know we coming around a bend). The mountain however, still didn't want to come out and show us her full beauty. Hopefully the postcard I got will just encourage me to come back again some time soon.

On our last morning we decided to get one more quick hike in before we hit the road. We could barely check moose off our list as we had only seen one from far away (further then our dinky backpacking binoculars could get us). On our way down to horseshoe lake we spotted a big ol' moose from the ridge we were standing on. We scampered down the hill and Kerry who apparently moonlights as a moose trackers led us through the brush and sure enough there she was chillen in the water in all her glory. We snapped away like true tourists and heading back up the trail thrilled we had our close encounter with the moose. In was just about 5 min later when the mother of the moose we had spotted came face to face with us on the trail. She was beautiful and apparently I didn't seem to be frightened by this Denali giant... as I not only got great pictures, but a video as well. 

The park itself was amazing, and our recommendation is run don't walk yourselves up here... this place is stunning!

The late sunsets and pleasant weather has allowed us to really get the most of our days... hiking, safari-ing, cooking salmon for nearly every meal and driving back into Anchorage to hang out with Maggie, Eric and Tanner in their amazing garden hot tub.  We have several more pics... check them out!

We hope everyone out there is enjoying the 4th... we are heading south today... first to a music festival with Maggie and then to the Kenai to kayak with the glaciers.