Kantishna

Spent yesterday having fun! Took a flight into Kantishna (the deepest part of the park accessible by road) and my pilot named Connie was very nice and friendly. Cost only $20 as opposed to the $175 that they usually charge guests because I'm an employee. When I got inside, played ping pong at the lodge with the employees before taking the shuttle bus out. Had a really cool driver named Gary, and I managed to get him to give me a ride back to the hostel. Lucky... otherwise I'd have had to hitchhike in the dark. Not too many pictures, sky was kinda overcast. Connie is a flight instructor in Iowa - should I go take lessons? He also suggested being a flight stewardess. More and more my thoughts are starting to drift back to what I'm gonna do once I'm back home. Job hunting is the worst!

Fall colours

Thoroughfare river near Eielson

Pretty tundra illuminated by the setting sun... looks like flower fields?

... and there's a huge pile of bear scat containing blueberries, crowberries and cranberries! Haha.

Denali National Park

Haven't blogged in the longest time... Due to a combination of reasons including laziness, lack of interesting happenings plus bad internet. But I had an amazing time yesterday!

So as you may or may not know, there is only one road into Denali National Park, and it is not open to private vehicles, the only way in being a ride on on of the park's shuttle buses. These aren't the most luxurious buses, and are essentially like the typical American school buses you see around.

Fortunately, and very interestingly, we have a couple of Korean guests staying at the hostel who are filming a documentary about the wildlife in Denali. So they've paid hundreds of dollars for a permit to drive into the park, and I got to ride with them! So its free, as opposed to me paying for a bus ticket, and in an SUV. Heh :)

The day started pretty uneventfully, though we did see a lot of caribou and ground squirrels.

Caribou

Ground squirrel

It was pouring a lot of the time, which is simply bad for sightseeing and obviously even worse for photography and filming. To compensate for that, we saw a lot of very pretty rainbows. I can't quite capture their beauty...

Polychrome Mountains

But on the way back, we found 4 bears foraging for food in a river valley below the roadside! The guys were filming, and the bears were moving toward us. I felt pretty safe cos the bears were way below us. Park regulations state that we should remain 300 yards (300m) away from bears, and to never get in between a mama bear and her cubs cos she'll get really defensive.

After a while I got bored and waited in the car. When I got out again to look for the bears, they were nowhere in sight in the valley. That's when I noticed them right in front of me climbing up the slope! I kinda got a little frightened and was thinking "hm this is dangerous". The Koreans were filming enthusiastically and one of them told me to get back in the car (for safety reasons). But it was so cool... the mama bear and her 3 cubs climbed up the hill, walked right past us to cross the road and continued up the mountain on the other side. We must have only been 10-20m away from the bears. Truly an amazing feeling...

The bears were in the valley at first...

The Koreans with the bears... I was hiding in the car :p

Later that night, we also saw a fox, which was cool. Other common sightings included ground squirrels, hares, grouse, and seagulls. Wildlife filming is pretty interesting, but its really a pain sometimes because 99% of the time you're just waiting for the perfect moment. And I happened to be with the Koreans when that perfect moment came. Lucky me!

Incidentally, one of them suggested me working for him as a writer while the other one is willing to pay me to live in his house and teach his daughters English. Job opportunities in Korea maybe? Haha.