Here a bou, there a bou, everywhere a Caribou

Abby and I took the 8 hour bus tour of Denali Park today.  It started at 10 A.M. and we finished at 6 P.M.

It was a very enlightening educational experience for the both of us.  We learned the difference between a Caribou and a Reindeer.  I'll tell you later.  We learned how to handle a Grizzly Bear encounter (apparently not always successful) and a Black Bear encounter (not sure this works either). 

At the information center, which is the staging point for the tours, they have many signs.  Here is one telling you how to handle a Grizzly Bear.

Notice it says to "Identify yourself as a Human".  So do you tell it, "Hi Mr. Bear I'm a human". "Please don't **** with me, I'm human".  As far as I know, none of this works in the ghetto so why should it work with a bear?

Another sign which I apologize for not having a picture says, "if it is a grizzly bear, lay down on your stomach, clasp your hands behind your neck and don't fight.  It might as well also say "kiss your ass goodbye".  It goes on to say "If it is a black bear, fight like hell and beat it around the nose and eyes".  I think it also needs to have the grizzly bear addendum "kiss your ass goodbye".

No where on this sign does it tell you how to identify a bear at short range that is beating the crap out of you.  Both are big, fuzzy creatures with big claws and bigger teeth.

The sign reminds me of the IRS motto, "we are here to help you".

Barry Schulte sent me an excerpt from the news media talking about a Grizzly bear attack in Yellowstone this morning where a man was mauled to death.  Apparently this Grizzly bear had not been given the memo on "human identification".  Sad news.  Enough said!

We departed with an airline "on time" departure at 10:10 with Joe "Oscar" Meyer as our tour guide and bus driver.  Great kid.

It is 66 miles to the farthest point on the tour at which point you turn around and come back to the starting point.  After 15 miles the road becomes a loose gravel but well maintained one lane road that scares the "s***" out of you because of the hairpin turns, and switchbacks hundreds of feet above the floor of the canyons that you are competing for the same road with the buses coming back!

There are multiple stops on the way for relief purposes.  At one stop, a bus was offloading barf bags.  Fortunately our bus didn't have this problem.  We had a veteran group (meaning old farts, not including Abby) that knew everything about this trip.  One guy behind us, identified nearly every rock as a "Dall Sheep".  Another saw an "Elk" around every turn (never saw one).

We did however see many, many Caribou, too many too count.  At one point, we had to wait for a bus in front of us that was waiting for a Caribou to get off the road.

We also saw multiple sets of Grizzly bears, with cubs but were too far away for good pictures.

As we pulled into the turn around point we saw this "Black nosed Fox".  Abby was able to get this picture from inside the bus before our "resident expert" went running after the fox to get his picture and chased him away.

Denali Park is a very beautiful National Park.  We really enjoyed the day.  Here are some other pictures.

Spectacular scenery. 

Oh, the difference between a Reindeer and a Caribou?

A REINDEER CAN FLY!