I departed Denali National Park yesterday about noon and drove 12 hours to Tok on my way back to the Yukon, British Columbia, Alberta and the Lower 48.  I hope to see bison today and maybe some more moose.

Last night at about 9pm I was about two hours from Tok when I spotted a moose cow and her calve in a small pond beside the road.  I did a U-turn and when back and passed the location.  Did another U-turn to put the moose on the driver’s side of the truck and crossed to the shoulder going the wrong way on the highway.  There was almost no traffic and I wasn’t worried about being hit.  I put my window down and got my camera ready before pulling up the the moose’s location.  Here’s what I got.

Moose rump!  They took off for the trees.  So I decided to add a new tool to my photographic arsenal…patience.  I went up the road 100 yards and turned around again and came back to the spot they had previously been at.  I put down my passenger window, turned off the truck and waited.  The shot above was taken at 9:03 pm.  This one was taken at 9:24 pm.

They came back.  I sat there for about 10 minutes watching them eat.  They eventually moved apart.  When I started up the truck to leave the noise sent them back into the trees but I imagine after I was down the road a ways, they were back at their watering hole.In my last blog, I showed you a picture of Mt. McKinley at sunrise on Saturday.  I like to tell you a little about Mt. McKinley and show you some additional pictures.

The mountain was known as Mt. Denali by the Athabascan natives.  Denali means “the High One” in their language.  In 1896 a businessman and Princeton graduate was prospecting in the area.  When he came out in 1898 he called the mountain McKinley for President William McKinley in an article published in the New York Sun.  The name stuck but Alas