July 28, 2007, Denali National Park

We had to check out of the park today. Decided to leave the campground at 5:00 am in hopes of seeing animals before the buses filled with sightseers came along. As we drove, we spotted a red fox coming toward us along the shoulder. In its mouth was its breakfast. Neither of us got a decent picture–suppose it was because the fox was really moving out. We did stop the motorhome, and it passed us as though we weren’t even there. However, our decision to leave early was to no avail. Quite a bit of road construction is being done on the park road. They do a lot of the work at night, when the buses aren’t running, because it doesn’t get very dark. Many semi-sized haulers kept passing us as they took out the dirt and tree roots to be dumped. Before we left the park we wanted to see their sled dogs. During the winter Denali National Park does all its patrols by dog sled. Each day they give two free demonstrations. The visitors are able to visit and pet some of the dogs and then watch a sled, mounted on wheels, being pulled by several dogs. The above picture shows Carol trying to guide the sled, but the dogs decided to go on strike! Actually, they had just run the course and were resting. The dogs prefer winter weather and pulling a sled in the summer, even though the temperature is in the 60's, warms them up in a hurry.