Day-tripping Denali during springtime shoulder season

Yesterday I went to Denali National Park & Reserve with my friend Susan. Since it’s “Shoulder Season,” which is the time before the park opens for regular tours, they allow cars to drive into the park up to mile 30 of the road. During the regular season cars can only go to the Savage River at mile 15 so this is a big perk if you can get out there during the before or after the regular touring season.

The weather was perfect, hovering at just above 40F. Jeans, sneakers and an insulated vest was all I needed most of the time, with the addition of a windbreaker for a short walk we took on the Mountain Vista trail since the wind was blowing cold air around.

We left Fairbanks at 10am and got home just before 9pm. We did take a small detour on our way home to go investigate the report of a nesting Great Horned Owl. After a bit of driving around, I finally spotted the nest with both the female and the male and I think we both let out little squeaks of delight! We pulled up near to them while they both kept a watchful eye on us. After taking a few shots and talking to someone who was just there watching them, Susan brought me home.

At the park we saw three caribou running across the road at about the same place on the way in and out of the road. Mostly we saw their butts and I was not fast enough to even get a picture, but they were impressive animals to see run!

Lots of traces and tracks of animals on the Mountain Vista path, but nothing large enough to photograph. On our walk we also saw lots of tiny butterflies and somehow we noticed a spider when we stopped to listen to some birds and a squirrel chatter at us.

A couple of times I saw tiny birds flying low in the trees and we think they are Snow Buntings. These are super fast flying little birds. No pictures though.

Susan notice sheep on the way out of the park so we stopped to get a few pictures. It was here I got a crash course in the shutter priority setting on my camera. And considering how far away the sheep were and that I only had a 210 lens, I’m pleased with my results.

469 photos taken with a Sony a6000 using a 55-210 lens. I used primarily aperture priority but switched to shutter priority for the sheep at the end of the day since the wind was blowing us around quite a bit.

A very, very relaxing day that was full of learning and practice for my newfound photography habit.

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