Nenana River Rafting & Going into the Park

This is the only picture we got from rafting because we couldn't take the camera. It was really fun though. The river was a little low, but we still got to go through a bunch of rapids. We got soaked, except that we had on dry suits that you had to get help to put on. I learned that for safety, when you are going through rapids there might be a bump and bump you out of the boat, so you need to always lean forward into the boat.

There were a bunch of army soldiers in other rafts behind us. They just got back from Iraq and were being kind of crazy like jumping in the river and hanging off the sides. Our raft leader said they let them do that because they have troops come every year and they want them to feel free and have a great time. They get to do it for free too.

This is a picture of downtown Denali from train station. Our hotel, the Grande Denali Lodge is up really high and to the right. Everything closes by the end of September and they don't open again until May.

This is a picture out of our hotel window.

This is in front of the Wilderness Access Center before we entered the deeper part of the park. Some things I learned before I went it was this: 1) When you encounter a bear, do not run. Slowly back up and wave your arms in the air and talk to the bear in a low calm voice. 2) When a moose charges you, you ARE supposed to run! This elk looked like it was going to charge my mom so she tried to turn and run but there was a big rock right behind her and she fell. It was pretty funny.

I don't remember what I was investigating.

This was one of my favorite outcroppings. Most of the rocks around the park are either basalt (I know from the columns & color) and a lot of really soft shale (it's sedimentary - it has soft sedimentary layers and kind of looks like wood) and schist (which is metamorphized shale I think).

This is a female moose eating the berry plants. Lots of the berry plants already lost their leaves and the branches were kind of bluish purple.  We also saw a weasle but he was too fast so I couldn't get a picture. We also saw trumpet swans. Here are some more animals we saw.

This is the elk that scared my mom.

These brown bear were behind a fence so we could get closer to them. Usually, their personal space bubble is about 500'.

Here are some caribou.

This is a magpie. They were all over the place here and they're really beautiful.

Here is a black bear that has rounded claws, so they can climb trees. This one was also behind the fence in the refuge. The refuge is where they put abandoned and orphaned animals. Some get better and get put back out in the wild and some have to stay at the refuge the rest of their lives because they don't know how to defend themselves, like baby moose. (Their moms teach them how to defend themselves but sometimes they get separated - usually by roads, fences or unleashed dogs... so the babies never learn how to protect themselves.)

I found some berries! I picked blueberries, cranberries and two other kinds that  I don't know, so we didn't eat those. I learned that you can make cranberry preserves and you don't have to use pectin because the berries already have enough. You just have to add sugar.