Sunday at Denali.

Yesterday was spent Iaid back a bit and kicking around town and vicinity. The highlight was a visit to the sled dog show. 

It is illegal to use motorized vehicles in the backwoods of the park except for extraordinary circumstances. Therefore, in the winter season, the moving of supplies and equipment  must be done by dog team. 

Teams of up to 16 dogs can haul a sleigh behind them of as much as 800 to 1,000 lbs. 

The dogs are all Alaskan huskies. This breed is not recognized by the America Kennel club because it is such s complex mixture of other breeds such as Malmute, Samoyed, Siberian husky etc. No two dogs look the same and they are bred to be a load pulling dog, not a race sleigh pulling dog.

The strength of dogs is amazing. Alaskan huskies can only pull between 50 and 100 lbs each on average. However in Dawson city there was a legendary dog named Buck that had a record pull of 1,000 lbs for a city block. 

There was several dozen dogs that we could view and even pat some. They were very docile but once the head person told handlers to choose 6 or 8 dogs for the show, all the dogs went crazy, barking and jumping up and down with excitement. 

The selected dogs were harnessed up and a musher piloted them around a course at full speed. It was a sight!  They stopped I front of a viewing stand and we had a wonderful ranger presentation. 

Today at 9:30, and heading towards the heart of the mountain. Since it was somewhat cloudy, we did not have high hopes of actually seeing the mountain. Actually this is a rare occasion.  They say on approximately 50 days a year the mountain is visible. So I our chances of viewing are only 1 in 7. 

The trip takes a considerable length of time, about three and half hours one way. En route the mountain scenery is spectacular with numerous sightings of Caribou, moose, doll sheep, numerous birds, and even a grizzly bear.

Although he have similar spectacular mountain scenery in British Columbia, the trip certainly was worth while. Our bus driver also added a touch of humour as well as knowledge to our day. 

Here are a few of the many pictures we took. 

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