(A little further on, we were heading into the bushes when a
caribou with huge Antlers busted out of the trees only about 15
feet away from us. All three of us; Christina, myself, and
the Caribou were shocked and just stood looking at one another
for about thirty seconds.)
Throughout
our time at Denali National Park we spotted many caribou.
Some were far away and others were close-up. A ranger told
us that there were over 3000 caribou in Denali. Most of the
caribou we saw were individuals or in a small herd of two or
three.
On our first day, while we were
hiking along a ridge, after leaving the Polychrome Rest Stop, we
spotted four caribou on a nearby ridge. They were huge. They
can live to 12 years old and the males can weigh up to 400 pounds
while the smaller females weigh up to only 225 pounds.
Because of the big size difference it was easy to tell the
difference between the males and the females but we were confused
sometimes because both the males and females have antlers.
While
hiking out to the East Fork River, we spotted a huge male caribou.
It was alone and quickly moved off when it spotted Christina and
I. We were amazed by how smoothly this huge animal moved.
We spotted some of it's prints which had indents and spread out
hooves which gave clues to why the caribou could move so steadily.
On our hike through the Divide Mountain Gap, we were heading into
the bushes when a Caribou with huge Antlers busted out of the
trees only about 15 feet away from us. All three of us;
Christina, myself, and the Caribou were shocked and just stood
looking at one another for about thirty seconds. Finally, I waved
my hands and yelled and the Caribou turned and went off to the
side about three feet and started eating. It was really chewing on
the willow trees and eating the short tundra grasses. We
snuck off to the side down towards the gravel and riverbed below.
We
were surprised to find that this caribou's antlers were bloody.
This is part of the process that caribou go through each year
where their antlers fall off in the fall and grow back in the
spring.
