The Lynx

When I first caught a glimpse of it, I thought it was someone's dog off leash, walking out of the dwarf birch by the bus stop just as the bus pulled out. But the tawny creature that prowled out of the bushes was far too catlike, and it took me only a second to realize that I had finally set eyes on one of the most coveted species I've been wanting to find in Alaska: The elusive lynx. 

It was 9:30am and I had just arrived at work when it caught my eye out the window of the Savage River check station. I grabbed my camera and ran outside just as 3 buses rolled up and my coworker went out to greet them. It took me only a matter of seconds to get to the bushes where I had seen the lynx disappear, yet there was no sign of it at all -- not a sound or a rustle in the bushes, no visible tracks or trails. 

The Caribou Incident

On Monday, I was working at the Savage Check Station, just doing my thing, standing on the road with my clipboard waiting for a line of buses to pass over the bridge so I could hop on and give my ranger-welcome to the park. The buses were stopped on the bridge so the passengers could view a couple caribou in the river below.

As I stood there patiently waiting, suddenly the bushes across the road from me began to rustle, and out pops a huge caribou with a full rack of velvety antlers. It was way closer than 25 yards -- probably more like 25 feet. The caribou began to trot towards me.

Intent on increasing the distance between myself and the beast, I calmly began to walk up the road backwards, facing the caribou with my clipboard held tightly in front of me. The caribou followed. I crossed to the other lane. It continued to follow. I crossed back to the right lane. And still, it followed, closing in the distance between me and it. The buses were beginning to creep forward, and the caribou quickened its pace. There was nowhere to hide.

At a total loss for what to do, I hopped off the shoulder of the road and up to the base of the tall embankment on the right, with absolutely no plan for what to do next, gripping my pathetic clipboard-shield with white-knuckled uncertainty. Fortunately, the caribou continued on its way up the road in the righthand lane. As it passed by, our eyes locked and we had a moment together. And then it was trotting off into the distance and a bus rolled up in front of me, its front window plastered with visitors and their cameras.

When the driver opened the doors for me, everyone was roaring with laughter. Picture perfect for all of them, slightly hair-raising for me. Still, I hope that one day in the distant future, one of their photos will surface. Would love to see what that looked like from the bus.

Savage Alpine Trail

After having a lazy 3-day weekend of catching up on responsibilities and sitting in the sunshine, yesterday I decided it was time to kick myself back into gear by tackling the 4 mile strenuous-rated Savage Alpine Trail. 

The trip started off a little bit rocky. My hiking buddy and I were just headed to the bus stop to catch the shuttle out to Savage when we saw it roar by, too far away to catch up with. Determined to still make it out there, we hustled down the trail to the next bus stop, and just as we came out to the road we saw the bus about to turn and leave. Waving frantically, we chased it down and the driver was kind enough to wait for us, though I suspect the rest of the passengers headed to Savage got a good laugh out of it.