Day 3

MON 8/30: We get up around 6:30 to catch a park bus just outside our campsite. We'll take this bus all the way to Wonder Lake (mile 85) and back, about a 7-1/2 hour trip. The bus is basically a glorified school bus, and the road is a bumpy dirt path that winds along the edge of the mountains, but no one's worried about comfort. We're all too eager to catch a glimpse of the animals that you're expected to see on this ride, and we are not disappointed. By the time the day is over, we'll have seen a moose, two Dall sheep, 3 caribou and 14 grizzlies. We stop at Polychrome Overlook and Eielson Visitor Center on the way in, but the smoke is still heavy and visibility is not so great. There are still some amazing views, which makes me wonder how incredible it must be when it's clear.

By the time we reach Wonder Lake, we've already seen the sheep (which are mountainous and live high up in the rocks), and 6 grizzlies. It's the time of year when the bears are eating berries,so most are on the grassy slopes of the mountains just above the road. They are doing something called "the berry bob", where they lower their head as they strip the berries from the bush with their mouths, then lift their heads to eat them. Also, we see a young male chasing a ground squirrel. He has no problem running down the slope as he gives chase, which explodes P.I.'s belief that if a bear chases you, you should run downhill. When we get to Wonder Lake, we see the caribou grazing near a pond. We leave the bus and wander around on the tundra. It's very soft and springy, and walking around on it is a strange experience. It's almost like one of those inflatable moonwalk things at the fair. We get back on the bus and look at the caribou some more, then start our journey back towards the campground.

After another stop at Eielson and a new stop at the Toklat River, we decide to leave the bus and hike along the road. At this point, the hill to the right of the road drops sharply away 500-700 feet to the valley below. Looking down, we see a mother bear and her two cubs traveling along the river below. Watching the cubs is amazing. They wrestle, chase each other, chase their mother, attack some caribou antlers that they find, and splash in and out of the water. At one point, their mother gets ahead of them around a bend, and the cubs start to panic. Eventually, their mother comes back to track them down, so they stick closer to her after that. We hike up to Polychrome and catch a different bus, from which we see several more bears. About a mile from our campsite, we leave the bus again and hike the rest of the way. We have pasta with a homemade sauce for dinner, and watch "Rat Race" on the RV's DVD player before falling asleep. And that's when the craziness begins.

MON/TUE: At some point around 3:30 am, Todd climbs out of his bed, apparently sleepwalking. He steps wrong and falls down the stairwell to the door, causing the door to make a loud bang as if it had slammed. P.I., who is next to me in the RV, sits up and screams. I am still halfway in a disturbing dream about the RV being attacked by wolves, and become convinced that a wolf has gotten in the door and is attacking P.I., so I attempt to save her by trying to push it off of her, shouting for help all the while. P.I. is also shouting, I assume because she's being attacked. Meanwhile, Cynthia is shouting because Todd is not in bed next to her, Nikki is screaming, Tom is trying to figure out what's happening, and Todd can't figure out why he's out of bed. After about 10 seconds of pure chaos that feel like 30 minutes, P.I. makes me realize that she is in fact being attacked, but only by me. I stop pushing, but am still confused. A rather loud conversation catches everyone up to what is happening (and probably wakes up everyone else in the campground), and some sort of calm is restored. Once assured that everyone is OK, the men go right back to sleep. The women, however, barely sleep the rest of the night because, as Nikki said, "my heart was beating so fast, I thought I was having a heart attack".