Getting to Alaska with all the gear you think you may need is a lesson in its self.  I was still using a D200 at the time and added the 24 to 70 with the 200 to 400.  Batteries, chargers, tripod, mono-pod etc.  I was traveling with my brothers and nephew and had some help carrying the extra stuff.  Alaska is huge and you spend a lot of time moving between destinations and a 3 month trip would not be enough.  I had a week.  Now I am in one of the greatest places on earth to do photography. Just  another thing to factor in with the camera settings, zooming when framing a shot, depth of field, and lens choice. The above picture was taken at 200 mm when I could have been at 400mm.  I wish I had those 10,000 clicks.  Composing your subject for another time.   On to Denali and the 11 hour bus ride through the park.  You get on an old school bus and take a tour one way in and same way out.  I had to shoot most photos from the bus window because when wildlife was around they didn't want you to interact.  They would shut the bus off and set awhile to let you shoot.  With 20 or so people moving to better position themselves you now introduce another camera factor, camera shake.  How do you handle that?  High shutter speed and in Nikon VR.  It only goes so far.  From Denali we went to Glacier Bay and stayed at the lodge in the park.  I saw more wildlife in those two days.  All the shooting was from a boat using a mono-pod.  The whole motion of the ocean, the way light plays off water and going from rainy to sunny in minutes.   I took hundreds of photos on my way to 10,000 clicks.  Many of them were not worth the time it took to take them.  Many under or over exposed because I couldn't remember to adapt to the light and make changes to the camera settings.  The biggest thing I should have remembered was to set my camera back to an auto mode and practiced manual another time.  Today I still use some auto when things change drastically especially in sports and family events that are located indoors and out.  However, I am well on the way to 10,000.