Denali National Park

July 12

Next stop, Denali National Park. Like Valdez, there is only one road in and out of Homer so we traveled north on Hwy 3, the Sterling Highway, and enjoyed the coast line views that we saw just a couple days ago. It’s tough to get too much of this scenery so backtracking is OK in this case.

Carolyn browsed the Milepost and found a couple small lakes with free campgrounds between Cooper Landing and Sterling. We started toward the first lake but the road was gravel and a bit more bumpy then we were happy with so we decided to check out the other two lakes. We turned on the gravel road at mile S 68.8. Again, the road was gravel but it had been graded and would take us to a couple lakes with campgrounds. We stopped at the first but it was packed with weekend campers. We drove a few miles to Peterson Lake and found a great spot to spend the night and met some wonderful fellow campers. The sunset was amazing!

There is a turn-off at the intersection of Hwy 1 & Hwy 9 near Tern Lake. We stopped and had a nice surprise when we saw the Arctic Terns. We watched and took a few photos of them swooping down the pic insects off the water.

Arctic Tern feeding at Tern Lake

We topped off with gas at Sam's Club in Anchorage and continued north.  This section of Hwy 3 is appropriately named the Parks Highway.  It was late afternoon, the time of day to watch for wildlife and sure enough, we spotted a cow moose eating near the highway. We stopped and to take a few pictures and some video. She was a beauty and very photogenic.

A few miles up the road, we found a great boon docking spot in a abandoned rest area.  It's a mystery why this rest area was abandoned. Odd because there is a nice view of the Susitina River but the grass was not mowed and the picnic tables were rotting. Mother nature is reclaiming this location but it was a quite place to spend the night and waking to birds singing isn't too bad.

Sleep with the windows open.

Seeing THE mountain is not guaranteed when visiting Denali National Park. It is estimated only 30% of the visitors actually get the see him. Yes, according to those who know, Denali is a “him” and we were told it’s NOT Mt. Denali, it’s just Denali. OK, got it.

The forecast had been for clouds and rain but we drove north with high expectations of a clear day. We stopped a couple of lookouts in hopes of seeing the big mountain. Nope, too soon – this was a shooting range but in a few more miles to reached Denali View South at mile marker 134.8. We walked to the viewing area and there he was. Bingo, clear blue skies and a wonderful view of the southern side of Denali. We hiked a gravel foot path to another lookout and we felt we hit the jackpot. It was a perfect view of Denali. We headed north again toward Denali NP with the satisfaction of being there on the right day. Within a half hour or so, the clouds moved in so we knew luck was on our side.

Southern view of Denali

Denali NP is a bit different than other National Parks we’ve visited. We entered the park and had our Senior Pass ready to hand the Ranger but, to our surprise, there is no Ranger station to collect fees. I guess they don't feel the need since there are only 500,000 annual visitors...just a fraction of the visitors that Yellowstone, Grand Canyon or Glacier gets each year.

Like many others who visit Alaska, we didn’t know what date we would arrive at Denali NP so didn’t have camping reservations. Sure enough, all campgrounds were full. No problem, we’ve been able to find a place every night to boondock and knew we would find some place to spend the night so we headed to the Wilderness Center for information about the tour buses that take park visitors deep into the park. We decided on the 6:30am Eielson shuttle bus which would take us 62 miles into the park.

With that done, we took the shuttle bus to see the free dog sled demonstration. It was very informative and the dogs they harnesses up tp the demonstration cart were very anxious to start pulling. These dogs are bigger than I thought (at 70 pounds each) and POWERFUL. They love to run and love to pull. If you've seen handlers walking with the dogs and holding their front feel off the ground, that's because the dogs are too strong to hold back when they have four feet on the ground.

We highly recommend this demonstration. It's informative and fun to watch.

I'll post some video when we get home.

Buses are the only way to get beyond a few miles into the park. Generally, visitors can drive 15 miles into the park but on the two days we were there, cars could only drive about 12 miles in because of a troublesome bear. Hikers, back packers and campers ride the bus to their jump-off point then travel by foot to wherever they want to go.

There doesn’t seem to be good information about the difference between the shuttle bus or the much more expensive tour bus but the young lady at the information desk told us the big difference is shuttle drivers can provide information if they want but aren’t required while the more expensive tour buses provide running commentary. She said most shuttle drivers provide information about the highlights so that’s what we chose. We bought tickets for the 6:30AM Eielson shuttle bus that took us 66 miles into the park for $34.50. The roads are dirt/gravel so it’s not it’s not smooth but nobody on our bus complained. We stopped every hour or so to stretch our legs and for restroom breaks. This is one of the busses at a rest stop.

This is a green shuttle bus like we rode to Eielson. Our driver is Ken. He and his wife are retired teachers and this is their fifth year working in Denali. Ken drives the bus five days a week and she works in the information center. As we drove the 62 miles, he shared the history of the area along with tales of original settlers. There were questions from riders and he had a wonderful knowledge to answer.

Our first animal sighting was a moose, actually a moose calf. Don’t know where mama was but this little guy was jumping and dancing around. The driver stopped so we could put the windows down for photos. Then we were on our way again until someone spotted another critter. We would stop again for photos or a look through binoculars then we would continue. Throughout the day, we saw moose, red fox, caribou, golden eagles, big horn sheep and a grizzly. Some were close but others were quite a distance away. Getting close to any animals is just a matter of luck. All the photos were taken with a fairly long telephoto lens.

I have video of this little guy jumping around. If it's good, I'll post it when we get home.

We would also see a number of other critters including Ptarmigan, Dall Sheep, Carabou, Golden Eagles, Red fox and a nice Grizzly. Getting a photo of a grizzly was on my bucket list...check that one off!

And be sure to pay attention on the roads. Some of the curve allow only one vehicle but the drivers are very alert and very good.

As luck would have it, we had an almost perfectly blue sky morning and the driver stopped several times for sneak peaks of Denali.

Ken emphasized that not everyone is so lucky as we were to have perfect postcard views. In fact, around noon, the clouds rolled in and those who were on afternoon buses might not have seen the mountain at all. All in all, it was a great day. We saw five of the main animals (no wolf) and we were part of the 30% club who get to see Denali. Thanks Ken for the great day.

Riders can get off the bus at any stop and pick up the next one to continue the trip. Our bus was fairly full traveling to Eielson but we were one of the first buses of the day so many passengers stayed to hike or just look around so on our our return trip, there was lots of room to move around when we stopped to view animals.

We stopped by Riley campground where we emptied our tanks and refilled with fresh water. After a dusty day on the bus, showers were in order. Carolyn used the paid showers in the Riley Campground  while I cranked up the water heater in the Roadtrek and used our facilities. With all that done, we were on our way toward Fairbanks.