Life Is Good Today!: Denali National Park

We finally made it to Deanli NP, the main goal of the trip! Denali is perhaps like no other US National Park. First this park was created for the protection of the animals, mainly the Dall Sheep, then the preservation of wilderness. Most other parks are the opposite. Secondly access to the park interior is highly limited. Although thousands of visitors travel deep into the park, all travel during the summer season is by bus, with a few exceptions (detailed in a minute). Then once inside the park there are no established back country trails as all hiking is through the bush which allows for the tundra to remain intact. And the mountain itself, the tallest in the US at 20,320 ft (and growing at 1 cm/year) technically named Mt. Mickinley, but called is Denali by most. The word Denali is Athabascan for the "Tall One" or the "Great One". With such a high elevation the mountain creates it's own weather thus only 30% of visitors to the area see the entire mountain. We are in that 30% although on separate days we saw most of the base and then the tip. It is quite impressive just seeing what little we did.

Entrance to Denali National Park

Camping at Denali is setup into several sections. Our first two nights were spent at Riley Creek CG at the entrance to the park. This is where most people stay and the CG is quite large with three loops with at least 50 spots in each. Also at this location are the store, showers and laundromat, all of which are needed at some point. Before going further into the park we spent our day hiking and visiting the sled dog kennels. Sled dogs here at Denali are considered park rangers and are used in the winter months to haul supplies to various parts of the park. These dogs, considered to be the 18 wheelers of the sled dogs vs the racing dogs, are larger and stronger for the job they perform.

The sled dog "Rangers"

Kennel name plates of retired dog rangers

Sled dog demo

After two nights at the entrance to the park we moved to our next CG 29 miles into the park. This is the lone exception to driving into the park during season. At Teklanika CG, with 53 sites, you are allowed to drive your car/RV to but must stay a minimum of 3 days. From here you take the shuttle bus further into the park. Our reservation was for 4 nights, drove in on Monday, out on Friday. In between we took the bus each day into the park. Our first trip in took us to the Kantishna area at 90 miles, which is the end of the road. At this area are several private lodges/resorts that have essentially been grandfathered into the park. These were here long before the park was created thus their present status. You can even fly in if you want. Our other two trips in were to the Eilson Visitor Center located about 60 miles in. From here there a few day hikes easily walked. The bus rides can be interesting in that each driver talks about the ride and describes where you are at. Our first driver was great (but almost talked too much) and had a great knowledge of the entire park and animals we would see. Others ranged from hardly saying anything to only speaking when needed. While riding if you see an animal you yell STOP, describe the time position, i.e. 1 o'clock, and what you spotted. The driver stops and everyone moves to that side of the bus for viewing/photos. Unfortunately most of the viewing is beyond a camera's telephoto lens but other times the animals are quite close.

Teklanika CG-29 miles into the park

View from Eilson visitor's center

Wet bus ride in

Another view

End of bus ride

Of course Denali is all about the wildlife. On our various trips we saw grizzly bear (some with cubs), caribou, Dall sheep, moose, wolves and Willow Ptarmigan (the state bird of AK). It is simply amazing to see these animals in their natural environment still mostly undisturded by humans.

Grizzly Bear

Willow Ptarmigan

Caribou

Grizzly and her cubs

Caribou keeping nose close to water to keep bugs away

I consider Denali NP to be the adventurer's adventure park. By this I mean to do any back country camping/hiking you should have a very good knowlegde of map and compass and know basic (at least) survival skills. Due to the weather, terrain and animals an "easy" hike could trun into a very serious situation fast. We did not do any of this type of hiking but just being there to view the majesty of the park was enough (at least for our first time).

On Friday we retuned to the Riley Creek CG on the rain soaked road. Another night here was needed to shower, do laundry and dump the RV tanks.