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The rest of our time at Denali was quiet, more active and without any significant wildlife sightings. We did see more caribou, some moose and small creatures like snowshoe hare and ground squirrels, but no close encounters with large animals for which we are thankful! There have been several people killed this year by bear in Alaska, including a 16 year old who got lost running a marathon. Our excursion driver told us he is more concerned with black bear than grizzly because they seem more aggressive lately.

We did do a couple of more hikes in Denali.  One day we drove as far into the park as private vehicles are allowed (the 15 km point) and then hiked on the Savage River Trail. It was a beautiful, open trail that followed alongside a river in the valley, and then crossed a bridge and came back the other side. We saw lots of alpine flowers, and did a 300 foot climb at the half way around for another view, but no wildlife beyond the ground squirrels.

Our last day we spent doing laundry and then took another later afternoon hike from our campground through the woods and along a couple of streams. We were also fortunate to have another view of Denali that although it had some clouds in front, we could see much of it.

While in Denali, we took a day trip south on the Parks Highway and across a gravel highway. We only went in a short ways. It was pleasant drive, with a few nice views, but nothing spectacular. We drove into a state run campground where we talked with a campground host. It was alongside a river, but lots of mosquitoes. It certainly didn’t entice us to pack up and head there with the trailer! He was there for the whole summer and it isn’t a real busy highway since it is gravel, so there aren’t a lot of people coming to the campground.

Each evening at Denali, park staff presented a short, 30 minute program at each of the campgrounds. We attended a couple of them but have to say that they certainly weren’t as good as ones we have been to in the past. Obviously, due to the long days, they can’t rely on using multimedia, and instead have laminated pictures and other props they hand around to people. The best we attended was on dog sledding and mushing – in this case, the presenter’s family still had dog sleds and actually transports climbers supplies up to the Denali base camp in the winter in preparation for their climb in the summer. It was quite well done and since he spoke from experience, he was great at answering questions that the audience had. However, the other topics were less informative than we expected and in one case, we really didn’t see the relevance, except to listen to sounds and be present to hear and see the wonderful scenery.

Saturday we head out towards the Matanuska-Susitna Valley and towards Anchorage.

Our trip down from Fairbanks was short – just about 2 hours and not a lot of places to stop and explore. Denali is a National Park that is celebrating 100 years this year. It got its name from the natives who called it Denali or the great one, the big one…. It is the tallest mountain in North America at just over 20,000 feet. People come from all over to climb it – about 1200/year. Less than half make it.

Our arrival at Denali and check in at the campground was not an efficient time to say the least. The staff checking in the campers was having problems with the computer. She not only was checking in for the campground, but was also printing off any of the tour tickets they had ordered. After close to an hour and a half of waiting, we finally had our turn (there were only about 4 parties in front of us). We were able to book a bus excursion for Monday – it goes 66 miles into Denali to the second visitor centre. It will be a 7-8 hour trip and we hope to see some wildlife. Our campsite is nice here – no hook ups so we’ll be running the generator to keep our batteries charged. Also, there don’t seem to be many mosquitoes here so maybe we can have a campfire or two! The campsites are small – you are either less than 30 feet or 30-40 feet. Although we are under 30 feet, we didn’t have a lot of sites to chose from – many of them might go to 30 feet, but then there wouldn’t be room to park the truck.

Monday morning we woke to clear, sunny skies for our bus excursion – the forecast was right 🙂 We were amongst the 20-30% of people who actually get to see Denali! Most of the time it is covered by clouds. We drove out after we had set up our tent and saw just a faint line of where the peak was through the clouds – the mountain tends to make it’s own weather. However, we were treated to many views of Denali – it did get hidden by some clouds at the end of our bus trip, but on our return route back, when it came back into view, the clouds were gone and we could once again see it.

Along the excursion, our bus driver who was also our naturalist guide gave us lots of information, not only about the park, but about the wildlife. We saw a very large herd of caribou high up in a valley, along with a number of single ones, some Dall sheep, several grizzly bears including a mother and her two cubs (they were quite a ways away), and just as we were almost our trip, a wolf ran along the side of the road for a few yards before disappearing into the bush. All in all it was a great day – the bus was quite comfortable, even though it was more like a school bus but with better seats. The park only lets private cars drive in the first 15 miles unless they have campground reservations in which case they are restricted on how much they can drive and they can’t go in and out every day, just the in the day they arrive and out when their reservation is done. They have shuttle buses that go back and forth and you buy a bus ticket to where you want to go on the 90 mile road. Our bus was different since it was an actual excursion which meant it was a guided trip.

Moose cow with two calves near our campground

Caribou grazing in the snow!

Tuesday we laid low for the morning and then took a 7+ km. hike to the entrance visitor centre and came back a round-about way. The weather was overcast much more and it certainly wouldn’t have been as nice to do the bus excursion as the day before! The weather has been pleasant still with temperatures around 20C and lows at night 8-10C. The park has been quite full so far – they had no available campsites when we arrived so it was good we had reservations!

Stay tuned for more Denali adventures!