Denali National Park

As usual with our National Parks, we loved Denali! We stayed inside at two of the park’s campgrounds which we feel enhances our experience. For the workweek, we dry camped in heavily treed Riley Creek and explored the front country.

Denali is 6 million acres of pristine wilderness. There is one 90-mile road leading into the park but you are only allowed to drive the first 15 miles in your vehicle.

In the first 15 miles, you can visit the sled dog kennels. These Alaskan huskies work hard with winter park operations but in the summer enjoy getting pets from visitors.

There are also several established trails. We hiked the Healey Overlook trail.

And Savage River and Horseshoe Lake trails.

We saw a large bull moose on our way to the Savage Alpine trailhead. We also saw part of Denali and some Dall sheep. The park was established to protect these sheep so we were excited to see them!

There are bus tours and hiker shuttles to explore past mile 15. An exception is that if you are camping at Teklanika at mile 30, you can drive to the campground, but are required to stay a minimum of 3 days and you can’t do any other driving during your stay. The road has been closed at mile 43 for several years because of a landslide.

We spent the weekend at Teklanika and saw some exciting wildlife on our way in and out.

There are no established trails in Denali’s backcountry. The park encourages you to explore and hike off trail, as they think there is less damage to the tundra this way. Our friends who’d already visited this summer suggested hiking around Cathedral Mountain and we followed their advice. We took the hiker shuttle to the western side of the mountain and made a loop up and back down.

The views in every direction were amazing. We watched 5 caribou grazing below our summit. The bus driver said there’s been a 50-75% decrease in the number of grazing animals in the park over the past 3 years. They think it is because the winters have had cycles of warming and freezing which turns the snow into ice and the animals can’t get to their food beneath the ice and are starving.

The next morning we were walking along the Teklanika River near our campground when a grizzly popped out of the treeline. He was roughly 100ft away and we were in his direct path to the river so he continued toward us. I somehow managed not to run and we both got our bear spray ready and walked backward while talking him into leaving us alone. The photo was taken after we had a lot more distance.

After that excitement, we packed up and headed to 49th State Brewing in Healey.

We’re currently in Fairbanks for our last week in Alaska. It seems like all of a sudden Fall has arrived so it’s time to leave!