We spent a couple days in Denali National Park. 

The park operates on a shuttle bus system that goes down the only real road in the park.  It is closed,  for the most part, to private cars beyond the first few miles so everyone needs to book a bus ride in.    We purchased our bus tickets for both days the night we first arrived, so we just needed to be at the pickup point at the scheduled time.

On our first day, we had a ticket to Toklat River, about 6.5 hours round trip.  We opted for a little bit later start of 9:30am so we could catch up on a little sleep and be able to enjoy our time more.  We were only marginally successful in that endeavor.  For the 9:30 bus, we needed to be at the Wilderness Access Center (WAC) at 9:15am.  Since the buses from our hotel leave at :15 and :45 of the hour, we would need the 8:45 bus.  However, we wanted to stop at the park visitor center to inquire about hikes.  This meant we needed the 8:15 bus from our hotel.  Allowing time for breakfast, getting ready and packing up, we had to get up at 6:15am.  Another early start.

The visitor center was only slightly useful.  We learned that Denali is different from other national parks.  There are almost no official trails, despite the park being the size of the state of Massachusetts. We got a few suggestions, but nothing real clear as far as hiking.Polychrome area

We picked up the bus at the WAC.  After what seemed like just minutes, we saw a moose 10-20ft from the bus off the road.  It was a good start to the day and it would only get better.  We had lots of animal sightings during our two days here- grizzly bears, caribou, Dall sheep, a red fox, golden eagles, snow shoed hares and even a lynx (we’re told very rare).  I got most of the animal photos on day 2 when I brought the telephoto lens (my sherpa continues to insist I carry all my camera gear).

Day one was a good introduction to the park and we did a little hike up near Polychrome Mountain.  This included walking on tundra (which was recommended to us by the park ranger).  It’s spongy and your feet sink in several inches with each step.  Because it was cloudy, Mt. McKinley was not visible.  It’s amazing that a mountain over 20,000 feet tall could be completely obstructed, but it was. 

On our second day, we had the 7am shuttle to the Eilsen Visitor Center (eight hours round trip).  Most importantly, the sky was clear.  Aside from more great animal sightings today (moose, bears, wolf, Dall sheep, red fox) the highlight was Mt. McKinley.  It really is spectacular and  I took tons of photos including a bunch to stitch together for a panorama. 

Since it was such a clear day, we extended our bus trip to Wonder Lake which has a drive along the mountain range.  On the way back, we got off again at Eilsen and checked out the visitor center.  We did one of the two official trails around there.  Anybody who knows L’ knows which one we picked – the steep one.  It rose about 1000 feet in about a mile.  A good workout and we did it in much less time than the sign predicted.

We picked up a bus at the visitor cent and rode back.  We finally got our pizza dinner around 8pm.  Then we went back to our room to shower, pack, and get some sleep after another long day.