RV Adventures

Big destination #1 for Janelle’s visit, was Denali National Park. We headed here from Talkeetna to take advantage of the camping reservations I had made back in December. This is the ONLY reservation we had made in advance.

We arrived shortly after lunch time and wasted no time starting our explorations of the Park. First on the agenda was seeing the sled dog demonstration.

Sled Dogs

Denali NP has its own pack of sled dogs. They are used primarily in the winter to get around the park. Snowmobiles could also allow wintertime passage in the Park, but it as explained to us that “This special group of dogs is tasked with preserving unimpaired the natural and cultural resources and values of the national park system for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations.” Sled dogs do less damage to the environment!

There is a new litter of sled dog puppies at the NP, and they have their very own webcam. We got to see the puppies in person, but if you want to view them in real time, use this webcam link: https://www.nps.gov/dena/learn/photosmultimedia/webcams-pups.htm.

It was in interesting demo. The dogs are mutts, not pure bread huskies like you see in the Iditarod Race every year. The huskies are bred for speed. These dogs are bred for endurance.

The sign below into one of the Park buildings caught my attention.

Hiking

We were watching the weather closely. We knew we wanted to ride the “green bus” as far as it could go and we wanted good weather for that. Our first full day in Denali was cloudy and kind of miserable. We decided to use the day to drive ourselves out as far as we could go and do a couple of hikes.

After two hikes, those of us of a certain age were feeling a tad tired. I did some googling and found the 49th State Brewing about 10 miles north of the Park in Healy.

The 30% Club

You know how the Louve Museum in Paris is famous for the Mona Lisa? People arrive at the Museum and their only goal is to see the famous painting. Denali National Park is no different. People come here just to the the mountain, Denali. And only 30% of visitors have that privilege. That wasn’t our only goal. But we made sure we took the bus on a day when the weather would be cooperative.

If you refer the map of the park above, you can see how far we could drive our vehicle into the Park. To go any further, you have to pay to ride on a bus. This is the only way to see Denali from inside the Park.

You have never seen so many cameras in one bus before. Some people had three or four cameras, all with long lenses. When an animal (mostly caribou) was spotted, the windows were opened and the camera lenses stuck out the windows.

And along the way, we did become members of the 30% Club. There she is, Denali. 20,000 feet high. Cross this off the bucket list.

Buses can only travel to mile 43. Why? There is a landslide ahead. In August of 2021, the road was closed due to the Pretty Rocks Landslide. If you want to read about it, use this link. The road, with a new bridge, is slated to reopen in 2027.

At this point, we could have gotten back on the bus and ridden it back to the start. But we opted exit the bus (we could take a later bus back) to hike the braided river bed of the Teklanika River. This is billed as a “off trail hike.” Janelle was all excited. There are not many National Parks where you can kike “off trail.”

It was great hiking the river bed. The number of types of stones in the river bed was incredible. That’s the power of a glacier, it brings down into the river whatever materials it encountered.

Another great day, but daylight was burning, it was time to head to our next destination, the coast and Seward.