4th Alaskan Stop - Denali

Thursday, June 9^th, we left the North Pole (Fairbanks) and drove about 125 miles to a campground about 8 miles outside Denali National Park.

As is the case every day, we saw mountains:

These are the mountains behind our campsite:

On Friday we drove to the Visitors Center and got our tickets for Saturday’s tour of the park. 

Then we drove into the park as far as you could go – 13 miles.  You can’t go any further unless unless you go by tour bus or you are camping at one of the CG’s further in. If you are camping, you can only drive to the CG and park your vehicle.  If you want to travel in the park, you have to catch a green bus which comes thru about every 15 minutes.  These green buses also pick up campers who have tent camped out in the wilderness somewhere.  

On the way back, we stopped at Mile Marker #9 which is where you can see Mt. McKinley, if it is visible.  And, it actually was!!  Hard to see because of the ice cap – it looks like clouds behind the closer and lower mountains.  With binoculars, it was quite pronounced.  But the camera couldn’t pick it up.  So you will have to take our word for it.

There was a large herd of caribou out in the field:

When we first saw this sign, we were wondering what it meant.

It just says that there is gravel ahead.  And whenever, we see snow, Judy has to take a picture of it!

We had hoped to see a train crossing this bridge, but it didn't happen.

We were almost out of the park (right near the turnoff to go to the Visitors Center when we saw this in the ditch:

The ironic thing about seeing this moose is that 12 years ago when we were here, we were on the bus coming back from the tour and right about here (but in the ditch on the other side), we saw a moose just like this one!


Our trip into Denali Park each day included traveling thru a canyon with a river along side.  We saw rafters here several times.

On Friday afternoon we drove back north a couple of miles the the 49th State Brewing Company in the town of Healy to taste their beer.

Unfortunately they had had a music festival the night before (that we knew about but didn't go) and they were out of the beer that they brew.  So we HAD to drink some other tap beer!  We got there around 3:15 planning to have a late lunch but found out that the kitchen doesn't open until 4.  So we sat at the bar with our beer and watched the Texas Longhorns baseball team play in a regional playoff round.  The sandwiches that we later ordered were so big that we only ate half and brought the rest back for another meal.

On Saturday we took our bus tour thru the park and saw several animals.

Dall sheep...

These are grizzly bears (in case you were wondering, they were nowhere near the sheep!!).

More scenery:

More Dall sheep:

And another moose:

Steve, here is the bus we rode on.

On Sunday we drove over to the train station where we saw the train come in from Fairbanks.

And the Princess dome cars.

Again, this was a nostalgia trip for us as we rode this train 12 years ago.  From Anchorage to Denali - got off, spent the night, toured Denali, got back on the train, and went to Fairbanks.  From there we flew back to Anchorage and then home to TX.