Denali National Park
Denali is Alaska's iconic national park. It is a place where you are guaranteed to get great pictures of wildlife framed by incredible Alaska wilderness scenery.
Alaska
2000, 2006, 2015
About The Park
If you have to pick one National Park to visit in Alaska then Denali is hands down the one. It is easily the most accessible; five of the others require a bush plane to get to, one a boat ride and the other a 60 mile drive down a dirt road to get to it. Denali is about a 3½ -
Unfortunately all of this makes for crowds, which is the only downside to this park, but hardly a reason to avoid it. The park service does an excellent job of managing things and anyone who visits gets an unforgettable experience.
The Denali National Park and Preserve is comprised of Denali National Park, the Denali National Park Wilderness, and the Denali National Park Preserve. Together they total over 6,000,000 acres or 9,446 mi.². This is almost 3 times the size of Yellowstone National Park but Denali is only the fourth largest national park in Alaska. Those designations have more to do with the level of protection afforded to each unit (hunting, subsistence hunting, for example) and for all intents and purposes it is all Denali National Park even though technically it is only the last 2 miles of the park road, the only road into this 9,446 square mile park, that actually is in the part that is designated Denali National Park. The rest of the park road is in the Denali National Park Wilderness which is afforded the highest level of protection.
What’s really great about Denali, as I said, is its accessibility. Not only can you drive to it but you can drive into it. The park road is paved for the first 15 miles up to the Savage River. That’s as far as you normally can take your car. Beyond that there is a narrow graded road that goes for another 77 miles to Kantishna where the only lodging that lies within Denali National Park can be found. Staying there is very expensive in comparison to the usual national parks lodges and lodging in the surrounding areas.
To go beyond mile 15 you have to either book a tour with a concessionaire that works with the National Park Service or take a transit bus.
Bus Tours and Transit Buses
The tour buses are fully guided tours in three different flavors ranging from 5 to 12 hours depending upon how far down the park road they go. Your ticket is for a particular tour and you stay with that bus from start to finish. They give you a guided tour with a trained naturalist as your driver who will tell you what you are seeing and explain to you about the animal life that his trained eye will spot and stop for.
The transit buses are a more flexible option especially for those who are interested in doing day hikes. There are more options as far as how far out you want to take the bus as a maximum distance which is the basis for the cost. They will stop for wildlife but the driver may or may not have anything to say about it. They are step-
An advantage to being on a bus is that they sit higher making it easier to spot wildlife and you also have lots more eyes looking for wildlife. Everyone’s on the lookout and everyone knows when somebody spots something and those interested get out their cameras and binoculars.
Whichever way you travel the park road parallels the Alaska Range for the entire length of it. Whatever beautiful scenery you stop and take pictures of all have this majestic backdrop. The road itself can be both a bit exciting and also unnerving. There are points where you are high above the valley below you with no guard rails and significant drop-
You can find information on both of these ways of touring Denali on the National Park Service website.
Road Lottery
There is also a lottery where, permits are issued for vehicles to travel the park road in September after the bus season ends. You specify a choice of days and you can drive as far out as the weather permits.
They previously issued 1600 permits for 4 days and the odds were about 1 in 7 to get the permit. This link is to the Recreation.gov website for more information. Search on Denali.
The Mountain - Denali/Mount Mckinley
Naturally people coming to Denali expect to see the famous mountain formerly known as Mount McKinley. The official name now is ‘Denali’ which in the Athabascan language means ‘The Great One’. It is a massive mountain 20,310 feet high (6,190m) and which is 18,000 feet from the base to the top making it the highest vertical climb on the planet. It has more vertical than Mt. Everest which is about a 12,000 foot vertical climb. Interestingly the national parks brochure still calls it Mount McKinley.
There’s a rule of thumb in Denali that says on any given day you have an 80% chance of seeing a Moose, a 25% chance of seeing the mountain and a 10% chance of seeing a wolf. If you are driving up from Anchorage on the Parks Highway (Alaska Highway 3) there are a couple of Denali View overlooks where you might get lucky and get a good view of the mountain. By the way, the Parks Highway is named for George Parks and has nothing to do with Denali National Park.
Denali, the mountain, is surrounded by glaciers but they are not easy to see from the park road. They are either far from the park road or are on the side facing the Parks Highway and more easily seen with binoculars from the highway’s overlooks. An exception is the Polychrome Glacier which is visible from the Polychrome Overlook which is at mile 53.
What most people come to Denali for is the wildlife viewing. The only other National Park that even comes close in terms of wildlife viewing is Yellowstone. In Denali if you take the bus for any distance down the park road you’re almost guaranteed to see both moose and bears. On two different trips I even saw moose in the parking lots near the visitor center. On one occasion there was a moose with her calf munching on some willows. The park service brochure had a warning about staying clear of moose in willows during the calving season. That didn’t stop about 20 people from standing there, much too close, taking pictures. If a ranger had come by he or she would have dispersed the crowd with a caution about the danger. I looked around at the crowd and decided that I could probably run faster than any of them so I took my pictures. That was 20 years ago and I’d be a little more circumspect about my prospects today. But they do joke that you only have to be faster than one other person.
If you are wondering which park(s) to visit in Alaska, this is the one you don’t want to miss.
Wildlife
The wildlife is truly amazing. We have been here three times and on all of our trips we had multiple moose and bear sightings, Dall’s sheep, beavers, caribou, foxes, marmots, hawks and eagles. And most amazingly, returning from the Backcountry lodge very early in the morning, the bus had to stop for a pack of howling wolves on the road. The photo gallery has some of those pictures.
Lodging
There’s no lodging in the park anymore. There was once a lodge in the park but it burned down many years ago. There is plenty of lodging outside of the park however.
Denali Princess Hotel
We stayed at the Denali Princess Hotel which is situated on a scenic bluff overlooking the Nenana River. The rooms were very nice and there was a large expansive deck looking over the river towards the park. We sat out there in the wee hours (it was summer) to see the Northern Lights. The hotel is part of Princess Cruise Lines so combination sea and land trips use this hotel.
Denali Backcountry Lodge
The second time we were in Denali we stayed at the Denali Backcountry Lodge which is at the end of the park road 92 miles out and outside the boundary of Denali National Park. The Backcountry Lodge while all inclusive (transportation, meals, guided tours as well as lodging) was however, rather expensive. At the time of our visit (2006) there was no park bus service that went that far out. They do now but with stops for wildlife it is about a 12 hours-
Grand Denali Lodge
On our last trip we spent a night at the Grand Denali Lodge up on a mountain overlooking the park. On that trip Denali was a last-
Hiking
If you’re doing any hiking in Denali you should spend some time familiarizing yourself with what you should do if you encounter a bear or a moose. These are your potentially most dangerous encounters even though there has only been one fatal attack by a bear in the park’s history. That may have been a man who was out hiking alone and surprised the bear while he was taking pictures too close to where the bear was. When they found him the photos on his camera seem to point to that scenario. They could see the bear suddenly notice him and charge.
The are some nice easy hikes around the visitor center and a number of interesting hikes along the park road.
Savage River Loop Trail
The Savage River Loop Trail is a nice easy trail which you can get to in your own vehicle since vehicles are allowed up to that point (mile 15). It’s about 1.7 miles and can be done in an hour or so. You can extend the hike by hiking off trail but then you need to be careful about wildlife encounters and you can find yourself in places where the trail can get steep and the footing uncertain.
When we took this hike it was made more scenic due to a sudden snow squall. It was August 30th we weren’t exactly dressed for snow but it was cool enough when we got to the park that we weren’t in shorts. The average July temperature is only 69° so you have to keep that in mind especially once the afternoon sun sets.
McKinley Bar hike
In the Wonder Lake area (mile 85) we did the McKinley Bar hike which was about a 4 to 5 mile out-
All three times that I was in Alaska I came with deet and never used any of it. I suspect by the end of August the mosquito season is pretty much over. I have read of campers who were afraid to leave their tent to answer nature’s call because of the amount of insects that they could see on the outside of the tent canvas from the inside and the size of them. They were probably camping earlier in the summer.
Tattler Creek trail
At mile 50 there is the Tattler Creek trail that leads to an area with dinosaur tracks. I didn’t take this hike and I believe it is a day hike. The rangers at the visitor center would be the people to ask about the distance and where dinosaur tracks can be found. My experience elsewhere is that knowing that they are out there somewhere is a long way from actually finding them.
Denali National Park Photo Gallery
Other Resources
Denali National Park and Preserve on the National Parks Service Website -
Denali National Park and Preserve -
Denali/Mount Mckinley -
Other National Parks Within a Day’s Drive
Kenai Fjords National Park Whales, dolphins, orcas and massive tidewater glaciers are 365 miles south and about a 6 hour drive which would take you through Anchorage, Alaska.
Alaska is America’s largest state. It has eight national parks. Of these there are five which have no roads into them and require bush planes to get to them.
Fom Anchorage you could take a bush plane to Lake Clark National Park or Katmai National Park and might be able to get to either of these parks that same day. Certainly you could get there the next day.
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Updated 02/11/23 7:04 PM
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