My time in Denali

Late start

Since I didn’t have a long way to go, I could take a slow morning and have an extra cup of coffee.  I was grateful, as the rain was still streaming from the sky.  Packing up, I got soaked while loading my gear onto Kymani.  I had a fourth cup of coffee, hoping the rain would stop, but there was no such luck.  Eventually, I put on my warmest clothes, zipped up my gear, climbed into my raingear, and hopped on Kymani to head to Denali.

The scenery was probably beautiful, but the clouds and rain conspired to keep me from enjoying it.  When I got to Nenana, I stopped to drop off some of the extra coffee that I’d drunk earlier.  A man told me to stay, as they were having the 100-year celebration of the railroad.  He told me I should stay in Nenana as the governor would be there and the parade would be fantastic.  Had the weather been better, I would have considered it, but I wanted to get out of the wet.

Denali

Though most of the scenery was buried behind clouds, the parts of the drive I could see were as beautiful as everywhere else in Alaska.  I rolled to the Denali National Park entrance and smiled that I was finally here.  When arriving to camp, everyone checks in to the Mercantile at Riley Creek Campground.  I had reservations at the Savage River Campground, about 15 miles from the entrance.  By the time I got to Denali, I didn’t really want to ride that far into the park, away from mobile signal and wifi.  I decided to check to see if there was any availability at Riley Creek.

New campground

Riley Creek only had availability at the walk-in campground, but they had motorbike parking at the front of the walk-in sites.  I scored a site right by Kymani and got set up in the rain.  Right after I parked Kymani, I saw a woman acting in a way that could only mean she saw some sort of animal.  I ran halfway to her, then realized I didn’t have my camera or my phone.  DANG!  I ran back to the bike and grabbed my phone off the handlebars.  A porcupine! 

A porcupine!  The one animal I really wanted to see.

The photo is blurry, but it’s a porcupine.  Then I went back, set up my site, then I jumped on a bus to go to the Visitor Center.

Kymani parked at my campsite

I could hang out there, use the wifi, and stay dry.  I wandered around the Mercantile and Visitor Center, bought some souvenirs for the family, watched a couple of movies at the Visitor Center, checked out the displays and just enjoyed being dry.

The relief of Denali at the visitor center.

Eventually the rain let up and I made my way back to my campsite, had dinner, and went to bed.

Dog Kennels

The next morning brought more rain, so I decided to see as much of the park as I could on the free hiker bus. I got on a bus to the kennels.  Denali is the only national park with its own dog sled team, and you can visit the kennels, check out the dogs, and get a demonstration of the team. The dogs were very mellow and some of them let you pet them.  It was pretty cool to see them work.  The dogs are retired when they get to be 9 years old, and the public is invited to adopt them.  If you live near Denali, you can also volunteer to be a dog walker.

         

A couple of the sled dogs at the kennel

After I spent some time at the kennel, I hopped on another bus and rode out to Savage River and back.  Savage River is the furthest you can go in the park for free.  The bus was nice because I got to see a small piece of the park and stay out of the rain.  There is a lot to see in the park.  Eventually, the bus went back to the Visitor Center.  I hung out there for some time until the rain quit. Back at the campsite, I went for a little hike.  It started to rain, but I wanted to see something other than the visitor center!

   

Something has been eating these                    Beautiful fireweed                                             Riley Creek

   

A moose I found on my walk.  She got fairly close before I left.                                             The train bridge into Denali

 

Riley Creek                                                           A cool rock I wanted to bring home but didn’t

Tour bus

The next day, it finally wasn’t raining!  This was the day I was going to ride the Tundra Wilderness Tour bus.  This bus goes deep into the park, which is only accessible via the buses.  In a normal year, the bus would go to mile 92 in the park.  Starting last year, the only road in the park was closed at mile 43 due to the Pretty Rocks landslide.  This would make the trip a lot shorter, but I was still hoping to see wildlife.  In spite of the fact that rain wasn’t actively falling, it was very cloudy, so we probably wouldn’t get a view of Denali itself.  It turns out, only about 30% of the people that visit ever get to see the High One, Denali.  Most of the time, the white mountain is shrouded in clouds, invisible to people.  I didn’t think I’d get to see the mountain, but I was hoping for some good views of wildlife.

The bus drove slowly, and the driver was a great tour guide.  She knew a ton about the park and freely shared her knowledge.  She was also willing to stop the bus if any of us shouted out that we’d seen something.  Assuming, of course, that it was safe to do so.  At about mile 9 is the first chance to view the mountain for which the park is named.  Our driver pulled over at the turnout there.  We all got out of the bus and looked for the mountain.

My first view of Denali.  Can you see it?

In between the clouds, there was a slight glimpse of the bright white of the snow that covered the High One.  Apparently, this was enough to put us into the 30% Club.  This is the club of about 30% of the visitors that come to see the great mountain and actually DO get to see it.  Denali is frequently wrapped in a shroud of clouds and is usually not visible.  The bit of slice that I could see didn’t really impress me that much, but at least I knew it existed!

Once we were back on the bus, we kept travelling down the road.  I was on the lookout for wildlife, but the best we saw for the first maybe 20 miles was some ptarmigan.  Birds, sigh.  They were in the middle of the road, and we had to wait for them to move.  It’s park policy to not honk or try to scare the wildlife out of the road.  So, we sat and waited until the crazy family of ptarmigan decided to leave us be.  We finally headed on our way to more scenery and wildlife.

A family of ptarmigan

So dang pretty

We did see a bunch of scenery, and it was beautiful.  Man, this place.  We saw some caribou and then we reached the turnaround at the Pretty Rocks slide.  Guess who decided to show us her top?  Denali, also known as the Great One or the High One.  It really is a pretty mountain and though it was largely blocked by the mountains in front of it at this distance, they were also beautiful.

   

Some of the scenery from the tour.                     Caribou

   

Another glimpse of Denali.                               The gorgeous mountains at Pretty Rocks.

                 

More shots of Denali.  You can only see the peaks from this area of the park.

   

More shots of the park.  It is wild and stunningly breathtaking.

The ride back was, of course, just as pretty.  We did see some Dall sheep high up in the mountains, but I didn’t have a long enough lens to get a shot of them.  Eventually, we made it back to the bus stop near the entrance of the park.  The whole ride was about 5 ½ hours.  We didn’t see nearly as much wildlife as I’d hoped for, but we did see the mountain and I was dry all day, so I thought it a success.

Leaving in the rain

It started to rain in the night.  I laid in bed for a while, hoping it would quit.  At about 0730, there was a break in the storm, so I jumped up.  I started packing as fast as I could, but that tiresome rain came back to pour on my head as I got ready to go.  I couldn’t even enjoy my coffee because of the rain.  Oh well.  At least I didn’t have far to go.  Palmer was my destination, and it was only a little more than 200 miles away.  And bonus here, I was staying at an AirBnB so there would be no camping in the rain.  I’d come this far, so what is another couple hundred miles in the endless rain?