Denali National Park

Visit 3: August 2021

My fourth trip to Alaska, and third time in Denali was a big hit! Naturally on our drive up to the park entrance we had to make a stop off in Talkeetna. We got SO lucky that Denali was visible so we trekked down to the river to catch some views of its peak in the distance. We topped off our exploration of the town with some pizza from Mile High then hit the road again.

Denali is unique in that much of the park is not privately accessible. There are about 15 miles of the park road that are open to the public, and it ends at Savage River. We got a chance to walk around and explore the river banks on a rainier day (worse weather = available parking!)

We entered the park in the morning on our first full day with our eyes peeled for wildlife. I managed to glimpse the top of a moose rack, and Gram and I waited an hour and a half for him to stand up! The views and pictures were well worth it, as this moose was gigantic!

As we all like to joke – they do always seem to have their butts toward you.

This one was super cool! I got a few pictures of him shaking the water off of his back when he first stood up!

Here are two more female moose we saw cruising through the first 15 miles! They walked right across the road so we got some great views of them both!

A baby and a momma! This was my first time seeing a baby moose and it was sooo cute! It was pretty far away (as you can tell by the quality of the image) but still fun to see! This was another great example of us spotting people spotting wildlife.

Our first full day in Denali we did a rafting trip! On top of driving in to the park as many times as we could to see the wildlife shown in the pictures above of course 🙂

Also made a fun video – it has some sneak peaks from later blog posts but couldn’t resist including for Gram’s epic rapids reaction 🙂

Our second full day in Denali we had our bus tour. We were sad to learn that they were shortening the bus tour due to some concerns about the stability of the road. Turns out they were right to be concerned because there was a land slide on that portion of the road a few days after we left!!

Our wildlife viewing started a little slow, but it was hard to be sad since we had seen so much wildlife on our previous excursions into the park. We did catch some small game – including this adorable shot of a ground squirrel. We always seemed to catch glimpses of them, but this one decided to stay for just a few moments longer then his friends.

Grouse too!

We also got a chance to see some Caribou up close! This guy was the closest one we saw. He did get quickly overshadowed though by the bear on the other side of the road!

Our first grizzly spotting of the trip. We saw this show down happening real time. We all thought we might be about to see the circle of life at its finest, but our guide enlightened us that bears won’t typically chase down big game like this. They will try to target the weak or injured, but for everything else it simply isn’t worth the energy to try.

Here he/she is making that caribou think twice before coming so close again though!

Here was our second grizzly spotting, one with a much blonder coat. He was searching the river banks for more food opportunities, so we saw him from the viewing platform from the bus rest stop.

We didn’t get the same vistas we got last year since our turnaround point was so much sooner, but there were still some great views of the mountains!

Our final wildlife sighting of the tour – we caught a female running across the road and into the woods. I didn’t get any solid pictures, but here is one of her jogging back into the brush. The shortened bus tour ended up being a blessing since we had a long haul down to Seward!

Visit 2: September 2020

My third – and definitely not final – trip to Alaska is now being deemed my favorite vacation yet. And I’ve been some AMAZING places! I got to take this trip with my friend Mary as sort of a last minute changeover. With COVID restrictions our trip to St. Thomas/St. John to see Virgin Islands National Park was cancelled. We decided to make a small change in destination and head out to explore the last frontier!

Coming in to Denali we got a few glimpses of the sun on a dreary day. It would come out and reveal the stunning scenery surrounding us! Mountain peaks and colorful trees – Alaska is amazing in the fall

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One of our favorite things about this trip was that it was FALL!!! We left behind the humid mid-80s weather in MD for a cool crisp 50 degree breeze. The foliage was truely brilliant and made every drive that much more scenic.

We arrived at the park earlier than expected on Day 1 due to our flight tour being rescheduled. We decided to drive in to the park as far as we could to see what we could see. As usual for me – I didn’t spot any wildlife but I did spot other people spotting wildlife! There was a bull moose and two cows off in the trees. Full disclosure, I was clearly riding the struggle bus with my auto focus taking pictures of them moving through the trees. None of my moose pictures turned out great, but it was still proof of the sighting!

Once we reached the end of the road for people without special permits, we decided to do the Savage River hike. Despite the cold, rainy weather this hike was a great chance for us to stretch our legs and explore some trails. The color of the landscape and the river really popped with the overcast sky.

This bridge marked the end of the loop trail. You return the way you came, just on the opposite side of the river.

The next morning we woke up before the sun to catch our tour bus at the beginning of the park. Today we would get to travel further in than I’ve ever been before – 62 miles! Regular visitors can’t make it further than we did the previous day, which is about 15 miles from the visitor’s center. Overnight the ground had seen a fresh coating of snow. The tundra had more of a purple hue, frozen from the precipitation.
As our first wildlife sighting we saw another bull moose! Equally terrible focus – clearly I did not learn from my mistakes the night before. May have been the same one from the night before.

At our first rest stop we had a chance to hike back to check out this lake we drove by. Love lake reflections in the morning sun.

The sun, the views, the mountains….. I wish I was still there. This whole trip I couldn’t peel my eyes from the landscape. Not only were we scouring the scenery for wildlife, but we were awed by the beauty of the Alaskan range surrounding us!

Here was our second wildlife sighting – Caribou! There were a bunch of males on the side of the mountain. Mary and I were cracking up because due to a discussion about antlers the night before we were already experts on all the information our guide shared with us. For my readers who don’t know – Antlers fall off every year, differing from horns which are permanent. Caribou males and females can both grow antlers, and antlers can grow up to 1 1/2 inches a week. Crazy!!

The caribou here are practicing for when they are in mating season. They were sparing and starting to figure out the pecking order. Once they were done they went right back to snacking on some brush.

The road was often narrow and winding. Our driver was clearly a professional – but when he mentioned that in the height of a normal summer season they might have 70 buses running I couldn’t even imagine! Having to pass another bus on some of these stretches must be treacherous. It was also a testament to how low tourism was since on this day they only had 4 buses running.

The tour bus ahead of us was stopped and watching the mountain side. When we all engaged our zoom lenses, we found the bear up on the top of the mountain. He was heading down slowly at first and stopping to scratch his back on a few trees.

The bear proceeded to walk/run all the way down the mountain! Our tour guide was patient and waited the whole time. The bear walked right down the mountain, across the river, and directly in front of our bus!! It was amazing, one of my Alaskan memories was the hush of the bus and the clicking of cameras as he wandered in front of us.

Here are some views from another stop. There was actually a small gift shop here inside the park where you could buy some souvenirs.

It was really snowing by the time we made it here! We got to climb up to the top of a little hill for some stunning views of the valleys and mountains surrounding us. No one seemed too sad when it was time to climb back on to the warm bus afterwards.

Now here are two pictures that were hotly debated during our tour. The guys sitting behind me spotted an animal running up the side of the mountain. We all assumed it was a bear, I snapped a few pictures but figured they wouldn’t turn out. The question had to be asked though – why would a bear be running up the side of a mountain?? Another guy chimed in saying he thought it had a strange gait for a bear. When I inspected my photos more closely we saw what you can see above – a long tail trailing behind him! We now firmly believe it was a wolverine!! These animals are SUPER rare which is why few of us believed it at the time. Not great quality but still serves as proof!!

Despite the fact that Denali never came into view during our tour, the views of the closer peaks did not disappoint.

This and the next picture both were taken on our way back out of the park on our bus tour. It was cool to see how different it looked once the dusting of snow had melted.

The next morning we got on our way back down to Talkeetna to catch our flight seeing tour. The weather had cleared up beautifully and the majestic peak of Denali was finally in full view!! Love it with the soft pink hue as the sun struck it for the first time that day. We were part of the 30% for sure – as they say Denali is only visible about 30% of the time.

Here are some additional views of the peak from the South viewing point. Bit of a lighting contrast but still turned our really great. Denali is the tallest peak in North America, its peak measuring at 20,310 feet. You can also see Mt Foraker, the second highest peak in the Alaskan range.

Next stop after admiring the view of Denali was Talkeetna Air Taxi. As the morning progressed the weather could not have been better!! The staff even said they don’t see days that beautiful more than a handful of times in a year. This picture was actually taken on day 1 of our trip when our flight was cancelled due to weather. We were very bummed at the time but it turned out for the best!!

The planes could hold about 11 people including the pilot. We were excited to learn that our pilot was a woman!! She was incredible and so much fun to learn from.

Mary and I in the plane getting ready to take-off. Like my snazzy Talkeetna Air hat? 🙂 Rocking the masks!

Denali from our take off point! Here we come!!

The tundra has the most amazing rainbow color to it this time of year. I am sure other pictures will show it as well, but it was magnificent to see from the sky.

Here I am with our plane! I will admit walking on the snow off the plane tracks was VERY challenging. Its been a long time since I’ve sunk up to my mid thigh in snow!

The rugged summit of Denali!! Crazy how even the last part of its peak is massive!! Despite my 1000 other pictures of Denali from many vantage points, this flight tour had the greatest views.

I love this vantage point too. Not too far from here the base camp for Denali can be found during the climbing season. Fun fact – our pilot is one of the few people to summit Denali twice within 6 days!

Some more of that rainbow tundra as we were leaving behind the Alaskan range. What an incredible flight tour!! Check out the video below for a montage from the flight!!

Here are two videos – one is long and one is just an edited down version. All go-pro footage from my window so sorry for the glare. I’ve watched this many times and it never gets old. So amazing!! Great finishing activity for Denali!

Visit 1: Sept 2016

This park is one of two that I got to visit while visit my friend Marybeth in Alaska! Alaska really is a vast wilderness. When we were looking at how many parks we could hit while I was there it was crazy to learn how big everything is there. I flew into Fairbanks, which is where she and her husband were stationed, and we spent a few days exploring the area. I will dive right into my northern lights pictures because they are my absolute favorite. This first set of pictures was taken near Fairbanks. And the first picture is my first northern lights picture I’ve ever taken. And arguably the best.

Not to ruin the magic-because it is still cool to see, but all the pictures except the first one to the visible eye were just hazy fog. The first band was green to the eye, but the others were way better in photos than in real life. I kept Marybeth out there for hours taking pictures. She was very patient 🙂 The next day we started our road trip down to Talkeetna which is very near Denali National Park. We hiked Mt. Healy, which is somehow listed as the “tallest peak in Denali”. Obviously not including Denali itself.

The views from the top of this peak were great – although no clear site to Denali since it was blocked by some other mountains

It wasn’t until we continued our drive that the beautiful peak came into view! I have about a million pictures from both angles we got but I will show you one of my favorites 🙂

And here it is from the south side

I think even the closest point you can get driving is still over 10s of miles from its base! Its HUGE! Topping out at 20,310 feet its the tallest peak in North America. People seeking to summit this mountain need months-years or training and preparation.

I loved being in Alaska in September because even though summer was still clinging to MD that time of year, autumn was in full bloom here.

We camped on a beach in Talkeetna that night. Another great thing about Alaska – you can just camp wherever you want!

We drove around the area and saw some pretty cool stuff. The town of Talkeetna was also very fun. Good food, and some good beer.

Night #2 of good northern lights pics! The pictures are blurry because I was having a real hard time trying to get all the settings working on my camera – but you can still see it! At one point they were so bright green – even to the visible eye – that I had to change my ISO settings again!

I spent over 4 hours taking pictures that night – so if you’re ever interested I have a couple hundred. This last one even had some red in it! I can see how this nighttime photography can be addicting! I’ve never seen so many stars as I did while I was there

So I am going to throw some bonus pictures in this post! We visited Homer, and although its not a national park – a lot of these pictures from the drive down are worthy of this blog!

First off the drive from Anchorage down to the Kenai peninsula is to die for. I wish it would be my commute to work everyday. I also had my first sighing of a beluga whale!!

You can see it and the two others barely in this picture! I had to scramble to get my camera when I saw them!!

We decided to camp right on the spit in Homer

These towns are so beautiful because you have the ocean and the mountains all in one place! We drove up a little higher and got our first look at the glacier

We explored the town and marina and watched the sunset. I even saw a boat just for me 🙂

We stopped in to the Salty Dawg Saloon for a beer to end the day. I even got to see two types of eagles! The bald eagle is very common in this area, and there was a nest with two golden eagles as well

And of course some adorable otters

More than just Denali national park here, but this just made me want to come back to Alaska as often as I get an opportunity. There is still so much more to see!