Denali

We had a pretty nice day traveling from Fairbanks to Denali. Instead of going on into the park that evening we decided to spend the evening at a dinner theatre. The food was great and served family style. We had BBQ ribs, salmon, potatoes, bisquits, corn on the cob and finished up with blueberry cobbler. All the waiters & waitresses were the actors in the show after dinner. They all had good voices, (it was a musical) some played guitars and one played the piano and he could really play. We enjoyed the program very much as well as the dinner. It was one of the 2-for-1 coupons in our Tour Saver book. ($59 each, regular price.)

The next day we went into Denali National Park to get a campsite. Whoops, should have made a reservation. They were full. Oh well, got a site starting the next day for 7 days. Parked in the parking lot and took the bus to Savage River. This is the furthest point that you can drive to, about 15 miles into the park. The buses that far are free and you can ride them as often as you want. That day was a beautiful day, in fact the bus driver told us it was their 4th summer day (July 14th). They had 3 over the July 4th weekend and this was their 4th. As there is not much parking at Savage River I would highly recommend that anyone visiting the park should ride the bus. They are great to stop if anyone sees animals. They will wait until everyone gets their photos before moving on. Although we ended up staying 9 days this first day was the only day we even saw the Mt McKinley. We will include a photo of what we saw that day. We began to think that was going to be the only view we had of it but fortunately we did see if after we left the park. That day we saw the arctic ground squirrel, the snowshoe hare, a caribou and some Dall sheep. We took the loop trail from the Savage River bridge. It is a 1.8 mile loop trail. The flowers were lovely and some so tiny you had to stop and bend over to even see them. The Dall sheep were beyond the end of the trail. We had to do a little climbing in order to get a better view. They were still hardly more than moving dots. The trail followed the river down one side, across the foot bridge, and back up the other side of the river. It was well maintained, in fact we met young employees that had finished their shift for the day. They were improving some spots in the trail, putting rocks across so the water could drain away. There were quite a few people on the trail but most were quiet and the major sound was the running water.

The next day we returned to the campground and settled in, viewing some of the films available in the Visitors Center and at the Wilderness Access Center. We also spent some time that day trying to get caught up with the blog.