Alaska: Denali National Park

Arriving at the third largest U.S. National Park (seven of the ten largest are in Alaska). (This photo merged from two photos to capture both of us smiling.) (All photos by author unless otherwise credited)

From Anchorage, we turned back northward to Denali National Park/Preserve. One of the few reservations we made prior to this summer trip was three days at Teklanika Campground, 29 miles inside the Park. It is a totally "dry" campground (no hookups for electricity, water, or sewer), but our 300-amp hour lithium battery (that we had had installed in Portland, Oregon) and the campground bath facilities were sufficient. We really enjoyed being at the farthest point you can drive a private vehicle in the Park.

The glacially-fed, braided Teklanika River behind our campground, where we wandered amidst brightly colored rocks (washed down from a 50 million year-old volcanic formation) and the scat of moose and caribou (Denali National Park, Alaska).

We did get to see Denali ("The Great One"), which supposedly is true for only 1/3 of Alaska tourists. Denali is so tall (soaring to 20,300 feet, making it the highest elevation summit in North America, and measuring 18,000 feet from base to peak, making it the tallest land-based mountain on earth) that moist air flowing in from the Gulf of Alaska slams into the mountain and condenses into clouds covering the peak. It definitely helped our chances to be in Alaska for so long!

Our first glimpse of Denali on July 2, 2025, from the George Parks Highway north of Denali State Park, looking over the Chulitna River (Alaska).

View of the snowy top of Denali from Denali State Park on July 4, 2025 (Alaska).

When clouds covered Denali, we truly could see neither it nor even a suggestion of a mountain, which made information signs initially very confusing:

No view of Denali on August 4, 2025. The visible mountains are actually only the low nearby peaks (Double Mountain, 5,900 feet, 17 miles away; and Sable Mountain, 6,000 feet, 30 miles away). It is as if Denali (20,300 feet, 75 miles away) has been whisked away. (Denali Park Road viewpoint Mile 10.6, Denali National Park, Alaska)

Late morning view of Denali from Denali Transit Bus on August 6, 2025 (Denali National Park, Alaska).

Late afternoon closeup of Denali from Denali Transit Bus on August 6, 2025 (Denali National Park, Alaska).

Tourists photograph Denali in the distance from Denali Park Road viewpoint on August 6, 2025; no view of Denali from the same spot on August 7, 2025 (Denali National Park, Alaska).

The wildlife viewing in Denali National Park was truly stupendous. We saw wildlife, tracks, and scat at our campground, the Teklanika riverbed, the Denali Park Road, and the East Fork Toklat riverbed. (The East Fork Bridge at Mile 43 is currently the farthest open point of the Denali Park Road after the ongoing Pretty Rocks Landslide destroyed the road at Mile 45.4 in 2021; a new bridge over the landslide area should re-open the road to Mile 90 in 2027.)

The braided, glacially-fed East Fork Toklat River. Its waters eventually flow, via the Toklat River, Kantishna River, Tanana River, and Yukon River, west into the Bering Sea of the Northern Pacific Ocean. (Denali National Park, Alaska)

Doug shakes his head at Alison's fascination for photographing scat. From top to bottom, left to right: fresh red bear scat next to willows and soapberry bushes; fresh moose, bear, and ptarmigan scat; closeup of fresh bear scat filled with soapberry skins and seeds (bears digest only the pulp), caribou scat; wolf scat, caribou scat. (All identifications are Alison's and may be incorrect!) (Denali National Park, Alaska)

Caribou tracks and wolf tracks in the soft sand of the East Fork Toklat riverbed (Denali National Park, Alaska).

Smaller animals: Spider; Arctic ground squirrel; ptarmigan (Denali National Park, Alaska).

Animals in the distance: Dall's sheep (as with Dall's porpoises, named in honor of late 19th century American naturalist and scientific surveyor William Healey Dall); cow moose; grizzly bear sow and two cubs. (Denali National Park, Alaska)

A caribou with one shovel antler walks in front of the Denali Transit Bus near the East Fork Bridge; later, the same (we think) caribou walked across the East Fork Toklat riverbed right at us, then turned and passed to our side. It was incredible. (Denali National Park, Alaska)

On our way out of Denali National Park, we thought the transit and tour buses were stopping for a flock of ptarmigan, then realized a grizzly bear sow and her two cubs were entering the road! They crossed in front of us, then wandered back to our side and passed right by our passenger window! (Denali Park Road, Alaska)

Alison also took a naturalist tour of the area nearby to the Denali Visitor Center:

From left to right, top to bottom: The spruce bark beetle population, native to Alaska, has ballooned in Denali National Park due to recent warmer winters (dead trees are left in place unless near human use areas); the guide directed us in tasting the edible berries and fungi which also feed the resident animals, from 600-pound bears to four-inch shrews; a fungal infection has caused a tree to grow a tangled mass of twigs called a witch's broom; a family of red squirrels' discarded spruce cone scales and cores create a deep midden at the base of a tree, used to store fresh cones for later consumption; berries, fungi, and flowers on the forest floor; sparkling Riley Creek.

May 30 through August 6, 2025: 4,254 total miles driven from Bellingham, Washington, through Denali National Park, Alaska.

From Denali, we drove up and out of Alaska to Yukon, Canada, via the often-gravel Denali Highway and Top of the World Highway, then down through Dawson City and Whitehorse to re-enter Alaska for a quick dip into the top of the Inside Passage. Details in our next blog post!