Our Alaskan RV Trip 2024: Day 14: Denali National Park, AK

Photo of the day:

Rainbow from mile 9 in Denali National Park (and Lynda Long Leg's shadow)

It rained all night and into the morning, so we got a little bit of a late start.

We noticed the refrigerator wasn't cooling properly and had a red flashing light. The manual indicated this was an issue that had to be handled via service. At the same time Dave called the rental company, Lynda turned the unit off and back on. Bingo. The light went back to green and stayed that way. The technician at the rental company had us check one thing, which was positive, and then said just to keep an eye on it. If it fails, we'll have to stop at the company on the way through Anchorage. We hope we don't have any problems. So far so good.

We stopped at the Visitor Center to look at the trail map before starting our first hike. While there, a ranger jumped from his desk and ran outside saying "moose". Of course we followed, and, sure enough, a moose walked through the woods right by the Visitor Center. We got a gauge of exactly how big these animals are (big!) and kept our distance.

Our hike for the day was an out and back that was 5.4 miles total. It is the Mt. Healy Overlook hike, and the brochures rate it as strenuous. We found the reason for the difficulty, which is the 1,700+ ft of elevation gain in the 2.7 miles of hiking. It was pretty steep and had lots of switchbacks. Despite the rain last night, the trail was in good shape and fairly dry.

Someone pointed out this hoof print to us, so we took a picture of it next to Lynda's hand to show the size.

That's a big hoof!

Here are some more pictures from the hike:

About 1/2 way up we stopped at at overlook for a short break.

The views kept getting better and better as we got higher up the trail.

The description of the hike said you might be able to see Denali from the top of the Overlook if all conditions were perfect. They weren't perfect, and we didn't see Denali. But, the views from the top were still amazing.

Proof we made it to the top.

Dave walked out to get a good view of the entire valley and the video below.

Here's a video from the top of the Mt. Healy Overlook.

When we got back to the RV after our hike, we saw a moose in the parking lot. Lynda was relieved to see him in the parking lot instead of along the switchback trails. He was eating from some small trees and, in some cases, bending the trees over while eating the leaves.

We had a 1:45 PM pickup for a Denali Bus Tour, but before heading to the meeting location we went to Savage River Campground to pick out our spot for the night. This campground is about 12 miles into Denali and is much more remote than where we stayed last night. We wanted to make sure we got a flat spot so we didn't have issues with the refrigerator again. We picked B11, made a quick sandwich in the RV, and drove back to the meeting spot for the tour.

While driving to the campground, we saw a porcupine in a tree. It surprised us since neither of us knew that porcupines hung out in trees nor in Alaska. We weren't able to get a picture due to the traffic on the road (which was one other car that had stopped to watch the porcupine :-) ), but we saw several more porcupines later in the day and eventually got a picture shown further down below.

The tour we took was called the Tundra Wilderness Tour. It was a 5.5 hour bus ride into Denali that is led by a tour guide/naturalist. Denali has one road that leads into it. It is a 92 mile road, but a landslide a couple years back has limited travel to the first 43 miles. So the bus tour goes out to mile 43 and then comes back.

We had a good driver who added plenty of commentary about the area and the history. The buses are also equipped with a fancy camera that the driver can use to zoom in on any animal we saw and project it onto monitors above the seats. We both agreed after that the tour was a worthwhile activity.

While it looks like a school bus, it is more comfortable.

While on the tour, we saw a lot of wildlife and were happy to see this much - especially from the comfort of the bus!

Caribou - probably about 12 overall
Ptarmigan - Alaska's state bird
Grizzly Bear
Red Fox - super bushy tail (no photo)
Dall Sheep - one of the reasons the park was originally established (no photo)
Porcupine
Grouse (no photo)
Raven and baby ravens in nest (no photo)

Here are pictures from the tour:

Caribou in the distance

Closer view of a caribou hanging out by the road

Ptarmigan - Alaska's state bird.
They pull out their brown feathers for the winter and then their white feathers for the summer.

This grizzly was walking through a camp 30 miles into the park. This was Lynda's picture through the rain-splattered window:

Thankfully, the people in front of us shared their picture shown below:

Earlier in the blog, we mentioned how some of the rivers in British Columbia and Alaska have wide valleys. We thought they were dry river beds that would be full at certain times of the year, but we learned on the tour that these are valleys carved by glaciers (as opposed to carved by the river itself). The Teklanika River is a great example.

We saw multiple porcupines along the roadside.

One area of the tour where we didn't take a picture is what they call a drunken forest. This is where trees are not standing upright because the shallow root systems that are developed due to the permafrost.

After the tour, we chatted with Brittney a little to finalize plans for tomorrow, mostly since we won't have internet at night and all her travel is at night. Hopefully there are no hiccups.

Since we were in the little town of Denali, we grabbed pizza at a place a friend recommended - Prospector's Pizza and Ale House. They'd only been open for 2 days this season. The pizza was tasty and hit the spot after a long day of hiking and bussing.

When driving back from dinner to our campsite, we were treated to an awesome sight. Lynda noticed a rainbow with the mountains as a backdrop in the side mirror, so we stopped and noticed it was a full rainbow. Truly gorgeous.

Yep, that's Lynda's shadow under the rainbow!

The clouds from earlier in the day had partially cleared, and we thought we saw Denali in the distance. They say that about 1/3 of people see Denali due to the weather. Here's the picture where we thought we saw it. It might be slightly visible in the clouds.