Our Alaskan RV Trip 2024: Day 16: Denali National Park, AK to Girdwood, AK

Photo of the day

Apollo, a beautiful sled dog at the Denali kennels

Today is the day that Dad and Carol join us here in Alaska. Before heading out this morning, we got things packed up and headed up to the visitor center to take a bus to the Sled Dog Kennels.

At the Visitor Center, we took this picture to show the Alaska Range and where Denali sits

Brittney ended up seeing two real moose later in the morning too.

They have 31 sled dogs at Denali that are used to help patrol the park and help pull supplies to different areas as needed. We were able to pet the dogs and then listened to a 20 minute presentation by a ranger. It was very interesting. They use the dogs instead of snowmobiles or other vehicles to preserve the Wilderness of the park.

On the way into the parking lot, we saw another moose. We also saw a moose when we were leaving, and it did not look to be the same one, but we are unable to get a picture. Today we are heading south to Anchorage, where we will meet up with Dad and Carol.

Lovely moose at the Sled Dog Kennel area at Denali

"Sled" they use for the demonstration (and Shadow Dave)

Here's the sled and the harness system. For the demonstration, they had 4 dogs hooked up.

Apollo

Pika

During the drive from Denali to Anchorage, we stopped at several viewpoints. We saw a different angle of Denali, despite some cloud coverage.

Denali is about 1/3 the way from the left of the picture. Mostly cloud covered.

This isn't Denali, but a nice view of a different mountain range.

Denali is framed between the two main large trees.
Mostly cloud covered, but you can zoom in to see it.

Brit was tired from the tough travel schedule to get to Denali

We stopped at the South Viewpoint for Denali. Overall, a pretty decent view.

This is a posted sign with the actual view in the background.

That's Denali above the clouds. Since it is so tall, it makes its own weather.

Some more scenery as we continued on the drive to Anchorage:

We made it to Anchorage, and the odometer has about 4,200 miles on it.

Anchorage Welcomes Us!

Beluga Point, south of Anchorage

We met Dad and Carol at the hotel and RV park where we are both staying. This is about 25 minutes south of Anchorage. At this RV park, I (Dave) learned that I should have paid more attention to the electricity connection, as this place only has 20 AMP service. That means we needed an adapter to connect our RV to the power. Luckily the RV office had one they loaned us.

Looks like we are trying to tip the RV, but the level inside says it is level!

Dad and Carol's hotel and rental car! This place will not win any awards but, conveniently, their room was connected the the laundry room so we snuck in a load!

There isn't a sign saying this the world's largest eagle, but it is big!

We had a beer at Ravens Ring Brewing Company and grabbed a cheesesteak sandwich at the Mammoth Food Truck.

Brittney noticed the "W" banner in the brewing area.
Turns out the brew master is a Cubs and Bears fan.

Happy to have Dad and Carol joining for the last week.

The brewery had a tough bouncer - a small dog named Hopper. He let us all in but had to be bribed to let in Dave. He was about 8 pounds with 3 legs, and had a "security" hoody on. The bartender, Hopper's owner, said he ran 5+ miles regularly with Hopper.