Mom and Me Adventure – A Day in Denali National Park

Despite my well-known loathing of being awake before noon, I had my alarm clock set for 5am – yes, while on vacation. The only positive about getting up that early in the morning in June in Alaska is the fact that the sun is already pretty high in the sky, tricking you into thinking that it’s a bit later than the ass-crack of dawn.

I stumbled around getting dressed for any microclimate I could think of – hot, cold, rainy, sunny, windy, hail, plague of locusts… Fortunately, waking my mom up is slightly easier than waking me up and with less chance of bodily harm. I had packed my day pack the night before, so it was just a matter of sleepily pawing through the contents to make sure I packed binoculars, hats, gloves, a few granola bars, and sunglasses. Before I was fully awake, we were in the car and I was driving the 20 minutes to our tour’s pick-up point.

Some background info – Denali National Park is massive, on a scale that is hard to imagine – 6 million acres that includes the tallest peak in North America, 20,300 ft Denali (formerly known as Mount McKinley). The landscape encompasses a huge variety of landscapes – taiga forest, alpine meadows, mountain ranges, foothills, tundra, glaciers, spruce forests. There is an incredible amount to see. But the catch is, there’s only one road that winds through the park. And private vehicles are only allowed to drive on the first 15 miles of the road. After that, the pavement ends and the dirt road is only open to tour busses, official vehicles, people who have reservations at a select few campgrounds, bicyclists, hikers, and the lucky winners of an annual lottery that hands out a very limited number of park road passes. Online I see some people bitching about the “no private vehicles past this point” policy and honestly, I’d like to smack those self-entitled idiots. First of all, the ecosystem would be wrecked by hordes of people trampling off the trails, harassing the wildlife, getting mauled by grizzly bears, parking willy-nilly and blocking the road for miles when animals are spotted, and then pressuring the Park Service to have the entire road paved because their expensive SUVs are getting dented from the gravel being kicked up. Secondly, the hairpin turns and gravel roads – not to mention the ever-changing weather conditions – require people skilled and experienced in driving in those types of conditions. I cannot even image the damage that would be done by 5 cars annually falling off mountain roads into the valleys below because they took a turn too fast in wet conditions. For God’s sake, we have people dying just from standing in dangerous locations taking selfies, can you imagine people trying to take videos and selfies of themselves driving on that road? The carnage would be incredible. Let alone the casualties from people getting too close to grizzly bears for their selfies because you know that if some people were in their own vehicles, the whole “stay in your car” admonishment would go out the window. And finally, it’s such an amazing place that you absolutely should have someone else driving so you can look around and actually see what you’re there to see.

Mom and I made it to the hotel pick-up point for the Kantishna Roadhouse tour. We parked the car next to a raging river which would have been picturesque if we had had time to admire it, but instead we hauled ass to try to get a seat towards the front of the bus. Based on reviews of a number of bus tours in Denali, the advice was to sit as close to the driver as possible because obviously, once a driver spots an animal, they stop. And sometimes the people in the back are blocked by trees or whatever. I selected this particular tour for a couple of reasons. One, it’s one of the tours that goes the furthest along the road. Second, I read that the busses used by this company have wide sliding windows (rather than the typical school-bus tiny windows that are a pain in the ass to open). And third, I was curious to see the Roadhouse, as I had briefly considered booking a night there.

Once everyone at the first pick-up point had boarded the bus, we drove to a second pick-up location and then we were on our way into Denali National Park. Along the first 5-7 miles along the road, we drove through spruce forests that was home to a pack of fearless snowshoe hares who loitered on the side of the road licking the gravel until the last possible second before getting out of the way of the bus. In the summer, the hares are brown in order to blend in better with summer foliage. They turn white in the winter (I am taking the bus driver’s word for it because I’m too lazy to fact-check). Around mile 9, we got a glimpse of Denali, wreathed in clouds. As we gained elevation, the spruce trees thinned out and we entered moose territory. But we must have been too early because aside from the hares and ground squirrels, we saw no other animals as we made our way to the Savage River checkpoint.

No matter, because the landscape was gorgeous…and it changed at every turn. Our stop at the Sanctuary River provided the relaxing sounds of rushing water and crisp fresh air. A few minutes after this stop, we got to see a mother grizzly and her two yearling cubs about 100 yards from the road. I was glad I had remembered to bring binoculars so I could watch them gambol around. The road climbed up to Sable Pass, the second highest point on the road at an elevation of 3900 feet (1188 meters). The driver explained that there are a number of sections on either side of the road that are closed to hikers because of wildlife activity (fox nesting sites, grizzly bear activity, etc.) and pointed out the signs that denote the closures. I could not imagine hiking in such a vast wilderness. It was humbling to look around and see nothing but raw nature as far as the eye could see, even at an elevation that provided a vantage point to see for miles around.

Suddenly, the bus stopped. The driver wasn’t sure but she thought she saw a grizzly bear in the brush ahead. Everyone in the bus fell silent, straining to see what was causing the rustling. Then, a large gorgeous grizzly burst out of the bushes and crossed the road in front of the bus…and headed towards my side. I was in so much awe to be within 20 feet of such a magnificent animal that I almost forgot to take photos. Fortunately for my Instagram account, I finally grabbed my phone and began snapping like a member of the paparazzi.

We sat and watched the bear for a solid ten minutes. Finally, he/she/it (I wasn’t looking at its parts to verify) crashed back into the brush and the bus continued along the road. After Sable Pass, the road zigzags up and down like an EKG line. I have to give credit to our bus driver because she handled the bus on those hairpins on the narrow gravel road so skillfully that not even my mom got freaked out (she would have normally been hyperventilating because she does that whenever she’s not the one driving on regular roads). And at the same time, narrating a tour! I can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, let alone drive and talk smoothly and field questions from someone 12 rows behind me. I think I would be a great tour guide for people who want lots of snarkiness and made-up facts; but if I needed to drive at the same time – yeah no, because it would be all curse words, all the time.

And so we drove deeper into the park. We kept our eye peeled for more animals while at the same time, trying to soak in the incredible scenery.

At Eielson Visitor Center, friendly marmots popped out to say hello. Mom and I walked a short trail to try to catch a better glimpse of Denali. While we could just barely see the peak sticking out of the clouds, the cameras wouldn’t capture what our eyes were seeing. The crisp cold air seared through my lungs and I relished being able to hear only the wind whistling in my ears. It was a sublime experience and one I’m so grateful I got to have.

Back on the bus, we wound our way towards Wonder Lake. Apparently when the stars align just right and there’s no cloud cover on Denali and there’s no wind to ruffle the waters, you can get a perfect reflection of Denali in the lake. We were not so fortunate. Plus, the bus didn’t stop there anyway. After the lake, we actually exited out of the National Park lands and a few small wilderness lodges were visible. (No private concessions are allowed on National Park land so that means no privately-owned lodges or shops or restaurants within the confines of the park itself.) It’s about a 4-5 hour trek to get back there on a bus unless you take a helicopter or small plane; so I have to imagine that if you really want to get away from it all, those lodges are a pretty good option. The companies that own them run busses through the same route we took but without all of the photo stops to get to the lodges for overnight guests. A few minutes later, we pulled into the grounds of the Kantishna Roadhouse.

Kantishna Roadhouse is 90 miles from the National Park entrance. It sits in a location that allows for hiking into the park as well as the extensive wilderness that is not part of the park. The log cabin lodge has a small dining room, bathrooms, a gift shop, and a big porch with rocking chairs. Our group ate a simple lunch of vegetable soup and a chicken breast wrap. Then, we had the option of walking the grounds or gold-panning or listening to the resident dog-musher talk. I walked around, checking out the river that runs through the grounds before returning to the lodge to hear the dog-musher – who was actually hilarious while providing way more interesting trivia than I expected. His father was a multiple winner of the Iditarod so we learned quite a bit about that race as well. After his presentation, we all trooped out to watch the dogs run in front of an ATV. Let me tell you, those dogs want nothing more to run. It was crazy to see how excited they were to get harnessed up.

After we watched the dogs run, it was time to load back onto the bus for the return journey. The moose in Denali National Park must have gotten the message that they need to make themselves seen because on the way back, we spotted at least five different specimens. Moose are endearingly goofy creatures but you definitely do not want a pissed off moose charging at you. They’re huge, first off, but they can also kick in any direction. So if you’re within the radius of their legs, you can be in some serious trouble even if you’re standing alongside them. We also saw a black and white fox, which is much rarer than the typical red fox, as well as a golden eagle. All in all, we got to see the big animal stars of Denali National Park: grizzly bears, moose, caribou (or reindeer but officially in Alaska they’re called caribou), a boatload of birds, and the small critters like snowshoe hares, ground squirrels, and marmots.

The ride back didn’t take quite as long as the ride in because we didn’t take as many photo stops. The views were just as stunning on the return trip, but there were quite a number of people napping along the way. But I didn’t want to miss a thing. I mean, who knows if I will ever be back that way? I wanted to make sure that I could see everything I could and not take the spectacular scenery for granted.

We got dropped off at our car right around 7:45pm. We had spent nearly 14 hours on our tour but it really didn’t feel like it was that long. I’m sure having the break at the Roadhouse helped and in the excitement of seeing bears and moose and the amazing landscapes, time seemed to fly by. When I first mentioned to my mom this bus tour and the fact that it was at least 12 hours, she blanched but bravely said she was up for it. But at the end, even she said that it didn’t feel like the day dragged on.

We returned to the cabin, exhausted but so happy that we got to spend a day in one of the most amazing places on the planet. As humans overrun every ecosystem on the planet, we need these wild places to remind us that we’re a part of nature too. That these places belong not to us to abuse and degrade only to enrich a small few, but these places exist for all of us to be awed and inspired.