Savannah's Alaska Adventure: Denali National Park and Mount McKinley, Talkeetna, Anchorage

Denali National Park is fantastic. It has the best visitor center of any park I have seen. We took the 12.5 hour bus tour to Katishna (sp?) Lodge. We opted for the tour from the park rather than the commercial tour companies. Our driver/guide was Wendy. She is local, but originally from Minnesota. She still had Minnesota language and accent. She was very informative and entertaining.

The long ride on the school bus was great. Plenty of rest breaks and we stopped for every wildlife and scenic photo opportunity. Being there before 8:00 AM to catch the bus wouldn't have been a problem if we hadn't done the midnight ATV tour. I think it was after 2:00 when we got back and had to bathe and walk Savannah. Long day! 12 hours on a school bus on a bumpy, dusty, dirt road may sound bad, but it was great. I'd do it again tomorrow.
We saw a lot of moose, which Wendy said was unusual, but the bear were scarce. We had a fox at one of the visitor centers which didn't mind being photographed. There was also a young caribou which came down to the bus. We had just started the trip when we came to a mamma moose with a calf near the road. The weather was exceptionally clear and we had great views of Mount McKinley.

Denali Visitor Center

Janice called Bill and fed the mosquitos

Bear Tamers

First view of the mountain

Mount McKinley

Wildlife Photographer

Momma Moose and Baby

Caribou

Grizzly

Janice viewing Denali

The ATV tour was fun. We bounded around like little kids on the trail. It was unbelievably dust. We often couldn't see anything through the dust. The kids running the tour were fun. The mosquitos did manage to find us through the dust. Sue wore a white shirt which really looked good by the time we got back. there was dirt in places I didn't think could collect dust. I thought we would see wildlife since it was midnight, but we were too noisy. The sunset was gorgeous.

Talkeetna is a little town not far from Denali. It is where the mountain climbers begin their trip. It is said to be the inspiration for the TV show, "Northern Exposure". It is an interesting place to visit. We had a great lunch at one of the historic restaurants. Sue got adventurous and had a caribou burger. My halibut was really good, but Janice's Caribou medallions were out of sight. JC and I walked down to the river for a view of Mount McKinley. The river was high and we had to cross a small stream to get to the beach. A couple of young entrepreneurs had built a bridge and helped us across. Worked for tips only.