When we planned our Alaska trip the only reservation we actually made in advance for the entire 4 months was our campsite in Denali National Park. We were advised that Denali’s campgrounds really fill up, well in advance, and if we had any intention of camping within the park, reservations were a must. We departed Fairbanks, AK on Thursday July 4th and decided to make the lion’s share of the drive to Denali. Our thoughts were that we would camp for a few nights outside of Denali making preparations for our stay in the park and try to venture into the park with the Mini before actually arriving for our reservation on 7/7/19.

A roadside visitor on the way to Denali…

We stopped at Tatlinika Trading Co. & RV Park not far from the entrance to Denali to inquire about a site for a few nights. We were fortunate to get a site for $27.00 a night right on the river. Although it was dry camping they did have water and a dump station on-site. The location was perfect for our planned recognizant trips to Denali. They have an incredible gift shop on the premises which seems to have been discovered by all the cruise ship busses that regularly stop and use the rest room facilities. Although the buses proved to be no issue we couldn’t believe how many large tour buses passed our campsite each day doing the loop through the campground. Whether you were cruising Princess, Holland America, Royal Carribbean or Norwegian everyone stopped as this gift shop for a break.. Crazy …

While staying in Fairbanks we had connected with several other RVers in the park. One couple was Denny & Bonnie from Colorado. Bonnie & Denny were traveling in an Airstream B+ though had on order a new custom Super C. We had hoped to connect with them again soon and just by chance it was sooner than we had ever imagined. Through a series of texts we decided to meet for a beverage and dinner at the famous 49th state Brewery outside of Denali. The brewery isn’t far from Denali’s entrance and had plenty of outside seating along with a replica of the famous bus from the book/movie “Into the Wild” by John Krakauer. The beer was excellent and the meal even better. It was great to get a chance to share with our new friends more and we look forward to getting together with them again at some point in Colorado.

49th State Brewery…

Arriving at Denali’s entrance was really a culmination of a dream we have had for years. Although each National Park is special and unique in their own way, Denali has the singular distinction of being the home of the tallest mountain in North America. Denali (formerly known as Mt. Mckinley) is the highest mountain peak in North America, with a summit elevation of 20,310 feet above sea level. With a topographic prominence of 20,156 feet and a topographic isolation of 4,629 miles, Denali is the third most prominent and third most isolated peak on Earth, after Mount Everest and Aconcagua.

Denali NP Greeting us…

Visitors of Denali National Park are often broken up into two groups: the 30% club and everyone else. The 30% club is made up of the people who are fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of Denali. We hoped we could be a 30 percenter…

Denali has 3 campgrounds in the park each with a different set of guidelines & facilities:

1. The first campground, right at the entrance to the park is: Riley Creek Campground. No campground in Denali has electrical or water hookups for RVs. However, Riley Creek has a nearby mercantile, or general store, which features camping supplies, food, a shower house and laundry facilities. The mercantile also has a dump / fill station for RV use.
2. The second campground is: Savage River Campground at mile 13 in the park. The nice part of Savage River is you can bring your tow car in and are allowed to travel back out of the park or go to the information center at your own discretion.  It sits in a spruce forest,with mostly good separation between adjacent camp sites. On clear days, Denali Peak can be seen from a short walk below the campground.
3. The third campground is Teklanika River Campground. Teklanika (aka “Tek”) River Campground is at mile 29 on the Denali Park Road. Though nearly all private vehicles must turn around at mile 15 (Savage River) Tek campers are an exception to that rule. If you wish, you may drive your vehicle / RV to Tek. The trade-off is that you must make, at minimum, a three-night stay, and your vehicle must stay in your campsite for the duration of your stay. Your vehicle can only leave your campsite when you are ready to travel back to the park entrance.

Our reservation was at Savage River Campground and this turned out to be the best solution for us. It allowed us to have our Tow car (and be able to use it) for our entire stay in the park. (Note: we were as far into the park that we could venture, in our tow car, though having the option to drive to town and the visitor center was convenient.) We arrived early the day of our check-in which actually takes place at Riley Creek Campground. Surprisingly we also got a ($30.00 refund) from our reservation since we have our National Park Pass and had paid for entrance when we made reservations. If we hadn’t read about that on another blog we probably would have missed this refund since no-one suggested it until we asked. The rules for the campground is you can park on any available site so arriving early was a great decision for us. Although our RV is only 32′ many of the spots were very tight for us when you factor in our height, slides, and trying to also get level. We actually tried setting up on 3 different sites before finally finding the 4th site which worked best. Joanne & I have gotten pretty good at set-up, with full-timing, though the 3rd site we tried to park on definitely provided some emotional fireworks when a sign-post on the site was too low to be seen from the drivers seat and I couldn’t hear Joanne. Fortunately before denting a baggage door we overted a small tragedy and only had a small spot that needed to be buffed out with some Mothers’s California Wax. -Whew, that could have been an expensive mistake…

Savage River Campground …

Our campsite at Savage River…

Denali National Park in a word is “breathtaking”. The powers to be that designed and had the foresight to create this park had a clear objective to try to maintain the environment and area as natural as possible. This is why they only use park buses in the park to explore up to mile marker 96. After Savage River the park is literally off limits to any non-official traffic except for those that are camping at Tek at mile marker 29. After that it is closed to all other traffic except the tour buses. This park is known for it’s extraordinary backwoods areas and camping here requires a special permit. The backwoods permit requires viewing a movie, at the information center, that provides a very detailed instruction on rules and regulations for venturing into this space. We actually watched this backwoods orientation film on our last day in the park and both had wished we had done it when we first arrived. Although we didn’t get a backwoods permit, as it wasn’t needed for the hikes we took, we thought the information provided was exceptional, especially when it came to how to deal with the many different types of wildlife you could accidentally stumble upon on the myriad of trails and hiking areas in the park.

Hiking is a big part of the Denali experience. Our first hike in the park was from the info center to the Sled Dog training and kennel area. Joanne had made up her mind she wanted to see the sled dog ranger presentation and with little preparations we immediately took off on the anticipated, rather short hike, called the “Roadside Trail” . Unfortunately we veered off trail early-on and a simple 1.8 mile hike turned significantly harder as we inadvertently climbed the “Rock Creek Trail” instead which is 2.4 miles. Regardless of our intentions we arrived just as the sled dog ranger presentation was finishing…ugh…

None-the-less we were able to walk through the sled dog kennel and actually pet a few of the beautiful pups… Our return hike was down hill and much easier along the “Roadside Trail”.

Joanne getting her dog fix at the Dog sled kennels…

Mike had to pose with that Denali sled dog as well…

The next day we decided to take Savage River Tail that headed along the river banks for about 2 miles and then we ventured up the hillside for some extended river and valley viewing. The Third day we decided to take on the famous “Savage Alpine Trail” which was probably the most strenuous of the trails we hiked in Denali. All Trails rates it #1 in Denali and it has everything going for it. A very steep climb going West to East. The rock formations are incredible followed by a traverse above the treeline , and then an incredible hike along the ridge followed by a decent into the trees back to the Savage river Campground. We would highly recommend this hike when visiting Denali. Probably the only problem was the level of smoke in the higher elevations due to the numerous forest fires in the park which significantly obstructed the views we had hoped to see from the top.

Savage River Trail…

Near the top of the Tundra Alpine Trail…

Along the Tundra Alpine Trail…

Our 4 th day in the park consisted of our taking the “Tundra Wilderness Tour” . We departed our campground for the bus terminal very early in the morning since our tour was scheduled to leave by 7:00am. As we turned onto the Denali Park road at 6:30am we happened onto a heard of 3 very large moose standing the middle of the road. We had seen many cows and baby moose during our travels to date though this was the first large “Bull Moose” we had seen. As big as they are the Bull’s seem elusive though this big boy was not intimated by us in the lead and actually dwarfed the mini cooper as we rode by…

Good morning to the Moose family…

Good morning to the Moose family…

The Tundra wilderness tour takes you nearly to the farthest drivable spot in the park and has scheduled stops along the way.One nice feature of the tours are the informative drivers who are well skilled in using a camera system that zooms in on wildlife which is projected on several monitors on the bus. We were able to see Bears, Grizzlies, Caribou, Dall Sheep, Lynx, and Moose several times during the day…The cost for this tour is not cheap at $145.oo person. It is a 7-8 hour excursion into the park with a certified driver-naturalist.

• From May 20—31, the tour travels as far as Mile 53, Toklat River.
• From June 1—mid-September, the tour travels to Mile 62, Stony Overlook.

The bus drivers work as a team as there are a myriad of different buses on the road and when I say the road can get narrow and very steep at times I am not stretching the truth. A few spots had some high “pucker factor” moments during the long day… Although the buses are efficient and the only way to see the park, given the number of tourists on them, this was probably our least favorite time in the park.

A stop along the Tundra Wilderness Tour…

A stop along the Tundra Wilderness Tour…

Another stop along the Tundra Wilderness Tour…

After getting back to the campground we decided to take a small hike from our campsite down a different area of the Savage River adjacent to the campground. The trail turned into a very tranquil moment for us as we had an afternoon G&T cocktail by the river with some spectacular views of the mountains and rocky stream bed. The walk was not far though the moment was priceless. A great way to reflect and get grounded in this magical place, away from the crowds often found in the park.

The trail adjacent to Savage River Campground…

The trail adjacent to Savage River Campground…

The question we haven’t addressed yet and get asked most often about our visit to Denali is “are we 30 percenter’s?” …Apparently the largest mountain in North America “Denali” is only seen by 30% of the visitors to the park. Between cloud cover, weather, and smoke from forest fires the summit of the mountain is quite elusive. Our first day in the park we were driving the RV to Savage River for set-up and we both were surprised by the view of the Big Mountain. We couldn’t believe how clear it was and how fortunate we were for the opportunity to snap a few pics. Since it was our first day in the park we were utterly spoiled though didn’t realize it at the moment. What we didn’t realize is that this would be our only view of it for the 5 days we were visiting. Reflecting back on that moment we were very fortunate and are now definitive members of the 30 percenters…

Denali (Formerly Mount McKinley) – We are 30%ters…

Denali definitely deserves another pic…

Before departing Denali we did take a hike into town from the visitors center. The town is home to a handful of restaurants, hotels, and shops. It is only open when the park is open, from May to September. The shops are a hodge podge of eclectic boutiques and tour sales offices with several places to eat. We did take a walk through the Princess Cruises Denali Lodge and finished the day with an ice cream cone on the boardwalk. Since we had hiked into town and still had to hike uphill back we figured why not splurge on a few calories. The return hike found us on the River bridge which was fun to see all the white water rafts launching from the river banks.

We deserved an Ice Cream in downtown Denali boardwalk…

Denali has been a goal of ours for many years in our live’s ….Revolutionary Journey. Reflecting now as a visitor to this majestic, natural , protected area, our excitement/anticipation were absolutely well deserved…. (WE LOVED OUR TIME IN DENALI NATIONAL PARK!)

Denali is exactly what you need it to be…(Majestic, Breathtaking, Solemn, & Tranquil…)