Denali National Park

Denali National Park   August 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st

We drove the Parks Highway to Riley Campground just inside Denali National Park. While we have not been making campground reservations for the majority of our trip, we thought it best to do so here and we were glad we did. The campground is full  every night and were we not able to get in here, we would not have been happy in a commercial one outside the park, behind the gift shops in a parking lot..

Tundra Wilderness Tour

On the 19th, we took an eight hour round trip wilderness tundra ride on a school bus to Eielson Visitor Center which is 65.9 miles into the Park. The first 15 miles were paved and two lane. The next 10 miles were gravel with two lanes and the rest was a  gravel one lane road with pullouts for oncoming traffic to veer off and let you pass.

One Lane Road

Sure glad we weren't driving our RV on this road! We brought our lunch to eat on the bus for this long day. We anticipated seeing a lot of wildlife. We did see some and were happy with the trip overall but greedily we wished we had seen more of the animals up close and personal. We couldn't get off the bus unless we were at a rest stop, but we were able to take pictures out the top of the open windows. We were dressed in warm layers once again for the rainy and cool weather. Among the animals we saw were two grizzly bears, many caribou, one moose and one Dall sheep and one two legged animal who was waiting for our bus to move so he could get more pictures of the sheep.

Grizzly

Dall Sheep

Female Caribou on Road

Male Caribou

Grizzly

Two legged animal

We kept trying to see Mt. McKinley again but to no avail. There are only a few places on the road that you would be able to see it were it clear, but it wasn't.  The vistas were wonderful and you could really see the "braided river" effect that happens here.

Photochrome Point

Vista

Low Cloud Cover

Friends of ours, Marlette and John, and their traveling companions who we also know, Bev and Dave, Denise and Rich from Connecticut were on a tour with Celebrity and Marlette had sent me their itinerary. They would be in Denali for a day at the same time we would be. And, they were taking the afternoon wilderness tundra tour while we were taking the morning one on the same day. On the way back down from Eielson, we stopped at a rest stop and there they were. What are the chances! We made plans for breakfast the following morning at their lodging before they leave for Anchorage. It was great to see them.

Marlette and Kate

John, Marlette, Kate and Tim

White Water Rafting Trip

After breakfast on the 20th, we went back to the campground to change clothes and get ready for our white water rafting trip down the Nenana River. We dressed in layers as instructed and made sure we had our extra socks and headed out for our afternoon of fun.

The company, Explore Denali Rafting, expertly fitted us into dry suits with neoprene booties, made sure we had our life jackets on, and hats and gloves to keep us warm. The water in the river is about 36 degrees so you really couldn't go without all of that equipment and stay warm by any stretch of the imagination.

We walked behind their shop to the river, loaded into the boats and we were off. James, our oarsman, was quite a character and definitely knew what he was doing. As we crossed over the first of many Class III and IV rapids, the company had a photographer on the shore taking our pictures..many of them you will see here.

Wave Everyone!

I also brought a waterproof disposable camera with us and took pictures when I was able to let go, but those won't be on this blog. On one of the very first rapids, I got hit extremely hard by one wave that caught me full on my face and gave me an instant "brain freeze" headache like the kind you get when you eat ice cream too fast, which, fortunately, only lasted a few minutes!  It was a total of 2 hours on the water with many exciting moments. One of which was when the kayaker, Jay,  from the company who was traveling with the rafts attempted a pass through a dangerous rapid called "the knife."

The rafts did not go through the narrow part and were already down the river just a little bit when he attempted the narrow passage. The Guide in the other boat, Wayne, yelled that the kayak had flipped and Jay was not any where to be seen. James was quite concerned and tried to row back up the river which was impossible. Both rafts eddied out to the side of the river waiting to see if he would reappear. After a long, tense five minutes, Jay came around the bend in his kayak. From what we could gather, his kayak flipped and he had to remove the skirt over the opening to get out, but there was a lot of wood (trees and brush) that he got entangled with under the water. He was able to hold onto his paddle and retrieve the kayak once he got himself free of debris. He also cleared out some of the wood and completed the passage from start to finish. He performed amazing feats in the kayak!

Our clothing stayed dry and the heater was turned way up on the bus on the way back to their shop. We had done some white water rafting in Vermont years ago, but this river was much faster and the rapids were much larger. What a great time we had!

On our last day at Denali, the sun came out just in time for us to do our laundry, download photos and write this blog!