Denali National Park

We had an interesting visit to the park. We never did see Mt. McKinley. But, we did see lots of wildlife. Our first evening in the park we were driving to our camptsite and saw first a moose, then a huge grizzly.

The next day we did a discovery hike with a ranger. This involved getting picked up by the hiker bus at our campground and then riding about an hour into the park. From there our ranger, Brian, and 9 of us set off on a hike. The hike involved hiking through the brush to the river and then hiking along the river. Along the way we saw lots of animal tracks and scat. We saw lynx, moose, wolf, grizzly bear, and cariboo tracks. We also saw bear, lynx, wolf, and moose scat. When we were done with hiking along the river we then had to hike through the tundra out about a mile back to the road. The tundra was very spongy in places.

We then boarded a park bus and road to the Eilson visitor center - at about mile 66 into the park. We immediately bosrded another bus to return to our campground. It was a long day - about 12 hours total.

We were staying at a campground at Savage River, which is about 13 miles inside the park. We stayed there two nights.

We left Denali on July 24th and drove to Fairbanks. We found a dry camping place at Pioneer city park. While at Pioneer park we discovered that they were having a square dance that evening. We danced with the Santa Swingers. They were glad to have us come to their dance. It was a fun evening.