Wilderness and wildlife in Denali

The ride from Anchorage to Denali is 250 miles and takes about five hours in a car. Dense forests of white spruce, willow and fireweed line the highway. There are beautiful mountain ranges and views of Denali along the route, however, we traveled through torrential rain and saw none of the majestic views. To break up the ride, we stopped for some Alaskan Halibut at a small restaurant that had some Iditarod Trail signage. There was no explanation if someone from the restaurant was in the race or just a fan.

When we arrived in Healy, a small town next to the national park, the skies cleared and we were greeted with a rainbow.

Dinner was at the 49th State Brewing Company which has an impressive beer menu and pub fare. Outside the dining room is a prop of the bus that was in the movie Into the Wild (actual bus is in a museum in Fairbanks).

Fortunately, we awoke to a cloudy day with no storms forecasted.

Denali National Park is one of the largest national parks in the United States. There are over six million acres of pristine and protected wilderness to discover. There is a one-road system and unlike most national parks in the west, the bus transportation and passenger cars are not bumper to bumper. Our first stop, the kennel. Denali is the only national park with a sled dog kennel. Thirty dogs live and work here. They are bred to pull and seem very happy to do that.

The visitor center at Denali is filled with informative interpretive displays about the park. It is also the staring point of many hiking paths in the park. We took a hike out to a suspension bridge; these signs did not deter us.

Amazingly, the sled dogs brought all the supplies through the park to build the bridges. The two mile hike was beautiful. Although we did not spot any wildlife, we know they spotted us.

To safely view wildlife and to capture the beauty of the park and its vastness, we took a park-led bus tour. Only busses and multi-day campers are allowed past the Savage River in the park. Our guide and the entire bus load of enthusiastic visitors became spotters; a type of wildlife bingo. We started out slow with Ptarmigan, the state bird of Alaska but then hit the jackpot. Over the multi-hour ride we saw a wolf (one of only 94 in the entire park), grizzly bears, caribou, Dall sheep, moose and we even caught a glimpse of the mighty mountain Denali through the heavy and low clouds.

The foresight of several conservationists in the early 20th century along with executive orders from Woodrow Wilson and then Jimmy Carter have allowed this remarkable preserve to flourish.