Denali National Park
Why take a train 8 hours north into Alaska? To get here of course. Denali is about as middle of nowhere as you can get. Its large and its still pretty wild. For perspective I have a map with the park superimposed in green on the state of North Carolina. Note the blue line in the park running diagonal from the upper rights towards the lower left. This is the only road in the park. It’s 90 miles long and only the first 15 miles are paved. Public vehicles are not allow past the end of the pavement so if you want to see more you have to take the park shuttle. Think school bus.
What you get for that is the ability to see wildlife and grand vistas. Caribou, Sheep, and Grizzly’s can all be seen from the bus if you are lucky. And if the lighting is good the entire landscape takes on the most interesting pastel colors. Not a color I’ve seen anywhere else.
There are some things you want to know, that Princess forgot to mention. Included in the land tour is a 5 hour bus tour into the park. This tour goes to about the mile 17 marker and then goes back to the main area for a presentation. Skip it. If you call princess and talk to someone you can take the option to upgrade this tour to the 8 hour Tundra Wilderness Tour. It goes 54 miles into the park proper. If take the short tour you will probably not see any wildlife and you will miss out on most of the scenic vistas. With further digging you can find from the nps website that the tours are operated by a separate company (currently Aramark). Princess buys the tours from them, and there are other people that call and want this upgrade even though you may have to talk to more than one person at Princess before they mention it. This company has more detailed information on their website to help you make the choice.
This is THE tour to take in Denali if you only have one full day. Be aware that what princess calls a day is really only and evening and part of the next morning so if you are only going for one evening you probably cannot take this tour. The Best way to see the park would be to stay 3 nights. Which princess does not offer, but might be able to setup if you ask. In this case you would take day one to ride the long bus tour and note of the mile marker where you would like to see more of. The next day take the hiker bus and ask to be let off at that mile marker, hike, then pick up a bus heading back when you are done. With only one day you are limited and the 8 hour tour will let you see the most in the time allotted, but its REALLY annoying that the bust does not make a few more stops for you to get out and take pictures and see the landscape without a dirty window between you.
Pictures of note
1. Relative size of Denali National Park and North Carolina
2. Caribou
3. Sheep
4. Mama Grizzly
5. Baby Grizzly
7-10. Poly Chrome Pass and Overlook
11. Pastel Green
10-12 More incredible clouds or possibly rain in a valley
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