Denali – Our Two Cents
Alaska gets 2 million cruise ship passengers a year - 80% of them want to go to Denali National Park, maybe its because Americans love superlatives? In any case, Denali is lovely and there are good chances for seeing wildlife, especially bears, caribou, wild parrots, and maybe wolves.
But because of the high demand everyone is herded on to old school buses so you’re wildlife experienced will no doubt be shared. The bus goes up and down the same road – most people have hopes of getting to Wonder Lake – the lake at the end of the road where, if weather permits, you can see Denali reflected in the water. But it’s a 6 to 8 hour bus ride from the entrance. (Also, the drive from Anchorage to the entrance is 6 hours but five hours of that is on straight, flat, not-too-scenic road.)
Back to the bus. You can asked to be let off anywhere along the way and - 95% of those 2 million people never get off the bus. But because even 5% of those people is a big number, overnight camping is restricted. They manage flow by assigning people “units” they camp in. And you can’t reserve a unit so you go where they tell you. When we went, we had to move between units each day because we couldn’t get consecutive nights in the same unit. We had a good time and because there isn’t much vegetation you can see a long way. As we mentioned, you can lie and say you intend to climb such and such peak, but not sure what questions they’ll ask about experience and what kind of safety lectures you need to sit through. (To go camping you’ll need to watch a bear safety video.)
Anyway, it’s all possible and no doubt you will have a good time if you go (we camped next to a glacier and heard it calving into a lake all night and really enjoyed ourselves) but when there are so many other places to see and you’re here for a short time, we’d also consider some other places.
BOTTOM LINE: Skipping Denali isn’t like going to New York and skipping Manhattan. It’s like skipping the Statue of Liberty.
