One thing we noticed during our drive and also in this place with the food trucks is the large number of RVs (Recreational Vehicles are large vehicles that are like a little home that you can drive around) – you get RVs on rent too; it was an option we had considered but then since no one had prior RV experience and this being in a faraway land, we didn’t try it out. You can reduce the cost of lodging, and there are dedicated places for RVs to dock as well. And you find RVs just pulling up in certain pull-out areas that are off the road for a pit stop. Within the Denali National Park too, there are RV camping grounds. There are different types of RVs – ones that you need a vehicle to tow, and others that are motorized and don’t require towing. Alaska seemed to be an RV-friendly state, which makes sense given its great scenic outdoors.
We set out to drive up to mile 14 of the Denali National park – it was a pleasant drive in the night (though it still felt like late evening since there was some daylight even at this hour); we didn’t really spot any wildlife, but it’s still a nice drive if you have a vehicle – we made Rakesh drive super slow just to see if we could spot anything. Not many people out here at night. Took us an hour. Mile 14 is where the Savage River flows, and that’s the last point in the Denali National Park up to which private vehicles are permitted. There was an RV out here, too, and we could see a couple of kids inside on what were possibly bunk beds and peeping out through the window. Their parents were sitting outside the RV. The place was breezy, and that worsened the wind chill. Even Rakesh, who was the brave one in our group in facing the cold, found it too cold and rushed back to the car. It was 11:15 pm; the sunset was visible – clear skies, orange hue, brown mountains, stones, some greenery and the water body. There were barely ten people in the area.
A notice board detailed three trails in this area – the one that was most tempting for Raghav and me was the Savage Alpine trail – it was the longest at 4 miles and marked strenuous. However, the problem was the warning on the board, which stated that ‘wildlife frequenting the area’ and that wolves were seen on June 22nd (which was yesterday) on the Alpine trail. Another note stated that bears had been spotted multiple times in the last week, advising hikers to hike in groups and carry bear spray.
We didn’t really have a large group – Rakesh didn’t have a jacket to join; and I hadn’t purchased the bear spray, and even if I had bought it, I wouldn’t have known how to operate it – you don’t want to be using a bear spray for the first time when confronted by a bear. Also, there were no other folks around – else we could have just joined another group and tagged along. The trail looked lovely as it went uphill, but we decided it wasn’t worth the risk – better to be prepared and armed, just in case.
We returned to our lodge around 12:30 am, with no signs of any bear or wildlife in the vicinity. All of us got into our beds at 1 am – there was still a fair amount of daylight. Moorthy caught up on the cricket World Cup matches of today – there was the upset victory of Afghanistan over Australia, while India had a comfortable win.
Raghav was busy figuring out activities – ATV (All-terrain vehicle) rides, river rafting, ziplining, and fat truck rides. “ATV is there late in the night, too. We can do that tomorrow.”
Tomorrow was really today since he was referring to the 24th.
“Yeah. Bus ride will finish surely by the evening at the most. Won’t be there after 6 pm.”
“So I’ll book the ATV then. River rafting, we can decide tomorrow. Ziplining is not within the park – we can skip that. And the fat trucks are bigger buggies that can go in water.”
Monday
It was Moorthy and I who were up first again in the morning.
“We’ll go check out the Denali bus depot?”
“Yeah. Let’s find out the bus timings and plan accordingly.”
We quickly got ready, and Moorthy started the car while the other two were still sleeping.
When we were near the bus depot, we encountered an issue with Google Maps and ended up taking a wrong turn. As we drove, we felt we were moving away from our destination, since this didn’t seem to be the same road we were on yesterday. A couple of minutes later, Google Maps rerouted us on a long path that would take 15 minutes – either follow that, or do a U-turn on this two-lane road and the destination would just be 5 minutes away. Moorthy managed to turn around by using the shoulder of the road in a stretch where the road widened.
I thought there may not be many people out here, but the bus depot parking area was almost full! We saw some people travelling solo, while others were accompanied by family, carrying large backpacks. It seemed like everyone had come with a plan for their day in Denali, except us.
We headed to the counters in the bus depot. Compared to our previous customer care telephone experience, this was significantly better. The staff at the counter patiently explained things. We enquired about the narrated-tour option.
“That one will be a duration of around 6 hours.”
She also explained the alternative one, which wasn’t a full-narrated tour but rather a hop-on and hop-off bus – a self-guided tour.
“Both buses go the same distance – till mile 43.”
It’s a single road that goes through the Denali National Park.
“Up to mile 14, you can drive in your own vehicle too.”
“Yeah, we did that last night.”
“Ok. So if you are short on time, the transit bus is a better option. You can decide where you want to get off, hike and get on as well. The East Fork Transit takes 4 hours going the full distance up and down.”
There is a price difference as well between the transit option and the tour. And within the guided tours, there are a couple of them – the Denali Natural History Tour (a shorter one that focuses more on history and the landscape) and the Tundra Wilderness Tour (a longer one, which I had originally as part of my shortlist – focuses on the wildlife in the area).
“Are there specific timings for the self-guided one?”
“Yes. The timings are listed on the screen. There’s a bus every 30 minutes starting from here. So the bus ticket you take is for a specific timing, but after that, when you hop off, explore and want to hop onto a bus, you can jump into any.”
The display showed the timings as well as whether tickets were available.
We realised that the bus depot guy we talked to yesterday was surely clueless on things – this seemed like a very systemised process in terms of timings of the buses and all.
Official page on visiting the Denali National Park: https://www.nps.gov/dena/planyourvisit/visiting-denali.htm