Denali National Park and Preserve

After a fun filled time in Palmer and Anchorage, it was time to head north up the Parks Highway towards Denali. We had booked 2 nights at the National Park Campground at Riley Creek, and had also arranged for a shuttle bus tour so that we could drive along the main park road. This park is large, about 6 million acres, and there are many things to see. Here is a picture of Jade (our borrowed height dog) right beside our campsite taken without a flash at 10:30pm! And Barb, she is not frozen solid quite yet ;-)


The campground was very nice and we had a nice shady spot so we left all the pups in the RVs and took the park shuttle bus at noon. Of course, we didn't really need to worry since it was only about 60 degrees! We drove all the way to the Toklat River, which is 53 miles along the park road. The trip took 3 hours each way! We even managed to see Mt. McKinley (Denali) or more commonly called "The Mountain". Apparently only about 1 in 5 visitors actually gets to see The Mountain. It is so large, it creates it's own weather and is often hidden by clouds, especially in the summer. We were lucky and saw 5 of the big 6 items: The Mountain, Grizzly Bears, Moose, Dall Sheep and Caribou. The only thing we missed was a Wolf. Here is a picture of one of the Grizzlies that we saw. He/she proceeded to walk over to a river and seemed to be playing in it. I have that on video, no stills unfortunately!



The next day, we went to the Park Kennels and watched the sled dog demonstration. We were able to pat all the doggies and then heard all about how they train the dogs and use them in the winter to patrol the park. They did a short demo of the sled with dogs on a gravel track and then let us take pictures. Here is one of me!