Arrive at Denali National Park

Day 38  July 22, 2016                      Denali National Park, Teklaneka Campground, site 36
61 miles              90.9 mpg

Once again, a misty rainy morning.  No good views today.  Left Cantwell at 08:45, all excited about going to Denali. 

Here are some pictures on the ride to the park on the Parks.

Then we arrived.

First thing we did was stop at Riley Creek Mercantile to register for our reserved site at Teklanika Campground.  We also signed up for a bus tour of the entire Park road for tomorrow. 

The park has one road that is 92 miles long that takes you to the interior of the Park.  The first 15 miles is paved, the rest is not.  Cars are allowed only 15 miles into the park and can only pass beyond that checkpoint if they have a pass for Teklanika River Campground.  There is a campground at the 15-mile mark called the Savage River Campground which is the furthest point cars are allowed.  Teklanika campers are allowed to drive beyond this point but with restrictions.  You need reservations and you can only drive to and from the campground.  It is a minimum 3-day stay.  There are two other campgrounds beyond the 15-mile point and they are Igloo Creek and Wonder Lake (mile 85).  Both are tent camping only.

I know . . . if you can’t drive your car, how do you get to those sites?  The Park provides shuttle service along the entire length of the road.  They look like green school buses.  Some of the Park buses also offer round trip excursions to various places along the Park road.  More on this tomorrow.

Here’s some views of our ride to Teklanika River Campground.

Following a Park shuttle bus.

The GPS is telling us we are on the Denali Park Road. 

The trailer's looking pretty muddy back there.

Arrived!

We arrived at the Teklanika River Campground at 12:30.  Because the unpaved road was wet and muddy, our trailer and truck looked like it did when we came off of the Top of the World Highway.

We set out the awning so we could sit out in the dreary weather and made some ½ lb. hamburgers for lunch.  And sat outside for a while, reading the Denali newspaper they hand out.  There were no bugs at all.  But we ended up putting on more and more layers.  It was only 50^oF outside.  We put our rain jackets on and went for a walk around the two loops of the campground.  The RVs that showed up today were all dirty like ours.

There are some trails that go down to the Teklanika River.  It is one of those huge gravel bar glacial runoff rivers.  You’ll see photos tomorrow.  This is where grizzly bears like to hang out.

We finally went into the trailer and turned the heat on and had some Marsha’s homemade canned ham and pea soup to warm up.  Wrote the draft for our day in Seward. 

Oh yeah.  Before I forget.  We followed one of the shuttle buses in and he stopped in the road.  That means wildlife sighting.  It was a moose and we got some pictures.