Oooh what a wonderful, wonderful trip into Denali. We checked in about 10:30a on the 1st and meandered down the road at a slow 35 mph, as we drove thru road construction and looking for critters. The weather was awesome. We arrived at Teklanika Campground and promptly looked for a campsite. We were told we had a set site when I made the reservations, but upon check-in, learned you could park in any site. So we went looking… First couple of sites were near the front of campground and we knew we didn’t want those if we could help it (due to buses, traffic noise). There are two rectangle circles of camp sites. One path looked like a construction zone due to traffic cones, which we learned later on our walks that its not related to campsites. So we veered left/straight and started around. I was impressed with what we saw – very roomy sites, picnic tables, fire pits. Very few pull-thru’s, the rest of the sites, I suggest anyone to back in, but one doesn’t have to. Very easy. If you have a “toad”, plenty of room to park it. We picked number 16 and in my humble opinion it was the best camp site, with number 17 & number 15 a close 2nd. All sites appear to be level too. Nice! We were also close to the Teklanika River and the arena where we had nightly Ranger Talks. We learned alot about the park residents, Denali Mtn and a little history. Worth going to every evening at 7:30p.
On the 2nd of July, we took our reserved bus trip to Wonder Lake. In route, we were so fortunate to have sunshine and to see Denali, or at least part of the mountain. Stunning! We saw lots of moose, caribou, snowshoe hares and 2 sows with cubs as we went on to Wonder Lake. On the bears…some of the grizzlies were blond, others were almost black. Wonder Lake – a beautiful lake, with a zillion mosquitos and no view of Denali from this point. Managed to get a mouth full while eating our lunch there, just added protein, I guess. Ha! The landscape thru Denali NP was stunning on this clear day. Very lush and green, hard to spot critters, but the scenery was just amazing as always. Those roads thru Polychrome have not improved – and downright scary if the bus meets another. I just close my eyes… We were fortunate to have a gal who had been driving the road for nearly 16 seasons, nonetheless I am sure I added a few new gray hairs.
Our friend who we were to meet in Tok, called last night to tell us of unexpected change of plans. So we won’t be sticking in Tok waiting for her, we will head on into Canada today. Will write more tonight if we have hook-up, otherwise, will bring this blog back up to date by mid-week in Haines, plus more photos too. We need to hit the road shortly, so that we can get to our new destination tonight and then we can camp for a few days without moving. The cats will be happy with that decision. They thoroughly enjoyed our stay in Denali NP. Here is a photo of them looking out at the rainbow. Taking pictures thru our darken windows provides great pictures…
Woven Trails 