Our next destination was Healy, AK to tour Denali National Park. While in Healy we stayed at Denali Riverside RV park on the bank of the Nenana River and less than two miles from the entrance to Denali NP. We scheduled a week in Healy, hoping for a few days of clear skies to visit the park.
To tour Denali we took the shuttle bus to Eielson Visitor Center, which is an eight hour plus round trip ride into the park on a school bus. Not the most comfortable ride, but the time goes by fast when your view is beautiful mountains, valleys, tundra and wildlife. Our bus driver did a great job of explaining the history and wildlife of the park. Our day of travel into the park couldn’t have been more perfect! Mt. McKinley aka Denali was visible the entire day without any clouds, which I’m told occurs about 5% of the time. Only 30% of the visitors get to see the summit and about 5% are able to see the mountain without any clouds. We felt very fortunate. Denali is definitely spiritual and awe-inspiring! On our tour we saw several Grizzly bears along with Dall sheep, a moose and caribou. A few days later we returned to the park to check out the Denali NP visitor center and drive 15 miles to Savage River, which is the turnaround point for private vehicles. On the way back we spotted a moose.
While in the area we also went off-roading in the Jeep on the Stampede Trail.
