Most Recent Visit

September 2024

When to Go

The majority of people are going to visit Denali between Memorial Day to Labor Day each year. We have been two times, once in late June and once in early September. Both were amazing in their own way. Earlier in the summer season is going to bring much better chances of good weather (and with it a better chance of seeing Mount Denali) while later in the season may have more clouds and rain, but the fall colors are absolutely incredible. If you are interested in visiting in the winter, it is definitely possible here. Winter visitors can cross-country ski or snowshoe which would be very peaceful with few people around.

How to Get Here

There are several ways to get to Denali National Park. If you want complete control of your time, you can fly into either Fairbanks or Anchorage, rent a car and drive. It is about 2 hours from Fairbanks and 4 hours from Anchorage if you choose this option. While Anchorage is a longer drive, there are a lot more options in and around Anchorage if you are extending your Alaska trip beyond just Denali.

If you’d rather sit back and enjoy the scenery, there are train and bus options. The Alaska Railroad has routes from both Anchorage and Fairbanks to Denali.  We have never done this but have heard the train ride is absolutely beautiful. You will subject to the train’s schedule, but it does stop right in the visitor center area and many local hotels offer shuttles back and forth to the park. The Alaska Park Connection Motorcoach offers daily bus tours from Anchorage with service to a few other towns. Alaska cruises are very popular and offer these excursions. Both times that we have been in the park, we have seen tons of cruise ship buses. You’ll obviously be subject to the cruise ship schedule, but this is a great low effort way to see some of Denali.

Trip Length

A stay of 2-3 days should be sufficient if you are sticking to the park road and designated trails. If you are planning to do some overnight hiking anywhere in the park, you’ll likely want more time than this. We’ll dive more into the bus tours below, but make sure you check out the Denali National Park website prior to your trip to determine what is actually open at the park. As of September 2024, the road is only open to mile marker 43 due to an active landslide occurring just beyond this point which is not expected to be repaired until either 2026 or 2027. Once repaired, you will be able to get back to the end of the road (mile marker 92). A high-level trip plan would be spending one day on a bus tour into the park and then another one to two days driving the first 15 miles of road (closed to personal vehicles beyond this point) enjoying the views, looking for wildlife, and hiking some of the designated trails in addition to stops at the visitor center and watching a sled dog demonstration.

Where to Stay

There are many hotels located just outside of the park and even more hotels located a few miles away in the town of Healy. Given this is Alaska, there really isn’t going to be a “cheap” option like you might find around many parks in the Lower 48. We have stayed at Denali Park Hotel, located in Healy, both times we have visited the park and would highly recommend it. It is one of the “cheaper” options at around $200 per night as of September 2024 and the office is located in an old Alaska train car which is really cool. There are also a number of food options and gas stations in Healy which isn’t always a given when you are in Alaska.

What to Do

While Denali is one of the largest national parks in the system, it is essentially all designated wilderness area leading to fewer structured activities than you might expect for such a large and famous national park. With that said, there are still several activities to keep you busy for a few days without getting into backcountry hiking and camping which isn’t for everyone.

Bus Tours

The main activity in Denali is taking a bus tour. Given only the first 15 miles of the park road are open to personal vehicles, the only way to see the majority of the park is to take a bus. There are two different types of buses to take into Denali: Narrated Bus Tours and Shuttle Buses. If you are interested in learning about the park and having the bus stop for any wildlife sighting, you will want to take a narrated bus tour. Advanced reservations are highly recommended for the narrated bus tours. There are four different narrated tour options which each travel a different length of the park road as follows:

• Denali Natural History Tour (4.5-5 hours) which travels the first 17 miles of park road ($116/person in 2024)
• Tundra Wilderness Tour (5-5.5 hours) which travels the first 43 miles of park road ($144/person in 2024)
• Eielson Excursion (8-9 hours) which travels the first 66 miles of the park road (Temporarily Closed as of 2024)
• Kantishna Experience (13 hours) which travels all 92 miles of the park road ($194/person in 2016. Temporarily Closed as of 2024)

As mentioned above, the road is currently closed past mile 43 due to an active landslide which is being repaired. The road beyond this point is expected to reopen in either 2026 or 2027 which will allow the two longer bus tours to become active again. We have been to Denali twice and taken both the Tundra Wilderness Tour and the Kantishna Experience. The Tundra Wilderness Tour is certainly more manageable from a time standpoint as you see about half of the park in a little over 5 hours. The Kantishna Experience is an investment of a full day where you are literally going to spend about 13 hours on what can best be described as a school bus on a pretty rough road. It does come with a box lunch and you do get to say you made it all the way to the end of the road which is pretty cool. Even though we haven’t done it, our recommendation would be the Eielson Excursion (once it reopens). That tour is still about a full day, but it ends at the Eielson Visitor Center which is a really cool and popular spot for hiking and has tremendous views. We didn’t really think the extra 4 hours and 26 miles of road was really worth it except for the fact of saying “We made it all the way to end!”

If you are not interested in a narrated tour (more expensive) or you found a point of interest on a previous tour and want to be in control of your time at that spot, you can also take a shuttle/transit bus in Denali which operates as a “hop on/hop off” bus. You will need to reserve a start time, online in advance, to board your bus at the Denali Bus Depot and also choose the bus that is covering the part of the park road you want to get to. As of 2024, there is only one option – the East Fork Shuttle ($33.25 per person in 2024) which covers all 43 miles of open road. Once the rest of the road re-opens, there will be longer shuttle buses covering varying mileage on the park road. You can literally get dropped off wherever you want on the side of the road to go hiking. Once you are ready to return, you will need to stand on the side of the park road and flag down the next green shuttle bus you see. If there is room, the bus will stop and let you board. If there isn’t room, you’ll need to wait for the next bus. These shuttle buses do not stop for wildlife sightings unless forced to due to a traffic jam so keep that in mind when booking if wildlife sightings are important to you. Once the road reopens, we would recommend taking a shuttle out to the Eielson Visitor Center as this is a good spot to take off on a hike length of your choosing.

Driving the Park Road

As mentioned above, you can take your own vehicle out on the first 15 miles of the park road. This covers the area from the visitor center near the park entrance all the way to the Savage River area where there are several short hiking trails. This area, particularly in the September timeframe, is great for wildlife viewing. In September, the moose rut is in full swing, and the park service will put up signs on an ~5 mile stretch of the road banning anyone from walking off the road in that area due to the moose rut. We were lucky to see both a bull moose as well as a female and calf eating along the road during our September trip. There are several pulls off in the first 15 miles allowing for great landscape photos and there is one pull off in this stretch which will give you a great Mount Denali view if you are lucky enough to be there on a day with a view of the mountain.

We should also note that there is a lot of parking around the visitor center campus which includes the visitor center itself, a gift store, and a cafeteria which has a number of food options throughout the day.

Hiking

At the end of that 15 miles of road is a small parking lot where you can begin the Savage River trails. If the parking lot is full, you can either wait for someone to leave or you can head back to the visitor center and take a free shuttle out instead. Once you are there, there are a couple of recommended trails:

Savage River Loop – 2.1 miles RT

This is a fairly easy to moderate loop trail along the Savage River. We did this in September when the fall colors were incredible, and this hike really highlighted that. Be on the lookout for wildlife as well. We only saw a pika but could certainly see this area being bear territory as well. During our June trip, the entire Savage River area was actually closed because a hiker decided to throw a backpack at a bear that was approaching them on one of the trails (?!?).

Savage Alpine Trail – 8.2 miles RT

We have not done this one ourselves yet. There were a lot of low clouds during our September visit, and we didn’t think the views would be worthy of a 1,400-foot elevation climb. The other note on this trail is that it can be used to connect the Savage River area to the Mountain Vista area (4.1 miles one way), so you could theoretically walk from one to other and then catch a shuttle back to your car, the visitor center, or bus depot.

Other Trails

There are other trails out at the Eielson Visitor Center that we would like to try once the park road reopens. They include the Tundra Loop (0.4-mile easy loop), Mount Thorofare Ridge Loop (3.1-mile hard trail), and Gorge Creek (3.8-mile moderate trail). In addition, the McKinley River Bar Trail (4.6-mile moderate trail) can be found near mile marker 85 if you take the longest shuttle bus option once the road reopens.

The other trails we would like to try someday are close to the visitor center. The first, Triple Lakes Trail, is the longest in the park at 9.5 miles one way. This trail connects the visitor center to the George Parks Highway (Hwy 3). We have heard there are some amazing views along this trail, but you would need to organize transportation back to your car to avoid making this a 19-mile round trip hike (which we have heard isn’t too hard). The second is Horseshoe Lake (2.1-mile moderate loop) which loops around the lake and has decent wildlife viewing opportunities. Another short walk is the 0.6-mile RT Mountain Vista Trail which is a loop a couple of miles closer to the Visitor Center on the park road. This loop would give you amazing views of Mount Denali on the few days that it can actually be seen. It is still a nice walk on other days as well, but the purpose is clearly the mountain view.

Sled Dog Demonstration

Ever wonder what it is like to see the Alaskan Huskies pulling a sled? Well, you can actually witness it at Denali! In 2024, they were running sled dog demonstrations at 10am, 2pm, and 4pm each day during peak season (which is June through early September). There is not much parking at the kennels so you should plan on taking a shuttle bus from the visitor center which leaves 40 minutes prior to each demonstration. These demonstrations last about 30 minutes and then you can hang out with the dogs for a bit before you hope aboard the shuttle back to the visitor center. If you are just interested in the dogs and not the demonstration, you can just stop by at any point during the day if you are lucky enough to find a parking spot at the kennels. The dogs are so cute (yes, you can pet them) and there is a lot of interesting history about how the dogs serve in the park.

We hope this gives you enough ideas to have a successful trip to Denali National Park, but please reach out with any specific questions!