Alaska, June 26, 2025, Chasing the Peak

   Ward and I recently took a trip to Alaska. We flew into Anchorage (via a stop in Seattle) and used our friends' house as our home base. I am chronicling our trip here.

We had a made-to-order breakfast at our Dome House B&B, checked out, and headed back to the Denali Visitor's Center. It is a large center with well-done displays that we enjoyed perusing. After about an hour, we headed to the park bus depot, where we caught our bus for the day. Both the park and a private company run buses into the park. Upon recommendation of our B&B host, we took the inexpensive park bus. All buses take the same route, and all buses give commentary and stop for animal sightings. We were happy with our choice. 

This was our bus for the day. It was a transit bus, and you could get on and off anytime.
 We picked up several hikers along the way. We had a bathroom stop on the way in and out and a 20-minute stop at the Mile 43 turnaround. The whole trip took about 5 1/2 hours.

There is only one road into the park, and the public can only take cars to mile 16. After that, only pre-approved buses (or dog sleds) are allowed on the road. The entire Denali Park road is 92.5 miles long, but a rock slide (actually a rock glacier as it has been moving for many years) closed the road at mile 43 in 2021. They are building a bridge over the slide and hope to have it done next year. Meanwhile, the backcountry trails and camps are only accessible by plane now.

We drove through a lot of tundra at the base of the Alaska Range. The bus driver has been driving this route for 20 years, so she was very familiar with the area and gave good insights.

We saw a moose and her calf, caribou, and ground squirrels on our ride. However, most of them were far from the road, so they were hard to see. And with no special lens, you can't see them in photos. This is a photo of caribou. Trust me, they're there under the top snow bank. We saw them with our binoculars. :)

Ward explored the East Fork braided river at our turnaround spot.

There were three places along the bus ride where you can see Mt. Denali if the clouds decide to part from around it. That didn't happen. Actually, 70% of the time, the peak is in the clouds, so it was no surprise we didn't see it. And I thought, what's the big deal? We've been seeing big mountains the entire trip. How can this one be any more spectacular than what I've already seen? Luckily, I got to find out that I was wrong. 

After we returned from the bus trip, we decided to get on the road. We had a two-hour drive to our hotel for the night. We stopped along the way at two viewing sights in Denali State Park that have good views of Mt. Denali/McKinley (which I will refer to as Mt. Denali from here on out). However, while we had more amazing views, Mt. Denali was not in sight. The South View at the state park often has one of the best views around, and it was only a few miles from our hotel, so we decided we would come back later that night for another look.

We stayed at the Princess Wilderness Lodge in Trapper Creek. The complex was coordinated with the cruise line and was quite large, with multiple restaurants, fireplaces, movie theaters, and more. Although I've never been on a cruise, it had a cruise ship feel to it from what I've heard. There were long waits at the restaurants, so we decided to go out and find somewhere else for dinner. 

Down the road just a bit was McKinnley View Cafe. It didn't look like much from the outside, but we were hungry. As we approached the porch and entrance to the restaurant, we saw several excited people. Mt. Denali had just come out of the clouds and was shining bright in all of its glory. Wow. It was something to see. We had a good dinner that was somewhat communal as we all talked about Mt. Denali that we were seeing.

That's all 20,230' of snow-covered Mt. Denali under the clouds.
 Per usual, our pictures do not do it justice.

We went back to our room and decided to take one of the hikes around the complex. We got turned around and didn't end up on the trail we intended to go on. Instead, we found our way to the Treehouse Trail. During our walk, it started to rain and I thought we should turn back. But Ward kept going forward, and I'm glad he did because we found the treehouse. 

It turns out that this treehouse was built for the cruise line and was featured on the TV show Treehouse Masters. The show was playing on a screen inside, and we watched as we waited for the rain to stop. It was really cool watching something on the show, then looking around, and seeing it in person. We had another great view of Mt. Denali from here. 

The entrance to the tree house.

Another shot of the Treehouse from down below. With over 4 feet of permafrost and an active earthquake zone, the Treehouse needed extra engineering for its design.

Even more clouds had cleared from Denali.
This is pretty much the same view of the mountain as seen above, but it is several hours later, so we were seeing the mountain in shadow.

We went back to the hotel, took one last look at the grand mountain from the lodge viewing deck, and retired for the night.

Tune in next time for a bit of this and that on the way back to Anchorage.

Until next time...