Denali Park

Last weekend we took our new (to us) truck and headed up to Denali. We stayed at the Savage River Campground, 13 miles into the park, hoping for some time away from people. Tourism has been down a lot this year, but even here it was still pretty busy. The campground was really nice, but it's definitely not isolated enough for our tastes! We brought all of our bikes along as well, but the terrain was a little too tough for the kids, so we had to do just a little biking at the Park entrance and through town. Denali is definitely not the best place for little kids to bike, but I loved pounding up and down the mountains!

We enjoyed sleeping 2 nights in our tent, but I'd be lying if I told you I wasn't nervous about grizzlies. We had been told that bears frequent the area and to keep our campsite really clean. I woke up the first night to a growling sound and I shot straight up in bed, but I laughed when I realized it was just Kari snoring a little!

We got a kick out of the Gray Jays, aka camp robbers. Whenever you were eating and turned your back, they were into your food. It was funny. I had them landing on my hand and eating of of my head. They were well trained.

Even though it was 85 degrees in Fairbanks, Denali was cold. We topped out in the 60's, but it was always pretty windy. We enjoyed hiking around and the boys did well on the 1.5 mile savage river loop. We hoped to see Dall Sheep, but weren't lucky enough to see them.

The highlight of the trip was seeing a Griz at the park entrance! He was just sitting in a patch of berries and didn't seem too interested in us. Unfortunately our batteries ran out on the camera before we got any really good pictures. We also enjoyed a dogsled demonstration and have decided to adopt a retired sleddog. I was really inspired by the dogs. They were SO anxious to be chosen to pull the sled!! It was a good reminder to myself to be enthusiastic for each day and to love work. Denali is a place you can find inspiration at every turn.

Next year we are going to go in to Toklat campground.....WAY into the park and really sleep with the bears. Looking forward to getting a lot more wildlife pictures and telling you all about that! We hope to actually see mt McKinley as well. We missed it this year. Only about 1/3 of visitors get to see it b/c it is so big and often hides in the clouds.

I've also included one trailing picture of Dad with one of the baby halibut we caught. When I get better at this, I'll put it with the Valdez pictures where it belongs. Haha.