I made a quick trip into the Safeway store to get a few grocery items I had forgotten the other day when I shopped there. We left Safeway at 10:20 and headed west on Alaska 3 (Parks Highway) to Denali National Park.
We stopped for lunch at 11:30 just before we crossed the Nenana River. Forty minutes later we saw this gas station near Healy with unleaded gas at $4.349 - 31¢ higher than in Fairbanks.
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| From Fairbanks to Denali National Park |
We passed by this RV park near Healy and saw this 5th wheel that had been staying at River's Edge RV Park and had left there this morning.
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| From Fairbanks to Denali National Park |
A little later we drove past the lodges and businesses that are just north of the entrance to Denali National Park.
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| From Fairbanks to Denali National Park |
We arrived at the entrance to Denali National Park at 1:30 and parked the RV long enough for us to get out, set up the camera & tripod and take a photo.
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| From Denali National Park |
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| From Denali National Park |
Our first stop inside the park was at the Riley Creek Mercantile where we checked in for the Teklanika campground and picked up our Tek Passes for the shuttle buses inside the park. Normally private vehicles are only allowed to drive 15 miles inside the park as far as Savage Station, but because we are staying at Teklanika campground we are allowed to drive the motorhome in, but not the car. We were told to park our car at the Denali Visitor Center a little farther inside the park.
At the Denali Visitor Center we pulled into a RV parking lane and disconnected the Vue and parked it in one of the overnight parking spaces for cars. It was 2:30 when we left the Visitor Center and west on the Park Road.
We had been driving for several miles when I heard Mike make a strange noise and he said he had just looked at the monitor for the rear view camera and the car wasn't there anymore! We are so used to seeing the car behind the RV, it took a second or two before Mike remembered we had left the car parked back at the Visitor Center.
We arrived at Savage Station a little before 3 p.m. where a Ranger checked our park pass and then we were on our way to the campground.
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| From Denali National Park |
The paved road ends just beyond Savage Station and the rest of way out to Teklanika Campground is 14 miles of winding dirt road.
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| From Denali National Park |
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| From Denali National Park |
I was taking pictures as we were driving on the Park Road and tonight when I looked at the photos, I realized that I had gotten a photo of Mt. McKinley, or Denali "the High One" as the native Athabascan people named the mountain.
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| From Denali National Park |
We arrived at Teklanika "Tek" Campground at 3:45 and stopped to check in with the camp host and had 2 other RVs pull in right behind us. Mike was told when he called to make our reservation here that there were 2 campsites left that our motorhome would fit into. The camp host told us to just pick a vacant campsite and park there. We drove around both loops in the campground and settled on site #6 in the first loop.
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| From Denali National Park |
We took Tinker for a walk around the campground after dinner and found a path that led out to the Teklanika River. Teklanika is Athabascan for "big river, little water" and it is so true. We decided to walk out to where there was actually water in the river and found these caribou tracks.
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| From Denali National Park |
Tinker always likes to go "hiking" and really enjoyed exploring the river - so much so, that he decided to do the "Bichon Buzz" in the mud. We made a movie of Tinker playing in the mud and included it in our web album. We now have a new nickname for Tinker, "Mud Puppy".
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| From Denali National Park |
On the way back to the RV we discussed how we were going to get Tinker clean. Our motorhome has water connections for a washer even though we don't have one installed. So we decided to connect a water hose to the cold water faucet (the water from the hot water faucet was too hot) and run the hose out the door in order to clean the river mud off of Tinker.
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| From Denali National Park |
After getting Tinker clean we sat outside by our Little Red Campfire (portable propane campfire with ceramic logs) and enjoyed the cool weather. We had to use our folding table to block the wind from our campfire.
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| From Denali National Park |
Tomorrow we are riding out into the park on one of the shuttle buses and hopefully see a lot of wildlife and Mt. McKinley.
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