Denali National Park

Recently Gramma and Grampa Ramsay came to visit.  They were joined by long time friends Gary and Debbie Czeschin.  We spent the week visiting Denali National Park and the costal town of Seward.

We took the train to Denali.  The cars had glass domes, so we had a 360 view of the passing landscape.  It was not a bad way to spend 8 hours!  Our guide was a little over the top (think former cruise director), but the narration was interesting.

The only way to tour Denali is via a tour bus.  The road is only paved for about 15 miles into the park.  There are a variety of tours you can take, as well as no-frill shuttle buses that just pick up and drop off hikers and campers.  We chose a private tour company that has a lodge in the small private land located 90 miles into the park.  Our tour was a total of 13 hours, 6 hours into the park, 2 hours at the lodge for lunch and wandering, and 5 hours back out.  Along the way we saw grizzlies, caribou, dall sheep, eagles, and much more.  The one thing we didn't see was Denali itself.  During the summer, the mountain is only visible about one third of the time.  We lucked out, however, on the train ride back to Anchorage we saw some stunning views of the mountain.