Wondrous Alaska-Denali National Park

January 27, 2018

Visited in July 2016

Denali National Park in the State of Alaska USA, is spread over a magnanimous area of more than 6 million acres/ 24,500 sq Km! One really cannot sum up the incredibly fascinating beauty of its landscapes and the sheer enigmatic colors of those landscapes.

Mt. Denali (previously known as Mt. Mckinley) at 20,310 ft/6190.5 m, is the highest peak in North America.

We had booked a resort hotel inside the National park (There are quite a few around the same place). All of there hotels/resorts have shuttles from the train station, in case you decide to experience the train ride up to Denali.

This is a little view from the balcony of our hotel room at 2am.

Denali does not allow private vehicles after about a few miles from the entrance. To tour this vastness, one needs to book one of Denali bus tours. There are many of them including ones for campers and hikers. We chose a 12 hrs trip to and fro covering a distance of 170 miles deep into the national park.

Our journey began by 8 am. We had a wonderful lady who was our driver cum narrator. We are expected to be very quiet inside the bus as it moved along the dirt road. Keeping quiet is desired so we don't scare the wild life on the road and we were discouraged from using flash for our cameras, again for the wild life. It was a very bright morning hence I could capture some great photos during the first half of the day.

We caught glimpses of bears n moose on our way but they are usually very swift to run into the woods, but one big bear was smart enough to look at all of us and then slowly cross the road while we stopped to see and let it pass by!

One thing you would feel is what kind of restrooms would you get in that kind of wilderness. But Oh America! I was thoroughly surprised and wowed (which Iam, with million other things about this country), with the number of restroom booths there are at every one hour of distance! Of course they are compost ones but spic and span with required toiletries in each! Our bus stopped at every hour.

We were asked to carry our lunch and water supply to last for 12 hrs, so we did. There's one stop where we had a little gift store plus coffee etc. We had our sandwiches on the way, as we weren't

looking to waste time in eating at our stopovers.

Our last stop was a the Wonder lake about 85 miles from the entrance of the park. By that time however, the skies were overcast, hence it took a toll on my photography, especially since Iam really not a pro. Experiencing the beauty of this Alaskan landscape inside of Denali is truly a delight! We were awestruck! Words simply fail!

We reached the visitor centre by 7.30 pm. It was bright with sunlight then. It were visiting in July and it was a 23 hr daylight then! Oh boy! What a gem of a place we just experienced. It will be a joy forever!