Alaska travelogue, Part 4: Denali National Park

Once we arrived in Denali National Park, we were transported to our place of stay, the magnificient Denali Bluffs Hotel.

While we boarded the train, we were asked if we were staying in a supported hotel. Once we mentioned the name Denali Bluffs, our bags were tagged that way. We were picked up by the hotel shuttle in front of the train station. We were handed over the room keys and checked in while we were in the bus. Our checked in bags were delivered to our hotel room by the very courteous staff. Similiarly, when we were ready to check out, all we had to do was to tag our bags and leave it outside the room. The staff picked the bags up, checked it to the train.

Now, that is what I call good customer service. I recommend this place to stay if you visit Denali.

The park itself, I have mixed feelings. In The Inner Game, Galen Rowell talks about over-management of the Denali National Park and how it stifles visitors moving around the park. Once I was half way into the park using their shuttle service, I realized why he said that.

There is only two ways to see the park, using either the shuttle bus service or using the tour bus service, both run by the same company. While I see the intent of keeping traffic down inside the park, it simply creates so much pain for some one like me. Let me explain.

The shuttle to Wonder Lake round trip takes about 11+ hours. There are so many wonderful vista points along the route, places you want to get down, explore, walk around, if not for taking photographs, just to feel the place. You can do that with the shuttle bus, but the only catch, if you get down from the bus, you give up your space in the bus. If you want to get in another shuttle, you get in a line and wait for the next available shuttle, which could be 30 mins or 2 hrs based upon which stop you are in.

Now, my daughter has to have a toddler seat to travel the shuttle bus. If I were to get down and get into another shuttle, I would have to lug the car seat down with me and take it wherever I went. To me, that is simply unacceptable. In any other national park I travelled [Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Bryce, Zion, Yosemite], this restriction is not there. [Parts of Yosemite are accessible only through shuttle buses and you have the choice of shuttle buses to other areas as well]. This makes up for a more family-friendly way to see and enjoy the national park.

Yes, the scenery is awesome and breathtaking and you get to see some real wild life in the wilderness and you are lucky to see the tallest mountain in N.America [as you will see from my photos here], but if I have to make a decision to visit Denali with the information I have now, I would pass Denali till my daughter grows up to be at least 7 or 8 years old. The trip to Denali took 30% of my tour expenses and I would have rather spent that money and time exploring more of the Kenai Peninsula area.

The best way to explore Denali National Park is to camp out there and explore the park by hikes. Anything else is a gross tourist snapshot trip, very tiresome at that. We had taken the shuttle to go to Wonder Lake to see Mt.Denali [aka Mt. Mckinley - very interesting story to the name, read up on that.] up close, but we decided to drop off 2 hours before the lake and return. It was just too much to handle.