State(s): Alaska
Link: https://www.nps.gov/dena/index.htm
Days: 1.5
Month: August
Hotel: Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge
Hikes: 3 = 7.1 miles
National Park Visit Order: #25
Ice Cream: N/A
This post continues our Alaska Cruisetour Series, where we’re recapping our 15-day adventure — 7 days at sea with 8 days on land, taking us to 4 National Parks: Glacier Bay National Park, Kenai Fjords National Park, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, and Denali National Park. Additionally, we made it to 1 National Historical Park: Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park. It wasn’t perfect — we ran into a few hiccups — but overall, this trip delivered the kind of adventure we were hoping for.
Day 1
We hiked the Horseshoe Lake Trail, a 1.4-mile lollipop loop. We headed toward the beaver dam before circling back around. We spotted some small ducks swimming in the water along the way. It’s a beautiful trail with great water views, though it comes with a fair number of stairs — steep going down at the start, and just as steep coming back up at the end. We caught the bus back to the lodge afterward.
Next, we headed back into the park for the Tundra Wilderness Tour, with our guide, Chris. We saw a ptarmigan, a grizzly bear, and Dall sheep on the mountainside during our first restroom stop — they looked like little white dots from a distance. We spotted more sheep as we continued on, along with an Arctic ground squirrel. Then came a second grizzly, this time with a cub in tow. We also saw ravens flying overhead, more sheep with a couple of lambs on the way back, and caribou that came right up alongside the bus. It was an incredible tour all around.
Chris dropped us off at the visitor center, where we grabbed a bite — flatbread pizza and some fruit snacks — before getting our National Parks passport stamp, picking up a few souvenirs, and making a restroom stop.
We caught the sled dog demonstration next. Denali is home to the only kennel in the entire National Park Service, and the dogs are still used today for winter patrols and hauling people and equipment through the backcountry — a practical, low-pollution alternative to vehicles that don’t hold up well in Denali’s harsh winters. It was a really cool program to learn about, and we got to pet and visit with the dogs before heading out to catch the shuttle bus to our next stop.
We’d hoped to hike the Savage River Loop Trail, but doing so would have meant rushing to make it back in time — the last shuttle back to the Princess Lodge from the visitor center runs at 7:20pm, which only left us about an hour of hiking time.
Instead, we got off at Mountain Vista Trail, an easy 0.6-mile hike, for a quick, enjoyable walk. From there, we walked the connecting 0.4-mile trail over to the Savage Cabin Loop, another easy trail at 0.8 miles. We checked out the historic cabin and spotted a bunny along the way. With some time left before our bus arrived, we walked the 0.4-mile trail back to the Mountain Vista area, for a total of 2.2 miles, rather than just waiting around.
We headed back to the lodge and went to Grizzly Burger for dinner. We had the Cali Chicken Sandwich and a Rockfish Sandwich with onion rings, and we both finished the night off with peanut butter cup milkshakes. So good.
Day 2
We woke up in time to grab a quick breakfast and hop on the 6am shuttle so we could squeeze in one more hike before leaving the park. We were the only people at the Princess lodge crazy enough to catch the 6am shuttle to hike before heading out. We were dropped off at the visitor center.
We hiked the McKinley Station Trail, a moderate 1.6-mile one-way trail that forms a loop by the campground. We also did the Morino Loop, then continued on, checking out the bridge toward the Triple Lakes Trail before circling back. We walked under a railroad bridge, looped back around, and crossed back over the bridge we’d been to earlier. We spotted a bunny along the way, then crossed a suspension bridge before taking the shorter path back to the visitor center, which had a decent bit of incline — really the only part of the trail that could remotely be considered moderate. It was a nice trail overall; we’d hoped to see more wildlife, but it was still an enjoyable walk. All told, we covered about 3.5 miles.
We stopped by the store to look for some dog-themed souvenirs, then swung by the visitor center to get a better park stamp since our first attempt didn’t come out well. From there, we caught the bus back to the lodge to change and get ready for the day ahead.
Then we continued on our Alaska Cruisetour Series – Land journey.
