Monday July 12th, Riley Campground, Denali National Park, AK

 86 Miles

Denali National Park covers more than 6 million acres and is famous for the amount of wildlife within it….we are yet to find out if this is true! Enjoyed the trip through this morning, some great scenery, especially as we got nearer to the park.

Our introduction was pretty grim as we drove through the area that is commonly known as Glitter Gultch …the real tourist part, huge hotels, restaurants and souvenir shops, and throngs of tourists. Most come in on bus tours from the cruise boats that ply the Alaskan waters a few hours away.

But once into the park, there are only park run concessions, a great mercantile store that has every supply a camper could want including booze!

Our first stop was the Wilderness Area Centre to get our camping pass that we had fortunately ordered on Saturday, as all the sites within the camp were booked out.

The road travels 90 miles into the centre of the park, but private vehicles can only drive the first 14 miles. So shuttle buses tranpsort people into the park. We booked a trip for tomorrow leaving at 6.15am….will have to be organized and up a bit earlier than we have been. It is an 11 hour trip and hopefully will perhaps see more animals earlier in the day.

We drove out as far as we could this afternoon, to Savage Creek and walked a 2 mile loop that followed the creek, it was great to get out and stretch the legs.

On the way out we spotted a bull moose with a good rack, a first for us as only ever seen cows. He was some distance away though so not the best photo op.

On the hike we came across a creature, about the size of a smallish dog, and it was just sunning itself on the rocks beside the water. Found out from a park ranger that it was a marmot. We also noticed some grizzly bear prints in the sand beside the creek, they are huge with big claw marks. Evidently there are quite a number in the park and if we could see one tomorrow, that we be awesome.