Editor Pick
Denali Tundra Wilderness Tour
- January 18, 2006
- Rated 5 of 5 by
callen60 from Ozarks, Missouri
The only way to see the real interior of Denali is to let someone else drive. This has real advantages--whether you do it through the NPS concessionaire, Aramark, or make arrangements with a tour operator. You can also choose to ride the park shuttle, which means the driver is less of a guide and more of an operator, or take one of the tours.
They all proceed down the park's lone road, a well-graded (for the most part) gravel affair that heads nearly due west from the entrance, north of the Alaska Range and the mountain, ending 90 miles away at Kantishna. The Park Service offers two tours, the 5-hour Natural History Tour (which turns around at Primrose Ridge at mile 17; $50; three tours daily) or the Tundra Wilderness Tour. In peak season (mid-May to mid-September; two tours daily), this is a 6- to 8-hour journey to Toklat River (mile 53; $80). Both are fully narrated by your guide, who also drives your LNG-fueled green school bus.
The ride is not luxurious, but the scenery will keep your mind off the state of your seat. The Wilderness Tour is a most-of-the-day affair: we met at the Wilderness Access Center at 6:30am and returned at about 2pm. Advance reservations are a must; consider making these from home, not from Denali (although you may get lucky). From your seat, and with the assistance of your guide and fellow bus riders, you're likely to experience an Alaskan safari. We weren't blessed with great weather (which is a common experience), but I wouldn't trade the trip for anything.
We spotted three grizzlies making their way up a mountain; stopped for 20 minutes to watch four caribou graze, nap, and consume a few bushes; surveyed the amazingly open country from Polychrome Pass; and learned some native language and songs courtesy of our driver, a New Jersey kid who came to Alaska as a 20-year-old and never left (30 years ago). Despite the gray skies, it was great.
Only at the end of our 7-hour odyssey did I begin to feel the onset of the bus version of cabin fever, but it was enough to make me think that a round-trip to Kantishna and back would be too much for most people. I would pick the Wilderness Tour over the shorter Natural History Tour--you've come all the way to Denali, so why save the $30 and 3 hours and skip the more impressive part of the park?
From journal Alaska by Cruise Ship: You stay, scenery travels