Denali - what an amazing, fantastic place. Everyone needs to visit it once.
Traveled July 10th arriving in the evening at the Grand Denali Lodge outside of Denali National Park. Excellent views of the mountains from the hotel.
July 11th got up early for the 12 hour Kantishina
Wilderness Tour 90 miles into the park. This is as far as yo
u can go. Denali is a 7 million acr
e park and the 90 miles is half way through. Our guide was a Danish woman named Gitte. She lived for 18 years in the Alaskan bush 50 miles from the nearest Eskimo village.
Wilderness Tour 90 miles into the park. This is as far as yo
u can go. Denali is a 7 million acr
e park and the 90 miles is half way through. Our guide was a Danish woman named Gitte. She lived for 18 years in the Alaskan bush 50 miles from the nearest Eskimo village. 
We saw moose (male, female and calves), golden Eagles, Caribou, snowshoe hare and a red fox. Absolutely spectacular mountain scenery. Too cloudy and rainy to see Mount McKinley. We had 50 degree temperatures with 20 mile an hour winds all day.
July 12th back to the park in the morning. This time we were able to see Mount McKinley from 70 miles away very clearly. There wasn't a cloud near it and they tell us there is a 10% chance of that happening. We saw more moose and a few small animals. Had a talk by an Athabascan Indian woman and all in all it was a beautiful sunny day. Just the opposite of the day before.
That afternoon we left on the Alaskan Railroad for Fairbanks (spent two days at Pike's Lodge in Fairbanks).
July 15th we were back in Denali on our southbound trip. This time we stayed at the Denali Village Lodge on the Nenana River. It poured rain all day but we were able to take a hike of the Savage River Trail. We saw a Ptarmigan (the Alaskan state bird) but didn't see any other animals but we did see some fantastic mountain vistas.
Left Denali at 7:00 am on July 16th heading south to Seward to board the Celebrity Millenium.
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