You know what was the coolest part of working in Alaska in August of 2024? The correct answer is “everything”. But it was especially awesome to go to Denali one weekend for work, and then get the chance to go right back to the national park the next weekend with my family. We spent a day there on August 31, riding the bus tour as far as it would take us into the park. There was plenty of fall color, wildlife, and sled dogs for Elizabeth to enjoy. It was a perfect little day to be a “tour guide”.
If you’ve only got one fall day, make the most of it. That’s why Elizabeth and I were at my parents’ AirBNB by 6:00 am so we could make the 2-hour drive down the Parks Highway to Denali as early as possible. I was proud of Elizabeth for waking up; we had been out until well after 1:00 am the night before on the Parks Highway watching a low-end aurora display. “Low-end” is Alaska-speak for “only something that’s way cooler than you’d ever see in the Lower 48, not bright enough to read by aurora-light”. In other words, it was easy to spend hours just staring at the majesty of the night sky.
So even with the magical powers of a drive-through coffee stand, it was a minor miracle that we were all on the road that early.
It was a stunning morning to be in the national park. I’d marveled at the drive south through the huge glacial moraines into Denali Park the week before, but seeing them like this on a sunny morning was so much better. Heck, if the sun stayed out like this, we might get a chance to see the peak of Denali itself. As guest/park speakers had repeatedly hammered home the rainy week before during the Co-Op visit, only about 30% of all visitors to Denali National Park actually get a glimpse of the peak itself. But no matter what, we were on the board, because the Parks Highway has some early portions near Fairbanks with a decent view to the south. There is no record of it – I checked Elizabeth’s camera roll to confirm. You’ll just have to believe me. Fortunately, my documentation gets better from here – starting with a faint shot of a moose that we spotted in the bogs that surround the Parks Highway south of Nenana:
And a nice crisp, looks-like-fall morning shot of the NPS sign:
We had arrived a solid two hours before the 10:30 “East Fork Transit” bus, on which we had five tickets, would depart. In addition to building in a buffer in case weird things happened, this gave us time to wander the Visitor Center complex. As I had learned to my chagrin the week before, the entire main visitor area of the park can be extremely confusing and easy to get lost in. Having one day’s worth of institutional knowledge at least helped me a little bit – I was able to direct my dad to the correct place to park the rental car for the day. And once again, we can all take a moment to admire the view from the parking lot.
Visiting this spot let us handle some of the important pre-bus-tour business: getting physical tickets from our online order, picking up some snack items for a carb-heavy picnic lunch, seeing the exhibits at the Denali Visitor Center, and of course, gift shopping. The Visitor Center was neat but I covered that enough in my previous blog posts, so I will just make a note to say that it is very dangerous to go to an NPS general store with my parents. This is particularly true ever since they became grandparents. From what I understand, Wyatt really liked the stuffed husky sled dog they brought back for him though. And that’s really what it’s all about.
The Meister group made the walk over to the Denali bus depot early enough to stake out a great spot in line. The great spot didn’t really pay dividends given that there isn’t a “best seat in the house” on a school bus, but it was also nice not to be worried about missing our ride. The buses are painted green, which got me to wondering: was that a stylistic choice? Is someone making an attempt to paint the buses to match the official NPS logo color? Does green just blend in better with nature? Will a yellow bus send a moose into a flying rage? Tragically, these are all questions that remain unanswered to this day.
So here’s the deal with the bus: this was the East Fork Transit bus, which means that it was an unnarrated, hop-on hop-off situation. The previous week I had driven the Park Road as far public vehicle traffic is allowed to go, the Savage River Trailhead at mile 15. In a happier time in the past, buses would take you all the way to the Eielson Visitor Center and back. That was before the 2021 Pretty Rocks landslide around mile 43 wiped out a huge section of the road and rendered it unusable. In what may be a shocker to some people, it appears that once you start to melt a gigantic layer of permafrost due to climate change, there may be all sorts of minor impacts in addition to the major ones. Denali NP has responded as well as anyone could hope and has set up a new “end of the road” point at mile 43 at the bridge over the East Fork Toklat River. Because of the unique nature of the terrain (established trails can cause major damage to tundra ecosystems, which seem to respond better to just being trampled on at random once in a while), there are very few actual trails beyond the Savage River area. Instead, hikers can at any time signal to the bus driver that this is where they’d like to be let out, and then they basically forge out on their own. Come back to the road at some point that day (or a few days later, if you’ve worked it out that way) and another bus will pick you up and bring you back to the bus depot.
With my parents and Alex in tow and just a single day to enjoy, we weren’t planning anything extravagant. Just a simple bus ride to the end at East Fork, and then a little time to explore at the proverbial end of the line, and then we would head back to the bus depot in time to see the sled dog demonstration at 4:00 pm. If you stay on a single bus, the whole round trip is about 4.5 hours, so we’d get back to the park headquarters area roughly at 3:30 with half an hour at East Fork. It was a sound plan if a little bit cramped on time.
Three first impressions of the bus ride:
- The bus wasn’t as crowded as I feared. Elizabeth and I had plenty of space to sit next to each other and I could still spread my camera gear around.
- This was a way better way to watch the scenery than driving the Park Road at like 20 mph like I’d done last weekend.
- Fall color was much more noticeable than it had been a week prior. Then it was a subtle touch; now the tundra was ablaze.
You’d think such a view couldn’t possibly be overshadowed, right? One would think that. Except when we came around the corner at the Savage River and began climbing the ridge, the bus driver made an announcement. “You can see the mountain right now.”
Denali was out? Denali was out. Denali was out!!!
Sure enough, far in the distance outside our west window, a wall of white filled the horizon. The view wasn’t perfect because of a narrow band of stratus directly in the way, but behind it you could see the unmistakable shape of one of the world’s truly great mountains. At over 20,000 feet tall, this massif dwarfed anything I (or any of us, for that matter) had previously seen. My parents and Alex had taken a flight tour the day before in the vicinity so you would think they were a little more prepared for the awesome sight. But from the ground level, even here 30 or more miles away, there was just no way to compare it.
I was elated but I was also annoyed, as a moving bus is not a great spot to get your big-time shot. That’s especially true when you’re operating at full zoom on an object several dozen miles away. I had to “settle” for vistas such as this:
Woe is me.
After another 20 minutes or so, the bus driver noted that the low cloud cover was clearing up and we were approaching a high point. “You never know how long she’s gonna remain visible,” they said, pulling the bus with a groan to the side of the road. “Everyone’s got 10 minutes here.” I was off the bus in a flash, determined to get The Shot. Climbing on top of objects, hustling away from the crowd, doing whatever it takes. Unfortunately there wasn’t anything that I could do to get a few streamers of clouds out of the way, but otherwise what an angle we had toward Denali itself. In the front were some 8,000 foot peaks that looked like little molehills in comparison. Below those peaks was a vast sweep of pure-red Arctic tundra.
I never actually expected to see Denali when we visited the park. After this stop, cloud cover continued to increase and the great peak went missing, but a 10-minute view was 10 minutes more than I had expected. Actually seeing the mountain was something that happened to people with good luck, not Elizabeth and myself. Maybe it was my parents or Alex who brought the good luck with them. Whoever it was, they’re invited to all of my future travel where I’d like the weather to cooperate!
About 10 minutes later, we hit our first wildlife encounter of the day within park boundaries. Someone shouted out the magic word “bear”, and the bus driver dutifully pulled off to the side of the road (this is easy to do on a no-public-access road). A couple of hundred yards away, a sow grizzly and her two cubs rumbled through the boglands. Unfortunately, the bears weren’t in the mood to find a high spot above the bushes, turn, face the bus, and let me snap their pictures. Very inconsiderate of them. Still, the 200 mm camera lens was better than nothing when it came to acting as a wildlife scope. Elizabeth, my parents, and Alex all took their turns looking through it.
The most noteworthy stop along the East Fork route is the Teklanika Rest Stop at mile 30. Given the fact that we’re talking about school buses on dirt roads, you don’t reach mile 30 until about an hour and a half into the trip. Somebody was thinking ahead when they put in the wide parking area for the buses, along with top-quality restrooms and a big boardwalk overlooking the Teklanika River. The Tek is similar to a lot of the other Alaskan rivers I had seen on my journey – far below us there was a wide, gravelly basin through which an array of braided stream channels threaded from south to north out of the mountains. On the other side of the broad valley, there was a huge stand of brilliant-yellow aspens leading up toward the next range of mountains.
You just have to hand it to Alaska – the scenery is so much more dramatic than in the lower 48.
From the Teklanika valley, the Park Road cuts southwest through a narrow mountain pass – it would be just to the right of the mountain on the right side of the image above (Cathedral Peak). There was a dramatic shift in the fall color from here. Previously, the bus had rolled past prime bog tundra which was predominantly cranberry-red. Now, in this sloping valley, the predominant color was an almost aspen-like yellow, even though we were still above the tree line.
Those reds and yellows are the best fall colors I’ve ever seen and probably the best I ever will see. I can’t say this enough – if you get the chance to go to Denali in late August/early September, take it.
Before too long, someone made the call of “BEAR” again. For a second time in the last hour, a sow and her two cubs were a hundred or so yards away from the road. Once again, my perfect shot from inside the bus was complicated by the presence of brush. This time it was much closer to myself than the bears, but it still prevented a perfect picture. Recognizing the difficulty in getting an in-focus shot, I passed the makeshift wildlife scope around again to family.
Six brown bears in the span of one hour! That’s an impressive wildlife haul.
About 10 minutes after that, the bus pulled off again (being a Denali bus driver must be a constant game of trying to figure out where you’ll pull if one of the little piggies behind you makes a wildlife call). This time, the call wasn’t “BEAR”. Instead, someone looking way up beyond the vegetation line had found some white dots sitting in a scree field. White dots don’t usually just appear on a scree field for no reason; in this case our fellow tourist had spotted a flock of about one dozen Dall’s sheep. This mighty sheep species is the immediate reason that Denali National Park and Preserve was named in 1917 – to give them a preserve as a buffer against overhunting. Since then, the Dall’s sheep has become a symbol of Denali. It’s no coincidence that one of them is depicted on the park entrance sign instead of grizzlies/moose/caribou. In this case, the flock was well up a mountain slope at a distance of what had to be at least a mile, so even the wildlife scope on the camera wasn’t going to do much for us. But it was still very exciting to see them, especially for my mom. She might be one of the few people I’ve met who is as excited about checking off new animal sightings in national parks as I am.
Finally the terrain opened up one final time. Right around 1:00, the bus pulled into the East Fork turnaround area. Somebody at the NPS was making the best of the landslide a few miles away – they’d set up stations of port-a-potties for anyone and everyone who chooses to get off at the turnaround. We planned to do so along with all of the other bus patrons. As my dad pointed out, even a half-hour stop here before the next bus swung back around would make it tough to get to the sled dog kennels in time for the 4:00 demonstration. I refused to let that concern me, though. Far below the bridge, the East Fork Toklat River sparkled in the occasional sunlight. Yellow trees and yellow tundra lined the riverbank. The mountains to the south were capped with a fresh coating of snow. It was too beautiful a scene to waste on worrying about schedules.
Somebody had thoughtfully put in a staircase from the bus turnaround down to the river so that people could explore. I made an immediate beeline for the river because it goes against my nature to not explore a river, particularly one as fun-looking as the East Fork. There were so many braids in the channel that you could jump over stream after stream and slowly make your way closer to the center of the river.
Unfortunately, a central stream channel did exist. Therefore, Elizabeth, Alex, and I were unsuccessful in our goal of crossing from one side of the alluvial fan to the other without getting wet. But we made it further than you would think. More importantly, wasn’t this what visiting a national park was all about? You and your wife and your sibling all trying to jump over little side streams without landing in frigid glacial melt and soaking your shoes and ruining your day. Trash talking and route-setting. Taking running starts and making careful landings. To me, this is the best memory of our bus tour in Denali. It wasn’t all of the wildlife, or the incredible fall colors. It wasn’t even the surprise appearance of the mountain peak. No, it was spending time with family, trying to get across that channel, all while my parents looked on.
I am happy to report that despite some angst among the group, we had no problems making it back to a new bus at 1:30 for the ride back toward the park headquarters. The ride back turned into a real wildlife power hour as some of Denali’s most famous big mammals made appearances. It started with bear number seven on the day out by the Teklanika River.
And then between Teklanika and Savage Rivers, a pair of moose ran across the tundra meadows as though their lives depended on it. When you think about it, their lives probably did depend on being able to run fast.
7 bears, 2 (or 3, depending on the one near Nenana) moose, 12 Dall’s sheep, and an assorted array of chipmunks and local birds made for an extremely productive visit.
But wait, there’s more! Near the Savage River area, as the bus trip was coming to an end, someone called out for the bus to stop again. Not for a bear or for a moose, but for… a caribou! Yes, for the first time in my life, I was about to see a real-life reindeer. Or at least Elizabeth, who was sitting on that side of the bus and was holding down camera duties every time something popped up out her window, was about to see a reindeer. (I got glimpses of my own through an annoying stand of pine trees). The big takeaway? Caribou are rocking a crazy set of antlers. Don’t mess with them (unless their name is Rudolph).
Brown bear, moose, caribou, Dall’s sheep. That’s an impressive haul for 4 and a half hours on a bus. About the only thing that we didn’t see were grey wolves, and that would just be taking things to a level of good luck that feels greedy to even contemplate.
Pine tree cover got thicker and thicker out the window, which meant that we were getting close to the park headquarters. I flagged down the bus driver to get them to let us out at the headquarters/sled dog kennels. It was pretty much 4:00 already and the demonstration was getting underway, but thanks to some quick hustle and a friendly park ranger on the other end of the pathway letting us past the barricade, we managed to settle into our seats just in time to see the dogs in all of their glory. It was nice to get a chance to see the part of the demonstration I’d missed the week before.
This part of the national park may have been Elizabeth’s favorite. She’s watched the Denali sled dog webcams online ever since our visit. It would be hard to exaggerate how many times in the last few years that she’s commented that Scipio would make a really good sled dog.
The beautiful weather from this morning was finally starting to break. My family had gotten incredibly lucky with great weather after my first two weeks in Fairbanks were full of gloom and rain, so it seemed only fair that they experienced Alaska the way that I had been doing. Fortunately for us, it was the end of our visit to the national park anyway. It is scientifically proven that rainy weather is 3 times more enjoyable at a brewery, and especially one that has good beers. And hey! Up in Healy is 49th State Brewery, whose yak burgers I had enjoyed with my buddy Matt the week before. We all enjoyed some hot food, a chance to catch up on college football scores, and of course, beer.
This pretty much wrapped it up for my family’s visit to Fairbanks. By the next evening, they had headed back to Grand Rapids and I’d dropped Elizabeth off for her flight back to OKC. I would be in town for another several days working my last week at WFO Fairbanks before coming back to the not-at-all-tundra-like Oklahoma prairie in early September. I know of at least one dog back in Norman who was happy to see me.
It was a real treat to get to visit Denali twice. The first trip up there gave me a really unique chance to experience the park’s relationship with weather, meet a bunch of park rangers, and then stay in a nice cabin and get a great hike in. That felt like it took a lot of pressure off of the second trip so that I could just sit on the bus and enjoy it with family. I don’t take it for granted that my parents, my sibling, and my wife all have the means and the interest to visit me so much that they’d book flights on relatively short notice to the interior of Alaska just for a weekend. Hopefully they enjoyed spending time with me as much as I did the opposite.
Ultimately, my work trip didn’t go very far in advancing Elizabeth and my goal of visiting every national park. Our flight to Gates of the Arctic was canceled (due to a snowstorm! In August!) and Denali was the only really reachable national park in the interior. As time has gone on, I’ve appreciated that more and more. First of all, we have big plans for a 2027 trip to the coastal part of Alaska – Glacier Bay, Lake Clark, Katmai, and Kenai Fjords all wrapped up into one three-week trip. Even that will leave us short of completion, but that just means another trip to Alaska one day! That third trip will hopefully bring us back into the Interior, a magical place where I spent a magical month.
