Denali National Park

Denali National Park has two distinct areas: wilderness and "not." We've spent the last two nights at the Savage River Campground exploring some of the "not" including the Learning and Science Center and the dog sled kennels. While it's a pleasant little campground, there's not much nearby and, with hazy skies from the fires nearby, it's hard to tell if there's much view. If you're planning a visit, you might even be better off in closer to the "not" by staying at Riley Creek near the entrance. (Plus, you'd have 4 bars of LTE.) Beyond Savage River, the park road turns to gravel as it ventures out into the 6 million acres of wilderness and is only accessible on one of the repurposed school busses that run various tours and shuttle routes. That is, unless you have reservations at Teklanika Campground which allow you to drive out to mile 29. This afternoon, we'll move out to "Tek" for 5 nights. Our reservations there also allow us to catch one of those shuttle busses from the campground, cutting off about 3 hours from a round trip ride out to the Eielson Visitor Center for a chance at a view of the mountain and the wildlife along the way. #airstream #airstreamwithkids #airstreamtoalaska #myrivetedlife #liveriveted #denalinationalpark #savageriver

The first superintendent of Denali National Park was a local dog sled musher named Harry Karstens who was initially hired to guide and carry equipment for Charles Sheldon who sought to research and protect the Dall Sheep who lived in the area. More than 100 years later, dog sled teams actively patrol the park and assist with wilderness and environmental research, running around 25 miles a day and 3000 each winter! Wynne insists on called them "puller dogs" so that's what we go with around here. #sleddogs #denalinationalpark #alaskanhusky #childhoodunplugged

A #TBT to 2 years ago as we returned from a 5 week loop around the Southwest in our 19' Airstream and weighed the benefits of life on a farm in Northern CA vs a life on the road (link to blog post temporarily in profile or look in the blog archive under July 2013). In the end, we decided to head back out for 8 weeks up the OR coast and meet up with several other Airstreams on the way to Banff. After the Icefields Parkway, we wound down thru Glacier, Yellowstone, the Tetons, Sun Valley and almost got snowed in miles up a winding forest road. That trip pretty much sealed the deal. On the way home, we checked out a Craigslist ad for a 25' International CCD in Boise and left the guy with a down payment. 4000 miles north and another kid later, we're about to tow that trailer as far as they'll let us into Denali National Park. #livinthedream #airstream #airstreamwithkids #airstreamtoalaska #liveriveted #myrivetedlife

Heading out the Denali Park Road to the Teklanika Campground felt a bit like preparing for a backcountry trip. Well, sort of. I mean, instead of packing freeze-dried food into ziplocs, we were making sure we had enough fresh bananas and strawberries for our morning oatmeal. Instead of trying to figure out how our sleeping bags had ever fit into those tiny stuff sacks, we were realizing that we'd have to drive 20 minutes outside of the park to fill our propane so we could keep the trailer nice and toasty. Instead of tightly rolling up two pairs of underwear and a small bottle of Dr. Bronner's soap, were taking long, luxurious showers in the visitor center parking lot before we did one last dump of the tanks. And instead of tearing out pages that we'd already read from books to save weight, @advodna_ann had her phone's camera set up in the back bedroom capturing streaming video from her laptop of a workout program she'd subscribed to so she could do them once we were out of cell service range. I *may* have changed the angle of the camera a little while I was back there getting ready for my shower, just to give her a little mid-workout treat. 😉 As long as those videos aren't automatically uploaded to Photostream, no one else will... Oh crap, gotta go delete something real quick. Okay, I'm back. What was I saying? Oh yeah, the backcountry. Anyway, with a shower every other day for us and a bath for the kids, we tend to need to dump (gray water at least) every third day, and that usually includes adding the contents of the two 6 gallon portable jugs we keep filled in the truck. That's 39 gallons onboard plus 12 more. We only have a 39 gallon gray tank, but those extra gallons basically go to drinking water and down the toilet into the black tank. Anyway, 51 gallons/3 days is 17 gallons a day, a little over 4 per person, not bad compared to the national average I've seen listed as 100, though we have a lot less landscaping to take care of. Still, to make things stretch to 5 days, we'll need to catch some gray water from the sink and dump it into the black tank and let's just say, hygiene may have to slip a bit. "Camping" is *hard.* 😉 #airstream

The road out to Teklanika is gravel but well-maintained since it's used by the frequently- scheduled shuttle and tour buses. Still, it felt pretty neat to be among the relatively few who get to drive it. We'd already left later than we'd wanted to because of our detour outside the park to get propane but were still within the range for getting Mae a second nap while we drove. Of course, her eyes were shutting just as we approached the checkpoint to confirm we had legitimate reason to be driving past Mile 13, only to open again widely as the friendly ranger leaned in the window to give us the details on the road and a ranger talk later that evening. We took the drive slow, watching either side of the road for wildlife (which never appeared) and for Mae's eyes to droop once again. After 45 minutes, we pulled into the campground with a sleeping baby and drove both loops, identifying our favorite sites. Just as we circled back around to our top choice, it started to hail. Awesome. Since we didn't seem to be in anyone's way, we just idled in the road watching it fall and imagining how loud it must have been in the trailer! Despite warnings I'd read, our trailer would have fit in just about any site in the campground, particularly with some creative parking of the truck. Our spot was at the end of the second loop with easy access out to the 1/4 mile wide bed of gravel through which the Teklanika River runs in twists and braids. #childhoodunplugged #ergo #babywearing #teklanikariver #teklanikacampground #denalinationalpark #denalikids #dadalmostgotbeanedwitharock

So this is the face Mae makes now when we tell her to smile. #popeyethesailorbaby #teklanikariver #teklanikacampground #denalinationalpark #fulltimefamilies #advodnaxmascard

[Jaws soundtrack] #airstream #airstreamwithkids #myrivetedlife #liveriveted #thatshowweroll - posted by advodna_dave on June 29, 2015 at 09:24PM

A little tip, try to get a window seat on the left side of the bus for the way out into the park for the best views. Otherwise, you'll have to shoot across the aisle and likely through a dusty school bus window like I had to. After cropping out the window frame, it actually gave this shot kind of a nice filter. #denalinationalpark #denalibus #thomasbus

And while the views from the Eielson Visitor Center at Mile 66 didn't cooperate, @advodna_ann snuck this shot of The Mountain on the road in. See that lighter cloud between the darker ones in the upper right? Yeah, that's a 20,000 foot tall mountain. #Denali #denalibus #denalinationalpark

A couple weeks ago, I googled "Denali with kids" and found a lot of responses to the effect that it was not a good park for kids and one even claiming that they go out of their way to make it hard to bring kids there. I can only assume that last comment was referring to the fact that you are required to bring your own car seat on the shuttle busses for kids who need one and that the majority of the park is only accessible via a long bus ride. In fact, there are some fun things to do near the entrance (sled dog kennels, visitor center, science and learning center, short hikes) and the park will loan you a Kids Discovery Backpack filled with binoculars, animal and plant guides, an animal track casting kit, colored pencils and pastel crayons, a couple kids story books and an activity guide. And of course, supportive personnel happy to swear in new Junior Rangers (badge #6 for Wynne!). That being said, we agreed with a few posts that bringing a smaller baby on a long bus ride could interfere with the enjoyment of others (and probably wouldn't be too much fun for us either), so we decided to take turns with just one of us taking Wynne on the bus while the other stayed home and "supervised" Mae's naps. Over two days, Wynne rode the bus for a total of 12 hours (!), admittedly mostly watching her iPad, but also seeing grizzly bears, moose and caribou. That seemed like it probably deserved a little green something from the gift shop. #denalibus #denalinationalpark #toklat #juniorranger #childhoodunplugged #wellpluggedbutwhiledrivingthrough6millionacresofwilderness

"Hey, I got an idea. How 'bout you stop your little car right where you are and don't even think about moving until my family is well down the embankment? I'll just stand here in the road to make sure you don't get confused." - Moose

These things are adorable! I just wanna hug their puffy little heads! Then play - or BE - dead. #grizzly #denalinationalpark #famouslastwords