Denali National Park

 After entering Alaska from the Top of the World Highway I traveled north to attempt the rugged Dalton Highway which is a 500-mile drive to  Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Ocean. I had heard that there is heavy truck traffic due to the Alaskan Pipeline work. After about 20 miles on the Dalton Highway and several near sideswipes with trucks, I turned around and headed south to Fairbanks. The Dempster Highway in the Yukon that I drove is a much rougher road but has very little truck traffic compared to the Dalton. It wasn't worth the 500 miles of traffic. In Fairbanks, I had the van tires rotated and stocked up with food.

After Tok, I headed south to Denali National Park.

I like these types of bridges.

A really cool campground in Tok.

It was a really pretty drive south to Denali.

Getting close to Denali.

Glacial rivers are full of silt.

On my first morning in Denali, I was at the park bus stop to take an early morning transit hop-on/hop-off bus. This bus is really cool as it drives you 43 miles inside the park and lets you get off and hike or ride (bicycle rack on the front of the bus). You can then catch another bus back. This is my first look at Denali formerly known as Mt. McKinley.

On my day one bus trip I got off twice to hike. On the first hike, I was alone walking a high ridge when I spotted this grizzly bear. Pretty far away in the middle of the picture.

       On days two and three I rode to the park from my campground. 

Ptarmigan is the state bird of Alaska.

Denali is 20,310 feet.

Beautiful colors.

I really lucked out seeing Denali as only 30 percent of the park's visitors ever see it due to weather. It had rained all night.

After two hikes I went to the dog sled demonstration.

A dog named Mike! Denali is the only national park that has a team of mush dogs. They work hard all winter delivering construction materials. including 1,000-pound steel beams. Snowmobile use is banned here so the dogs do all the work.

All the dogs seemed really happy!

Dargo.

The mushing demonstration.

A fine campground 7 miles south of Denali Park entrance.

Where's Waldo--Belle? She's there.

I'll end this post with two bear cartoons from one of the camp bathrooms.
"C'mon! Look at these fangs!...Look at these claws!...You think we're supposed to eat just honey and berries?"

A dog mushing demonstration.