Anchorage to Denali National Park is about 238 miles and will take about 4 hours. Yesterday we had gone grocery shopping because we knew there would not be any big stores near there. So we are ready for adventure!
It was rainy most of the way to Denali.
We arrived at Denali about 1 pm. We have reservations at the Riley Creek Campground, which is right inside the entrance to the park. It has a couple of huge loops where the sites are located. Trees are everywhere. Each loop has one large bathroom house with toilets and sinks only, no showers as well as one bathroom house with vault toilets. Nice name for an outhouse. The sites are all gravel, with a fire pit and picnic table. I found many of the sites were so short. My T@B with RAV4 hooked up to it was too long, so I HAD to unhook and park it to the side. Long campers would’ve been tight also. To shower, you can either walk or drive to the shower house/Mercantile that is located nearby.
We got set up at the site and then went up to the Visitors Center, where we ate at the cafe there, then took a 2 mile hike back to our campsite via a trail. The trail went through the woods, down by the creek, past the train trestle and to the Mercantile. My son thought it was silly that I kept talking about bears and making lots of noise on the trail, but seeing wildlife around the campground is not unusual. Bears like to eat the berries on the bushes.
