Your Guide to Denali National park

For National Park enthusiasts, Denali is one to check off the bucket list. I recently spent 4 months in the Alaskan Interior, and visited Denali 4 times. Between understanding the park road, wildlife viewing, and the best times to see The Mountain, this is your guide to everything you need to know to visit Denali National Park.

Why Visit Denali?

Denali is known as Alaska’s Yellowstone. It is a vast, incredible, open landscape that is mostly closed to vehicular traffic, making it one of the most pristine wildernesses you can drive to. Because of its untouched wild, it makes for an incredible space for healing, meditation, and being with oneself if you are on a pilgrimage pack to yourself. If you’re simply looking for an incredible place to experience the beauty of Alaska’s nature, there is no shortage of that, either. Denali is home to endless wildlife, the tallest mountain in the US, and incredible backcountry experiences you can’t get anywhere else.

This post was written in 2021, so rules may have changed if visiting in future seasons. For the most part, these systems are the same year to year.

Horseshoe Lake Loop Trail

When is the best time to go?

There are only two distinct seasons of visitation in Alaska: Summer and Winter. Of course, there are their versions of spring and fall, deemed the Breakup and the Freeze-up, but most people don’t visit during those periods. Denali is open year round, but unless you’re prepared for sub-zero temperatures, and getting around via dogsled, you’ll want to visit in the summer. Summer season in Alaska lasts from around June 1 to September 15. Businesses usually open around May 15, but some roads are still snowy then.

When it comes to visiting Denali, be prepared to become part of the “70% club.” Only 30% of visitors actually see the Mountain, and your best chances are to go in late June or July, and enter the park as early as possible. You’ll want to hop on a bus to Eielson for your best chances of getting a picture like the one below!

Can I drive to Denali?

This is a complicated question because the short answer is, yes, you can drive to the park. Due to protections instated by the National Park Service, though, you can only drive up to Mile 15 of the Park Road. You’ll be able to get to the visitor center, a few established trails, the bus depot, and your furthest point: Savage River. There are very low chances of getting to actually see Mount Denali from this section of the road, so if you don’t have bus reservations, I suggest visiting the local State Park as well, to try to catch a view of it from the North or South Viewpoints.

The Savage Alpine Trail, one of the established trails accessible from the first 15 miles of the Park Road

How does the bus system work?

The bus system is the only way to explore the park past mile 15. You must have a reservation ahead of time, which you can make through Reserve Denali. There are three types of buses you can reserve: Camper Buses, Transit Buses, and Tour Buses. Exceptions to this include buses going to Kantishna Lodge, and standby tickets only available for campers spending 3 nights or more at Teklanika River Campground.

Camper Buses are only for backpackers and campers staying in one of the Park’s many established campgrounds. These buses can take you to a campground, or drop you off in one of the Park’s backpacking regions.

Transit buses can take you through the park, usually as far as the Eielson Visitor Center. In past years, they were able to take you to Wonder Lake, but as of 2021, Wonder lake was only for campers. Transit buses are not required to give you park information, but are a great way to get to see wildlife, and drive through the park.

Tour buses have to give park information as they drive you through the park, but generally stop before Eielson. So if you want to get all the way to the visitor center, I’d suggest booking a Transit bus.

Due to landslides at Polychrome, the park road became inaccessible at the end of the 2021 season until the park finishes construction on this part of the road. The landslides were caused by melting permafrost. Please contact Reserve Denali to check road conditions before booking your bus ticket.

What are the best hiking trails?

Denali is mostly a free-hike park, meaning you can go anywhere you want in approved areas, without an established trail. If you choose to do this, make sure you’re confident in your navigation skills, and carry a topographical map of the area you’re going to be hiking.

Always carry bear spray when hiking in Alaska.

The established trails that do exist in Denali are generally short, and many of them are located before Savage River on the park road. In this area, the Savage River and Savage Alpine trails are popular, and the Roadside Trail is the only official dog friendly trail in the park. For a trail close to the park entrance, check out the Horseshoe Lake Trail.

Some of my favorites though, are in the Eielson area, including Thoroughfare Ridge Trail, pictured above.

Looking for more information or local conditions? Check the National Park Service Website!

How a Seasonal Job in Alaska Changed My Life

In April 2021, I sat with a boy I loved in a Sprinter van we’d built out ourselves, on a side street in Loreto, Mexico, outside a taco stand we grew to love. We were waiting for our laundry, and because we had cell service in town, I prompted him to look for jobs in Alaska, because he was feeling like he needed to work again, and we’d been trying to make it to Alaska since we met. After a long two minutes looking for jobs, he showed me a listing looking for “an outgoing couple to run a hostel in Fairbanks.” I sent the owner an email, and we heard back almost immediately that he wanted to schedule a phone interview. We called in from Baja the next day, and of course, got the job.

A few days later, we turned our wheels north, heading from Todos Santos, Mexico, to Fairbanks, Alaska on a road trip that took us only a month to complete. The trip was expedited by a faulty catalytic converter that we had to replace in San Diego, and the fact that Canada gave us only 3 full days to drive through their country due to the pandemic.

Craters of the Moon National Monument, ID on our way to the Canadian Border

Once we hit Alaska, we started our seasonal job in Fairbanks, a hostel job that actually paid, and gave us 2 days off a week so we could explore. I’ve been on the road over 2 years at this point, so committing to 5 months of stagnancy was already hard enough. Those 2 days a week were what kept me motivated to actually do this job, to sit with myself in one place for a second, and learn what lessons stagnancy had to teach me—what lessons Alaska herself had to teach me. I knew, as soon as we’d turned north, that when I left Alaska, I’d be in a new stage in my life, I just didn’t know what that would look like.

On June 1, we were on our way to Denali State Park, to hike a trail I was really excited to do now that I’d fully recovered from my infamous 2020 knee injury. I’ve been on my intuitive path for a while, so of course, I knew something was wrong with the van before our transmission went out. I’d just opened my mouth to tell Jared that we needed to take the van to the mechanic when we got back to Fairbanks when we lost all power, and ended up stranded on the side of the Parks Highway for 5 hours before a tow truck came to take us back to Fairbanks.

Making the most of staying put at the Georgeson Botanical Gardens in Fairbanks

What we were originally told was a $400 battery replacement and repair, quickly turned into an $8000 transmission rebuild, just a month and a half after we’d already spent $3000 on the Catalytic Converter replacement. The money hurt, but not as much as the time. Due to mechanics being few and far between in Alaska, it took about a month to get our van back, which sent my nomadic self into a depressive episode that made me wish I’d just stayed home and not bothered taking this job in the first place. As we discussed our options during that month, Jared expressed that he didn’t want to be responsible for a van anymore. This meant I was left with two options: buy his half of the van from him, or sell the van.

After an evening of trying to decide which option would be best, I eventually landed on selling the van as the best financial decision that would potentially allow me to make the space to direct my business toward making me financially free, rather than always having to work for other people. It broke my heart when we eventually got the van back, and I drove it back to our hostel, knowing that my time with our little home was limited, but still wanting to experience all that I could with it. It was around this time that Jared decided he was going to be staying in Alaska, working seasonally in the winter, so it truly did make the best financial sense for me to be solo again, in a smaller rig.

Not too long after, during a trip to one of our favorite parts of Alaska, Jared announced that he didn’t see us as compatible with each other in the long term. This didn’t mean he didn’t love me, and I didn’t disagree with him. But breaking up was never what I wanted from our relationship. I truly thought we were in it for the long run, but plans change, and so what I thought would be a long distance relationship starting in the fall, quickly turned into me preparing myself to explore the world all alone again.

This is what brings us to where we are today, with me on the road, now about 2,000 miles away from Fairbanks, traveling alone in the rig we built together. I am on my way back to California, where I will be selling the van, in exchange for a new one, so that I can keep traveling by myself. My world has completely changed, which is why I’m going to be taking this project, Halle’s Wandering Soul, in a different direction, angling toward talking about healing through travel, so that other people, especially women, can see that it’s possible to find oneself, through getting a little lost.

-HWS