Denali Teklanika Campground

Wednesday, July 6th, we packed up and headed into the Teklanika Campground in Denali National Park.  Before going further, we had to fill the tanks with water and use the dump station at Riley Creek Campground.  Teklanika is referred to as the TEK campground and it is all dry camping.  

Private vehicles can only go the first 15 miles into the park, but when camping in the TEK campground, you are able to drive your camping vehicle 29.1 miles into the park.  You have to camp there a minimum of three nights and once you get there,  you cannot go back up to the front without paying to go back on the bus.  The other perk in staying in this campground is that you can purchase a TEK pass for $35 which allows you to catch any bus going further back into the park if they have room for you.  We never had a problem catching a bus during our stay there.

I had to park the car in the Visitor's Center, Jim picked me up and we were off to the campground.  It was kind of neat going on this patch of road.

We arrived at the campground

and found a spot.

The campground is located by the Teklanika River which we walked down to.  The wildflowers were blooming profusely.

On the other side of the campground was this small pond.

That night, we attended a ranger lecture and the next morning we caught a green bus to Wonder Lake.

The views were pretty, but the clouds blocked a lot including the mountain.

This is the Polychrome Pass which can be pretty daunting.

We're certainly glad we didn't drive this in the motorhome.

The clouds really started rolling in after we went through Polychrome Pass and we were not able to see much.

We arrived at the Eilson Visitor Center and could not see a thing.  We decided to catch another bus back to the campground.

In the visitor's center is this chart showing how elusive Denali is.

 We were able to take the next bus back towards the front of the park.  These bus trips are not short, it is a 6 hour round trip from our campground and 8 1/2 hours from the front of the park just to the Eilson Visitor Center.  We just felt we should try another day since you couldn't see anything.

Jim had to try to be a moose with the antlers you could try out at the visitor's center. :)

On our trip back, the bus was not near as full and we could spread out and it had cleared up a little so we could at least see a little further.

First, we stopped to watch this grizzly looking down on something.  He was crouched inside the grass.

Then we saw a herd of caribou.

Higher up on a meadow was a herd of Dall sheep.

Then, we saw another grizzly bear closer than the last one.

We're looking forward to our next trip in, you just never know what you are going to see.