We just returned from a 2-week trip to Alaska, which included a 3-day stay in Denali Park. In spite of the expense, we decided to stay inside the park at Kantishna Roadhouse (about $800 a night for 2 persons!) to maximize our chances of seeing wildlife. For those of you not familiar with this lodge, it is past Wonder Lake, about 95 miles into the park. On the entire 6-hour bus trip in, we saw 1 carabou and 1 ground squirrel. On the next 2 days hiking around Kantisha, we saw nothing -- not a squirrel, not a chipmunk, nothing. We decided to fly out to the park entrance to avoid the rough, early 6 hour bus ride back out of the park on day 3. Those lodge guests who did take the bus ride back did see a couple of bears at a long distance away, but not much more. Were we just very unlucky on our visit to the park, or is our experience with the poor wildlife viewing at this time of year common?

You were unlucky. I have always seen bear and moose on trips through the park. One trip saw from an outlook over a dry river bed more than a dozen bear in one area. The two trips we took were in September.

Each year the National Park Service, Denali National Park has a road lottery drawing for entry of 400 privately owned vehicles each day for 4 days. The number of people per vehicle does not matter. The road lottery is always on Friday through Monday immediately following the close of the park to the general public for the winter.

It's a great way to visit, if a person is lucky enough to get their name drawn because you can maintain your own schedule. A person has one full day entering the park in the morning and must exit in the evening.

The Denali National Park Service accepts applications during the month of July for the lottery. The drawing is held the lst part of August.

A person can stay at the Princess Lodge just outside of the park. Since everything is closing down for the winter the hotel rates are usually $99.00 per room, per night.

One hitch in all this is if it snows and they close the road into the park on your road lottery day you're out of luck for that year.

I would not visit the park under any other circumstances.

A few years ago we stayed at the Denali Backcountry Lodge which is next door to the K Roadhouse.

We say 7 Grizzly, various caribou, a herd of Dall Sheep, one fox up close two moose and various squirrels all on our ride into the park.

We saw Denali twice from Wonder Lake during our three day stay.

One morning a moose wandered into the lodge about 5:30 am. They had to set off firecrackers to scare it away.

During a hike we came across a lone wolf and a grizz with two cubs. We were there in mid June. You must have just missed out. We saw wildlife every day of the three we were in the park.

Aloha!

Did you manage to see the mountain? I know a number of people who have visited the park multiple times yet have never seen Denali due to clouds/fog.

One thing to remember about Denali: like all other true wilderness experiences, it is NOT a zoo. You might see a dozen moose, two dozen caribou, half a dozen (each) of bears and dall sheep, and the mountain itself for three days (like we did) -- or you might see one caribou. It's just dumb luck. I'm sorry to hear you spent $2400 and didn't get what we got for $2300 less than that (we camped), but that IS a possibility.

I was in Denali in June, and saw caribou, one moose, lots of dall sheep, three grizzly bears (two were very far from the road, but one crossed right near the bus), one porcupine (very near the road), pika, ground squirrels and marmots -- and I was only in the park for one full day. To a certain extent its a matter of luck, and you may have had an excellent trip if you hadn't let your frustration cause you to fly out on your final day. I had spoken to others who had seen a grizzly bear tangle with wolves over a caribou carcass a few days before I arrived.

To MileKing,
We did get to see the mountain, but not from the ground. It was covered in clouds/ fog for all of the time we were there. One reason we decided on the fly-out was to see it, and we did get a great view.

Angler, I feel some of your pain. We went to Alaska in July a few years ago and rode that long bus ride in and out in one day (I recall it was 6 hours each way). We only saw two bears very very far away, the sheep far away and the highlight was one tall Moose with baby at a stop, up close but then she ran. Maybe our best sighting was being with the husky dogs we saw at our b and b.

Thit cho (who has also been to Africa), had better luck, but for us, it paled compared to African wildlife viewing or even New Zealand wildlife. The moose sighting area by water was so filled with bugs we could barely eat (because they would fly in our mouths).

Of course wildlife viewing is always dependent on luck but we were also very unlucky. Our bus driver also spent the return drive talking to a passenger the entire time so he never pointed out anything on the drive back (and didn't have his eyes on the road enough either). This is not to say we didn't love Alaska, the flghts, scenery, etc. but we were also disapointed in Denali.

we were in Denali 2 years ago in the second half of august for 2 full days shuttle bus to Wonder Lake.

We saw in total 5 bears + caribous and a fox just crossing our road. One of the bear was just on the right side of our road.

If you want to see bears guaranteed, next time, with a very bit more than the same money, join one of those bearviewing day trips out of Homer to Katmai NP. We did it with Baldmountain air and it was fantastic. We were walking among grizzly bears at a very impressive close distance !!
Another excellent company is Emerald Air. Hallo Bay also offers multiple days trip to Katmai.
The first day was foggy and smoky due to several fires in the area, and it rainded a lot during the day, so much than the next day the fog and smoke had gone away and Denali was out !!!
We could see the mountain in the early morning with clear sky. Some minutes later some clouds covered it again !

thit cho/michael and Clematis1: nice to meet you over here as well !!

Hi Fabio, (nice to see you here too)

Great suggestions there.

For clairfication, you shouldn't go to Kantishna to see "more wildlife". If that truely was your priority, frankly, getting a 3 day Wonder Lake shuttle bus pass for $79 and staying outside the park far cheaper, would have given you FAR more wildlife viewing.

The wildlife isn't concentrated at Kantishna- it's all along those 85 miles to Wonder Lake, ANYWHERE.

Staying at the Roadhouse is significant for participating in their activities, hiking etc. Don't expect a boatload of wildlife here.

As an alternative, consider Skylon Lodge at Kantishna, a cheaper option and the ability to get out on any Kantishna shuttle bus, rather than the fixed one time round trip route of the Kantishna Roadhouse bus.

With all due respect, the OP failed to mentioned that the room rate includes transportation (about 190 miles) and all meals, so it's not $400 just for the room.

Two years ago I almost booked one of those two night trips to Backcountry Lodge. In fact, I did, then thought better of it and cancelled, and I'm glad I did.

On the shuttle bus to Wonder Lake we saw 9 grizzlies - some with cubs, herds of caribou, foxes, sheep. One grizzly crossed right in front of the bus after eating berries from a nearby bush. I think the only thing we missed was a moose, but I later saw several near Anchorage. And the mountain broke thru' the clouds just as we were leaving Wonder Lake.
On my train ride from Denali to Talkeetna, with an overnight in Talkeetna, the weather was clear and sunny and I enjoyed spectacular views of Denali from the train and from the lodge.
It's all a matter of luck.

You were indeed unlucky. We spent three nights at Denali Backcountry Lodge (very similar and near) a couple of Julys ago. We saw EVERYTHING -- even a lynx a few yards from the bus, and on our morning return -- an entire pack of wolves that circled our stopped bus for about 5 minutes. On the way in, there was an group of three grisleys playing next to our bus while we sat and watched them from a few feet away. The two little ones were boxing with each other. We all laughed that these had to be mechanical ones as there is no way they would stay and play so close to the bus -- but they did. But then I suppose we were just unusually lucky.

I am very sorry that you were disappointed because Denali can be such a wonderful experience! As others have said already, luck does play a part and it's not a zoo. I've heard a few others say they were also disappointed in the amount of wildlife they saw but generally most people are satisfied. We usually go in the fall, near the end of the seaon, our favorite time to visit although we've also been in the spring and summer. We have never been disappointed - we've seen everything on most trips, including caribou, bears, wolves, fox, moose, etc. One year we saw a nursing mama bear and her cub. She was sitting on her hind end (almost like a human) and the baby was sitting inside her arms, nursing. We've seen wolves surrounding a caribou that was standing in the middle of the river to avoid the attack. (Apparently this type of show down is a rare sight.) We always went in the park knowing that no matter what we saw and did - we would enjoy ourselves. In part we did this by staying within a low cost budget and simply enjoying nature - no matter what presented itself. I agree the bus ride can be very long and is not comfortable. Again, I am so sorry to hear of your disappointment. I hope the rest of your trip was nice.

The three times I've driven/bussed into the park, I've had wildly varying luck with wildlife. The first time, I was probably 6 years old and don't remember seeing anything. When I was 14, we saw more caribou, moose and bears than I could count. Last year I went on a bike trip in before they opened the road to busses, and saw a lot of wildlife from far off (good thing too, when you're on a mountain bike).
That said, if you want a really nice view, and are willing to pay for it, take a flightseeing trip. I went on one with K2 aviation based in Talkeetna this summer, and after having lived in Alaska all my life, I've NEVER seen anything that incredible. and it wasnt even a perfectly clear day.

The problem with wild animals is that they dont always show up when you want them to. I'd be wary of forking over thousands of dollars to sit and wait for them to show up.

We were at Denali July 19 & 20 and took the shuttle to Fish Creek on the 20th. Had heard/read that you need to book the shuttle in advance to be sure of getting a seat, so I did it despite cautions on this forum that it's better not to go on a rainy day. Well, the 19th was lovely, there were seats available on all but about 3 of the shuttles the next day, and the 20th was rainy. Having just spent $100 pp for a jet boat trip to see wildlife in the rain which produced 2 eagles (to add to the 100 I'd already seen), 2 distant moose cows, and 2 more distant swans, I figured we were about to have a lousy day. (And I'm never very lucky finding animals, anyway.)

The day didn't go as planned, for sure, as some of us had intended to get off the bus at a stop or two and hike for a bit. But because of the rain, we speculated that even if we wanted to get wet, we might have trouble finding seats on subsequent buses because probably no one was getting off those, either. So we all wimped out and stayed on the bus. We started out with dozens of hares and some ptarmigan, but just before the first pit stop, we spotted a grizzly sow and yearling in the creek bed. Our driver said they'd probably show up below the deck at the rest rooms about the time we got there. They didn't but just as we were about to leave, they emerged from the brush right under us. Those were the first two of 8 bears we "saw" that day, though, to be honest, most of us didn't see the next two who were feeding on a distant carcas, having run off the wolves from the previous day. (I was disappointed that the wolves were gone until I realized that if I couldn't see the bears with 17X binoculars, I certainly wouldn't have been able to see the wolves.) One of the bears was extremely close to the bus. A couple of moose were quite distant, along with a herd of caribou, but we saw two caribou a few yards from the bus. Driver said that was more bears than he normally saw in a week and also that several of them were much closer than usual. Not sure if it was the rain or not that brought out the bears, but if it was, bears were a good trade-off for hiking.

We drove into the park two nights after 8PM and saw a caribou, a moose with two calves (crossing the road right in front of us), and many rabbits. The sheep, of which we saw many (with binoculars), are always VERY far or VERY, VERY far, I understand.) But the most moose we saw were on the road between Denali and Healy, where we stayed. Almost never made the drive without seeing a cow with two calves - or once, just a cow practically outside our motel window.

But I know it doesn't make you happy to hear other people who saw stuff when you didn't. I'm usually the one on the trip without any animals, so I feel your pain.

And although we were in various places where we might have been able to see the mountain for 6 days, we never did. I bought a post card.

<<The sheep, of which we saw many (with binoculars), are always VERY far or VERY, VERY far, I understand.)>>

Not always -- we saw a small family, and at times, they were within 10 yards of the bus. Photos from that trip are below

http://tinyurl.com/ytkq3r

Michael

Hey Michael,

Those were great pictures. What kind of camera did you use? Did you use an additional zoom lense? We are going to Alaska next year. Jamie

michael

wonderful pictures, thank you for sharing !!

we did not see sheeps so close but as you said, very very far away, as small white dots with binocular !!