Since we’d given ourselves in this trip a little time to look around (rather than simply dash from place to place), Monday was a day to reconnoiter the Denali park entrance and its trails.
Alaska has two-thirds of all the national park land in the nation, and 
most of it is deserted. Just chartering a plane to get to some of these places costs as much as most people spend on an entire vacation. Denali National Park is one of the most accessible, but it’s still vast: 7400 square miles. Other than the buildings at the park entrance, and the Eielson Visitor Center 62 miles into the park, there are only a few other buildings. No one is allowed far into the park in their own vehicles, only in buses. Even at that point, Mt. McKinley is still far, far away. And the park service shuttle buses will allow you to get off and on anywhere in the park, so you can go off and hike for 30 minutes or 30 days. Of course, 99% of the relatively few visitors that take a bus into the park actually get off at an unscheduled stop. So of course we got stares when we did it :).
After knocking around the Visitor Center and Wilderness Access Center, we – Sharon and I – hiked up to the Healy Mountain overlook, about 1600 feet in two and a half miles of trail. Great views, but there are wildfires burning free north of the park so it was hazy from the smoke.
Tomorrow is the bus into the park.
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