We’ve been in DNP since early Tuesday, and this is exactly where we should be. We feel so comfortable here and even talked about trying to extend our reservations into a second week or moving to a campground deeper in the park if possible. We are at Riley Creek Campground near the park entrance. The campground is great. It’s primitive camping, the sites are large, the campground is wooded, and it’s walking distance to everything at the park entrance (Visitor’s Center, merchantile, etc.) The campground has been completely full every night. There are many curious, little, brown squirrels, one of which particularly likes our campsite and has explored our truck tires, the Casita step and even leaned against the screen door while we were having dinner.
Yesterday, we hiked the Savage River Loop, at Mile 15 in the park, before breakfast. We love to hike before other people get on the trail. This is a short, popular trail because the trailhead is at the turn-around point in the park. You can only drive about 15 miles into the park. To get further, you have to take a bus. We pretty much had the trail to ourselves and loved it. We’ve done another hike at the entrance of the park and it was OK, there were just too many people on it so we didn’t get to enjoy the quiet of nature.
We haven’t ridden a bus into the park yet. It takes over three hours to get to the first bus destination and six hours to get to the farthest destination. Double that time to get back and add time for us to explore, and we’d be gone a long time. We aren’t sure that Iris would be so thrilled. Mike struck up a conversation with a bus driver who tipped us to looking on the post office message board for local dog care. There was a sign for a 12-years old who liked to watch dogs at her house and the house had a big yard and other dogs. Our other option was to put her in a kennel down the road and, when we visited it today, it was precisely what we expected-Iris would spend all day in a large metal cage on a concrete floor. Hmmmm…. It took some fandangling but we met someone from the girl’s house and are dropping off Iris tomorrow for maybe an overnight so we can explore the park. Cross your fingers it works out well.
The interesting, and intimidating, nuance of this park is that there are only a few established trails within the park after the turn-around point. You are encouraged to create your own path and enjoy the true wilderness. We bought a book with some suggested routes, but we could walk anywhere we wanted. Wow- that blew my mind at first! I’ve only hiked places where they encourage you to stay on trail and not wander off it. It’s been a long time since I used a topo map as a guide. Luckily, we brought a GPS. We are super excited to take a bus tomorrow and make our own path.
For future reference: We stayed at a good RV campground in Healy, AK just outside of DNP- Denali River Park. It had a nice view and a trail. Also, in Riley Campground, we stayed in Caribou Loop, which is great. We didn’t realize the exposed side away from the other loops had a river by it.
– Lunch at the 49th State Brewing Company