Road Trip to Denali National Park

Today we left to go up to Denali.  Going there was a first for all of us in the group.  We made some stops along the way, and we were even lucky enough to see Mt. McKinley/Denali!  Luke's parents had never seen it before.  Luke and I have seen it, but it's still impressive.  Every. Time.

That's a big mountain!

We stopped at the Alaska Veteran's Memorial (that's where we got to see Denali from).

Flowers growing near the memorial

Alaska Veteran's Memorial

Boyd and Thais looking around the memorial...with Denali in the background.

One thing that is great for every road trip here is the Milepost (I've mentioned it on here before).  It's a mile by mile guide to every road in Alaska.  

Anyway, as we were approaching Broad Pass along the Parks Highway it said to keep an eye out for cotton grass.  Luke and I laughed....How would we be able to tell what cotton grass is??  Well...turns out it's pretty easy to tell..  Doesn't this look like something right out of a Dr. Seuss book?

Cotton grass

When we actually got to Broad Pass (which we could only tell by the milepost...there's not actually a sign along the road or anything...) we stopped for lunch.  Here is the view we enjoyed while we ate:

Looking west

Looking east

Here are some other pictures from along the way:

Eventually we made it to our hotel--The Denali Perch Resort.  It's 11 miles south of the park road entrance, so we figured we better stop and check in on our way.

Silly Luke :)

After that, we continued up to Denali Park.  First stop there was the Wilderness Access Center to get our bus tickets printed for the next morning.

Then we went to the Visitor's Center, but we didn't get to see very much there because they were closing for the day.

After they kicked us out, we decided to go hiking.  We went along the Taiga trail, and also to Horseshoe Lake.

Squirrel! 

Boyd and Thais along the Taiga trail

Horseshoe Lake

Me and Luke

Yay!  The top of the hill!

All that hiking made us hungry, so we drove back to our hotel and ate at the Panorama Pizza pub.  And then it was time to sleep and get ready for our next big adventure.

Stay tuned!