Denali National Park

       Last Thursday Mike, Lilly and I rode the train from Wasilla to Denali National Park, the home of Denali (Mt. McKinley). Our train left around 9:30am and we arrived around 3:30pm.  It rained the entire day, so when we got there we checked out the very little town and had dinner and called it a night.

       Friday turned out to be beautiful so we spent the day hiking around the entrance to the park. The park itself is over 6.5 million acres, we did not venture inside as we were unaware that we could. Everything we saw said that you have to have a tour to get in and neither one of us were interested in sitting on school bus for 8 hours, just to see inside. We got a good taste for the area where we were and enough hiking with Lilly on our backs that we were a sore for a couple days. *ok maybe I was the only sore one* Friday evening we went to a dinner theatre, it was more of a history lesson than a play and I don't remember much as I had Miss Lilly on my lap for the show and after not sleeping or napping well she wasn't the happiest little one. The food was great and we did have a good time. 

       We left around noon on Saturday and got home around 7pm. We had a good time even though we didn't get to see "the Great One" as the clouds were too low and from where we stayed the mountain was 80 miles away. 

       Mike and I would both love go back, go in the park and maybe do some whitewater rafting or a jeep tour, and definitely drive ourselves!

 

The train station in Wasilla. This functions as something else too but I don't remember what.

The beginning of the ride. Lilly was so good, even napped on my lap for a while.

In between the cars was open so you could see out. We spent quite a bit of time here entertaining Lilly.

Enjoying the view.

This is the upper level in the "food car." They had lots of things to eat and the change of scenery was nice. It was fun to be able to walk between cars.

The train was not very full on the ride up. This particular car was totally empty so we took all of our stuff and let Lilly crawl around. In the background you can see a staircase, it led up to a domed glass viewing area, yet another place we hung out for a bit. 

This was at Hurricane Gultch. There is a pretty steep curve so we could see the front of the train from the back. This is the longest bridge on the railway and as you go over the river you are 300 plus feet about ground.

This didn't turn out so well but kind of shows how high up we were.

The beginning of our hiking Friday morning. Lilly spent so much time in that backpack, she was such a good sport!

The call this a creek by the way... everything is bigger in Alaska!

This place is so natural. The park is only open 4 months out of the year so everything really remains untouched. I was totally surprised that even with the amount of people that visit here you didn't see any trash or hint of people.

Taking a break, notice the sleeping baby in the back?

I love the color in this picture. We had such a beautiful day!

Minus the sun spot, this is my favorite picture!

A pretty simple trail gave us this view of Horseshoe Lake.

At the bottom, Lilly practicing her wave. 

We had dinner here the first night. Great food, great prices, more food than we could eat! This is the beginning of what they call the boardwalk, a bunch of little shops, and attraction spots. 

Enjoying the few minutes of sun we had on the way home.