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Healy Alaska Mountain Range
Photo Credit: ATIA
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Healy

Healy

Healy is the closest full-service, year-round community to the world-famous Denali National Park and Preserve and offers an abundance of lodging and activities to park visitors and highway travelers in Interior Alaska.

ABOUT HEALY

Healy is located about 11 miles north of the entrance to Denali National Park and Preserve and 112 miles south of Fairbanks along the George Parks Highway in Interior Alaska. Originally established as a coal-mining town in the early 1900s, many of Healy’s 970 residents still earn their living from the nearby Usibelli Coal Mine. Tourism is the second-largest industry for this small town, though, and Healy features several restaurants, hotels, motels, and lodges along with flightseeing operators that take visitors on scenic tours of Denali.

THINGS TO DO

To the north of Healy, on the highway's western side, is the historic Stampede Trail, originally built in the 1930s as a route to the Stampede Mine, once Alaska's prime producer of antimony. The mine ceased operations in 1970, and since 1980 its abandoned mill and other buildings have been located within Denali National Park and Preserve’s expanded borders. Today the trail is a rugged track used primarily by snowmobilers, mushers, and skiers in late winter, when travel is easier. In Healy, visitors can arrange ATV tours of the trail for stunning views of Denali and the Savage and Teklanika rivers.

The Stampede Trail was made famous as the location of the Fairbanks City Bus 142 where Chris McCandless, the subject of Jon Krakauer’s 1997 bestseller Into The Wild, lived and died. The bus was removed in 2020 and relocated to Fairbanks and is now on display at the University of Alaska Museum of the North

Healy offers visitor services including a grocery store, gas stations, restaurants, and a brewery, and a range of accommodations including lodges, inns, hotels, cabins, and B&Bs. The town is a popular overnight basecamp for visitors to Denali National Park and Preserve, famous for the tallest mountain in North America and incredible wildlife viewing. Recreation and sightseeing opportunities abound in and around the park, including bus tours of the park, hiking, mountain biking, camping, rafting, sled dog demonstrations, and flightseeing.

Learn more about Denali National Park and Preserve.

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