Travel Alaska - Denali Park Traveler and Vacation Information

From the gateway of Denali National Park and Preserve and stretching along the George Parks Highway is the community known as Denali Park, a collection of mostly seasonal businesses and lodging providing visitor services.

About Denali Park

Denali Park is located in Interior Alaska near the small town of Healy. It is accessible via the George Parks Highway, which connects Anchorage and Fairbanks, and on the Alaska Railroad, whose tracks roughly parallel the highway.

The area provides services mainly to visitors exploring Denali National Park and Preserve, one of Alaska’s most visited parks, home to Denali, the tallest mountain in North America at 20,310 feet.

Things to do

Most people who visit Denali Park will spend a good amount of time in Denali National Park and Preserve, embarking on a wide variety of adventures within the park’s 6 million acres including bus tours, hiking, backpacking, and wildlife viewing. However, a world of other activities is available in the area outside the national park. From Denali Park, tour operators run a variety of day-trips including fishing, rafting, hiking, ATV tours, ziplines, jeep safaris, flightseeing, and dog sledding tours.

The Nenana River is one of the most popular white water rafting areas in Alaska. The river's main whitewater begins near the entrance of Denali National Park and extends 10 miles north to Healy. Outfitters offer raft trips that include Class III rapids, standing waves, and holes in sheer-sided canyons. Milder raft trips are run in the river south of the park entrance.

If you’ve had your fill of adventure you can spend a leisurely afternoon exploring the gift shops, galleries, and restaurants in the Denali Park area. Some lodges and restaurants offer evening entertainment such as live music and dinner theater. The area is also a good spot for grabbing supplies for your excursions into the park, with a couple of grocery stores and a gas station.

Staying in Denali Park

Denali Park is the top spot for Denali National Park lodging. The main Denali Park area is home to several large lodges, resorts, and cabin rentals. Additional lodges, cabin rentals, bed & breakfasts, and a hostel are located within the 15 miles south of Denali Park along the Parks Highway. There is also a campground located at the entrance of Denali National Park.

Explore more things to do in Denali National Park and Preserve.

Attractions

Bus tours

Several bus tours that follow the Park Road are available to visitors of Denali National Park and Preserve. The commercial tours are geared to viewing wildlife or venture the length of the road to Kantishna, where interpretive programs, gold panning or lunch awaits passengers.
Denali Visitor Center

Opened in 2005, the Denali Visitor Center is 14,000-sq-foot facility to dedicated to a better understand of Denali National Park and Preserve. On the first floor are exhibits devoted to the area's natural and human history and a theater whose movies provide video glimpse of the park's wildlife and scenery. On the second floor is a giant table-top relief map that leaves no doubt in anybody's mind how rugged the national park is.
Eielson Visitor Center

Located at Mile 66 of the Park Road, Eielson Visitor Center is Denali National Park's newest and most impressive interpretive center. The 7400-square-foot facility was opened in 2008 and features exhibits on the natural history of the region, a massive model of Denali and huge viewing windows to see North America's highest peak.
Flightseeing

From airstrips in and around the park, charter air companies offer flightseeing tours that usually include flying around Denali and possibly landing on one of its glaciers. Flights are offered in either small bush planes or helicopters.
Mountain biking

It possible to rent mountain bikes outside of the entrance to Denali National Park and Preserve and use them to ride the gravel Park Road to enjoy the views of Denali or look for wildlife.
Murie Science and Learning Center

Murie Science and Learning Center in Denali National Park features fascinating hands-on exhibits as well as a display on research currently taking place in the park. The staff stages nature-related programs throughout the week during the summer.
Rafting

The Nenana River is the most popular white water rafting area in Alaska. The river's main whitewater begins near the entrance of Denali National Park and extends 10 miles north to Healy. Here outfitters offer raft trips that include Class III rapids, standing waves, and holes in sheer-sided canyons. More milder raft trips are run in the river south of the park entrance.
Sled-Dog Demonstrations

Denali National Park is the only national park in the country where rangers conduct winter patrols via dog team. During the summer, the huskies are enjoyed during the park's free daily tours of the sled-dog kennels. Tours end with teams being spirited down a trail pulling a specially-designed wheeled cart.
Stampede Trail

Built in the 1930s, most of this former mining route lies in to Denali National Park and Preserve. Today the trail is a rugged track used primarily by snowmobilers, mushers and skiers in late winter, when travel is easier. But the wilderness trail does draw a number of summer visitors who want to view the Fairbanks City bus where Chris McCandless, the subject of John Krakauer's 1997 bestseller Into The Wild, lived and died.
Usibelli Coal Company

Connected to the Parks Highway by Healy Spur Road, Usibelli Coal Company (www.usibelli.com) conducts daily one-hour tours throughout the summer. Guests visit its quality-control office, main shop, warehouse, coal hopper and crusher.
Wildlife Viewing

Denali National Park is home to 40 species of mammals and 167 varieties of birds. What most visitors want to view are moose, caribou, mountain sheep wolves and bears. It's possible to see them all on the park's shuttle buses that carry wildlife watchers, hikers and backpackers along the 92-mile-long Park Road that winds through the heart of this amazing wilderness.