Camping in Denali

Dachristianman wrote:
Yes. But remember the rule about once it's parked, it can't be moved again. Weird rule, but a nice place to see.

That only applies to Teklanika campground - the furthest one you can drive to and for that one you definitely need a reservation. There are other campgrounds in the park where you can drive your RV daily.

We made our Teklanika reservations only 3 weeks prior when we had a better idea of our timing as we got closer. Our 40' fit but there are limited spaces for a 40'. Teklanika has no electric and no water fill or dump station. What you do for that one is fill and dump at Riley Creek in the front of the park. You also leave your towed vehicle in a special parking lot near Riley Creek. Once you drive the motorhome to Teklanika you can't drive it anymore until you leave.

The TEK shuttle bus pass which you definitely need to purchase before getting to the campground, allows you to ride the bus whenever and for how many days you want and it picks you up at Teklanika campground. You can ride all the way to Wonder Lake if you want. The drivers are very knowledgeable and are excellent at spotting the animals. He will stop for you to gaze or take photos. It's a terrific way to see the park. We went on the bus daily and sometimes 2x/day for shorter trips at different times of the day. We saw every animal that lives in Denali.

We had reservations for Teklanika but arrived in the area 6 days prior to our reservation. So on a whim, we boondocked nearby (lots of lovely spots) and drove into Denali early morning.

We easily secured a large spot without reservations in the front campground, Riley Creek. There were lots of big spaces but you need to get there around 10am when folks are leaving. I believe you can also make reservations for Riley Creek.

We stayed 5 nights in Riley Creek and then moved to Teklanika for our 5 nights of reservations. There is so much to do in both areas and we easily filled the 10 total nights in Denali. Riley Creek has no electric but has a nice water fill and dump station, showers, laundry and stores.

Out of 10 nights we saw THE mountain 7 of 10 days. We had wonderful weather in mid-August.

Staying IN the park is the only way we'd try to tour it. It's massive and there's so much to do.

By the way, the only reservations we made for the whole summer was for July 4 weekend and Teklanika in Denali. We easily secured spots in public campgrounds, as is always our first choice, or free in great boondocking areas along the road. For July 4 we also waited until we got closer - about 3 weeks prior - to better judge where'd we be. There's no way you can make reservations for your whole summer before your trip. You would never know if you'd have delays because of road problems or weather - we had both. Just 'wing it' and it will be a more relaxing trip!

Definitely check out the Canada/Alaska forum on this site. There's lots of good information. Note the first entry "Sticky" on the top of folks posting continuously of those going this past summer. Buried in the thousands of posts are some good checklists and things to do, if you can find them easily. Check around the date of March/April 2013. There's also one starting now of folks plannng to go in 2014 but no checklists there yet.

Your only resources needed are the Milepost for historical and road information and Mike and Terri Church's book "Alaskan Camping" which included Canada and the Yukon, too. Their book will be your bible! Also purchase the Tour Saver 2/1 coupon book. Doing one glacier cruise will pay for the book.

Also, we didn't take any special precautions of protection for our motorhome or Jeep and we didn't get any damage to either. We just drove slow and that's the key. We didn't have one of those stiff across-the-rear rock guards as some folks do. In fact, we saw people actually removing them in Whitehorse, Yukon because they claimed they were actually throwing rocks at their towed. We just have standard mud flaps behind our tires.

Have fun planning!