Denali National Park: Savage River, Alaska - August 9th to 12th, 2022

This is the third of three posts on our stay inside Denali National Park. It includes the three nights we camped in the Savage River Campground along with the last night back in the Riley Creek Campground.

As Ann was getting dressed Tuesday morning, Keith heard a noise while still laying in bed. He thought it sounded like something brushing up against the van. Concerned it might be a bear, Ann peaked out the front curtain before opening the sliding door. There was a blanket of snow about an inch deep over everything. The noise must have been snow sliding off the van.

The snow made the scenery beautiful. It was still lightly snowing. Yes, this was August 9th. While our friends and family were sweltering in the heat wave in the lower 48 states, we were surrounded by snow.

The drive out to the Savage River Campground was magical. At first, everything was socked in by clouds. But gradually the clouds parted and the sun came out. The layer of snow on top of the dark trees made a wonderful contrast of color. The mountain peaks were all covered with snow, giving them so much definition in the early morning sunlight.

The snow also made it easier to spot wildlife. Ann startled Keith when she yelled “Stop!” as she spotted a bull moose not far from the road. After we stopped, the moose ran across the road right in front of us.

A little further down the road, a jeep was pulled over with its flashers on. We stopped there for a while, but couldn’t see what they were looking at. Then we spotted it as we pulled out and passed them. It was a cow moose among the bushes.

After picking out our new camp site at Savage River for our next three night stay, we ate lunch. Then we caught the Savage River shuttle bus over to the Savage River Trailhead. There were no bears along the river this time. Our hike this time was on the Savage River Loop Trail. This is an easy, pretty flat stroll along the river. The trail goes along one bank, crosses the river on a foot bridge, then comes back the other side. At the bridge, there was a social path that continued farther into the canyon. We followed it for a short distance before turning around.

There were a lot of rocky areas that looked like excellent habitat for marmot and pika. We stared frequently at the rocks, but all we found were arctic ground squirrels. By the time we finished our little hike, the sun and warm temperatures had melted all the snow, at least at the lower elevations where we were.

We took the shuttle bus back to the campground, but then walked down to the river and over to the Mountain Vista Rest Area which is only about half a mile from the campground. There was a hazy view of Denali with some clouds covering part if it. We also were a little low to see much of it, so all that was possible to see was a small top portion of it.

The weather was actually nice enough that we cooked dinner outside for a change. That was a drastic change from the snow in the morning. Crazy weather.

The strap that goes over the top of Keith’s bear spray (paid link) had become detached from the rest of the case. The strap is what helps to prevent the safety clip from accidentally coming off the bear spray. From what we have learned from others, bear spray is not something you want to set off as it is not a fun experience. So Keith spent the evening sewing the strap back onto the case. The other people in our Discover Hike on the following day will probably be thankful for that.

Wednesday morning, there was frost on all the plants. We dressed warm, with multiple layers to prepare for our Discovery Hike. We were standing at the Savage River Campground bus stop a few minutes past 8 am. Our Discovery Hike green bus showed up around 8:30 am. Just a couple of miles down the road, the bus stopped at the Savage River Trailhead for a restroom stop. Everyone else had been on the bus since the Bus Depot, so they were ready for a stop. Even though we had just joined them, we followed Ann’s rule and didn’t pass up the opportunity to use a bathroom.

On the bus, Ann put foot warmers inside her boots and put on her gaiters. She was still concerned about her toes being sensitive to the cold and wanted to act preemptively. The gaiters should help protect her rain pants from getting snagged on shrubbery.

Before reaching our drop off point, the bus stopped at a viewpoint so we could get pictures of Mount Denali. It was clearly visible. We feel lucky that we’ve been able to see it so many times with some of those being crystal clear views of it.

The bus drove about seven to eight miles from Savage River on the Park Road and dropped us off alongside the road near Sanctuary Canyon, about half a mile before Sanctuary River Campground. Ranger Brian talked to us for a little while, giving us safety instructions, such as bear safety and how to use bear spray. He also showed us the equipment he had in his pack including satellite communication devices, in the remote chance he became incapacitated.

Then we climbed down the bank of the road and started bushwhacking our way through the bog full of dwarf birch towards the canyon. We spread out instead of going single file, so as not to trample out a trail. The brush was knee to waist high, so you had to pick up your feet pretty high to keep from tripping on the branches. It didn’t take long before all of us had wet feet.

Along the way, Ranger Brian would gather everyone around to point out a plant, berry, or flower and provide us with some interesting information about it, like what animals like to eat it, if it was edible for humans, or how it is used for medicinal purposes. We tasted a soapberry. It wasn’t bad tasting, but it was a little bitter. We would eat it, but we wouldn’t seek it out. There were also plenty of blueberries. Now they tasted much better. We paused at a large patch of them and everyone picked quite a few to eat.

As we entered some trees, the bushwhacking got a little easier, but not by much. Brian started calling out “Hey bear” and encouraged the rest of us to do the same. It took a while before people stopped feeling self-conscious about it and joined in. We learned that on our previous hikes, we had been saying “Hey bear” too softly and needed to yell it out louder.

One person in our group found a moose antler, so many of us got a chance to hold it for a picture and feel how much it weighed. The antler probably weighed about ten pounds. It looked like it had been sitting there a while, with gnaw marks on it, so it probably weighed more when it was attached to the moose. Moose must have pretty strong neck muscles to carry around all that weight on their heads.

The knee deep river crossing that the ranger at the visitor center had warned us about turned out to be several small creek crossings about ankle deep, with no strong current. We were prepared to roll up our pants and brace ourselves against the current. This was much simpler. However, the creeks completely soaked our boots and socks all the same. We were both wearing wool socks, which still insulate when wet. Even though the water was cold, it wasn’t frigid and we were not in it for very long, just two to four steps through each creek. Keith kept asking Ann about her feet to make sure she was paying attention to them. They were fine.

Our hike took us by a series of beaver ponds. As the canyon narrowed, we walked alongside the Sanctuary River. A few ducks were swimming along the far side of the river. About a mile and a half into our hike, we climbed up a short distance to a somewhat level, clear spot to relax, eat lunch, and enjoy the view of the canyon. Most of us listened to Ranger Brian’s interesting stories. In addition to being a park ranger, with a deep knowledge about the wilderness, he is also a dog musher with his own dog kennel.

The sun was shining all day and the air temperature rose quickly. We started shedding layers of clothing and stuffing them into our packs. By the time we sat down for lunch, the temps were probably in the 60’s and we no longer were wearing any of our jackets.

After lunch, we started heading back towards the road. The same man who found the moose antler found some more moose bones. Brian pointed out some bear scat, full of berries. He talked about some scat we had seen earlier, such as some moose scat, explaining how that was from the winter, full of mostly saw dust, since moose eat only bark during the winter, and wood takes a long time to decompose.

By the time we reached the road again, we had gone 3.2 miles with an elevation gain of 712 feet in five hours and 40 minutes, but we were only moving for two hours and 45 minutes of that time. The rest of the time we were stopped, either standing and listening to Ranger Brian or sitting at our lunch spot. We counted this as hike #32 of our 52 Hike Challenge for 2022. Even though we had not gone very far, our legs were tired by the end of the hike. It is a lot more work to bushwhack instead of following an established trail.

We were glad we got to experience a Discovery Hike, going off-trail and bushwhacking. Denali National Park is different from national parks in the lower 48 in that people are encouraged to go off trail. Also unlike the other national parks, people are allowed to extract things from the park, such as berries, as long as they are for personal use only.

Ranger Brian will probably be disappointed to hear this, but what we learned from this hike is that we really don’t like bushwhacking, at least not for long distances. We enjoyed the hike we did in Igloo Canyon better, where we went a mile up a creek bed to alpine tundra. It was also off-trail, but the walking was easier than bushwhacking. It’s not that we don’t like physical challenges, we just like to spend more time looking around and noticing the nature and scenery around us instead of concentrating on our next foot step or which route to make through the vegetation. It’s the same reason why we prefer hikes without rock scrambling. We wouldn’t avoid a hike because it had some bushwhacking or rock scrambling, as long as the bushwhacking and rock scrambling were limited to short distances and weren’t the majority of the hike.

Our Discovery Hike bus ticket was good for the rest of the day. It was only about 3 pm when we finished the hike and the weather was so beautiful, so we decided to catch a westbound green bus instead of an eastbound back to the Savage River Campground. Most of our hiking group decided to do the same. When the next westbound green bus arrived, it did not have enough room for all of us. We waited for another bus. Everyone else caught the next eastbound bus. So then we were standing by the side of the road by ourselves, in a large expanse of landscape, without another human or vehicle in sight. It is a feeling that is hard to describe. We definitely felt like we were in a wilderness. It is peaceful. You would think we would feel lonely, but somehow it seemed to replenish our souls.

We rode the bus all the way to East Fork, then back to Savage River Campground. Mount Denali was visible along the way, but it was in a haze. The animal sightings were a couple of caribou, a grizzly, and a dall sheep. They were all quite a distance from us, but the sheep was the closest we’ve been to one in Denali so far. It was 7 pm by the time we returned to the campground. We were grateful that we had leftovers we could reheat in the microwave instead of having to cook something. We were tired. It was a long but very fulfilling day. We went to bed early.

It was a little cool Thursday morning, but not as cold as the morning before. Again, it quickly warmed up into the 70’s. One of the warmest days we’ve had in quite a while. It was hard to believe we had an inch of snow just a couple of days before. Ann’s hiking boots had dried out over night because she had hers right in front of the air vent coming from our Espar heater. Keith’s boots were sitting on the floor in front of the driver’s seat and were still pretty wet.

We decided to go on an easy hike, the Horseshoe Lake Trail near the park entrance. After driving out to the visitor center, we ate lunch before starting our stroll. Along the drive, we stopped to take another picture of Mount Denali. It was visible, but the view was slightly hazy with a few clouds around the mountain. We thought about eating lunch at Merino Grill; however, when we walked over there, a tour bus of people who had just been dropped off created quite a line to get into the restaurant. Waiting half an hour or more for a $15 hamburger from a counter-service restaurant inside a national park didn’t sound that inviting to us, so we returned to our van to eat cold sandwiches, carrots, and tortilla chips.

We were pleasantly surprised by Horseshoe Lake Trail. Were there lots of people on it? Yes. Were there spectacular views out into the park? No. But it is still a beautiful, easy hike. We started from the visitor center (the route in AllTrails starts at the small parking area along Park Road which cuts the total distance in half). From the visitor center, the trail starts out in the woods, with rose hips and all kinds of berries lining the path, including soapberry, blueberries, and others we did not recognize. We remembered that Ranger Brian the day before had said that most of the berries in the area are edible. We mis-identified one as kinnickinnick (bearberry) which is edible, so Ann tried one. It was rather tasty, not as bitter as the soap berry she had tried the day before, but not as sweet as a blueberry. A couple of rangers walked by and we asked them to identify the berry. They said it was low bush cranberry (lingonberry). Had we not gone on the Discovery Hike, we would not have considered trying to taste the berries.

The trail dropped down to a beaver pond in the shape of a horseshoe. The trail circles the pond and goes over to the Nenana River. We were hoping to see some beaver, so we lingered at the pond for a while, but didn’t catch any glimpses of beaver. There was a duck out on the water and a beautiful bird up in the top of a tree which sang for us. It had a very nice bird song.

By the time we returned to the visitor center, we had gone 4.6 miles with an elevation gain of 709 feet in two hours and 38 minutes. It was hike number 33 of our 52 Hike Challenge for 2022.

Before heading back to Savage River Campground, we swung over to the Riley Creek Mercantile for an ice cream cone. On the drive back to Savage River, Mount Denali was in full view, but it was rather hazy. The evening was warm enough to sit outside at our campsite for a while. As we sat there, we could hear a couple of owls calling back and forth to each other.

It was warm on Friday from the get go. We didn’t even need to wear jackets in the morning. Keith’s foot was bothering him, so we didn’t plan any hikes for the day.

Before we left the Savage River campground, we walked over to the Savage Cabin. The cabin was one of many built by the Alaska Road Commission (ARC) in the 1920’s as a cooking shed to feed the crews while the Park Road was being constructed. The 92 mile road took 15 years to complete. As construction of the road progressed, a new cabin was built about every 20 miles or so, and the previous cabin was abandoned and given to the park service. The park service uses the cabins as shelter for rangers patrolling the park in the winter by dog sled and recently have also been using the cabins for the Artist in Residence Program.

Fortunately, when we arrived at the Savage Cabin, there was a Natural History Tour visiting the cabin. The tour guide had opened up the cabin for the tour to look inside. So we got a chance to peek inside.

From the cabin, we strolled back to the campground and down to Savage River for one last look. There was a caribou hanging out on a gravel bar in the middle of the river. Even though we were quite a distance away, he glanced over at us, but otherwise did not seem bothered by our presence.

On the drive back to Riley Creek, we got one more look at Mount Denali. It was a rather obstructed view with some clouds in the way, but it was still a view.

After picking out a camp site in Riley Creek for our last night in Denali National Park, we decided to drive outside the park and eat lunch in Denali Park, the commercial district just outside the park. Denali Park is less than a mile strip along the George Parks Highway, with shops, resorts, and restaurants. Most of the shops are in a long, log structure with a boardwalk running the length of it. At the south end is the Denali Doghouse, which is where we decided to have lunch. They use local meat for their reindeer hot dogs and their hamburgers. Keith had a chili dog while Ann chose the sriracha burger along with sides of fries. The food was rather expensive (what isn’t in Alaska), but tasted pretty good.

For dessert, we walked a few doors down the boardwalk to Denali Glacier Scoops. We were boring and had our usual waffle cone with mint chip for Ann and a vanilla shake for Keith. It was very refreshing on such a warm day. As we walked further down the boardwalk, we discovered that Miller’s Gourmet Popcorn also had ice cream, and they had fireweed ice cream. Ann has been wanting to try fireweed ice cream. Oh well. We heard that we can get it in Talkeetna, which is our next destination.

We took advantage of the time we had to get a couple of loads of laundry done at the Riley Creek Mercantile. When we were inside the store at the Riley Creek Mercantile, picking up a couple of items for dinner, there was an employee up in the rafters trying to catch a bird that had gotten inside the building. Then we added some air to a couple of our tires which were reading a few pounds low. It is nice to have an air compressor (paid link) with us.

From there, we went back to the campground and just hung out at our campsite for the rest of the day. It was nice enough weather that we could sit outside in our camp chairs. The Thermacell (paid link) kept the few mosquitos away. The bugs were small anyway, so they only left a small bite if they bit you. Ann even stretched out that evening on her exercise mat. However, she did not keep the Thermacell on. She’s not quite sure why. So she picked up a few bug bites during her 15 minute stretch. She has not been stretching much this season because of the bugs, rain, and cold. It felt good to loosen up those tight hips and stiff neck muscles.

And so ended our stay in Denali National Park. Eleven nights inside the park is a long time, but we could have easily stayed longer. Our visit was definitely memorable, with a variety of wildlife encounters, beautiful scenery, and quite a range of weather. We would love to try more off-trail hikes. Perhaps we’ll wait until the other half of the Park Road opens back up, so we can explore even more of the park.

Check out our related video: Denali National Park: Savage River, Alaska

(Ann)