Backpacking in Denali National Park, Alaska

This National Park was first established in 1917. It is around 9,492.2 sq. miles in size. (For reference, New Hampshire is 9,351 sq. miles big.) This amazing park is home to over 120 different species of birds and over 35 different kinds of mammals. It is also home to Denali, the tallest mountain in North America at 20,308 feet!

Usually you have to drive up to Denali to submit you itinerary for backpacking before they will even consider giving you a permit to backpack in the National Park. This year, due to COVID, they put the whole thing online, making it a lot easier to attempt to get a permit. My dad was successful in getting a permit for the East brach of the Upper Toklat, Unit 9.

We drove down in one day, it took us just over four hours, and we camped at the campground, just outside the park.

The next day we got on a camper bus. The bus drives from the entrance of the park 84 miles to Wonder Lake and back. The whole ride takes about from 6-12 hours (depending on which bus you take). Along the way the bus stops to pick up and drop people off at campgrounds and for backpacking.

Day 1

We were dropped into Unit 9 at “I Scream Gulch”. We hiked down to the Toklat river and hiked several miles into the valley. That night after we pitched our tent and had dinner, we saw a porcupine.

Day 2

The next day it rained so hard we had to spend the day in our tents, playing games, reading, and napping. Luckily we were able to get out of our tents several times to stretch our legs, during the breaks in the rain.

Day 3

Our second to last day was sunny, so we packed up and almost got to the glacier at the end of the valley. Unfortunately there were some sections of the braided river that my youngest sister couldn’t cross. We ended up backtracking a little and found a beautiful camping spot. While hanging out at our campsite, we were able to see a moose in the distance.

Day 4

On our last day we hiked back towards the road, planning to camp a couple of miles from it. Dark clouds were coming toward us, we were making good time, so we decided to leave a day early. While we were hiking out we saw eight caribou.

We hiked up to the road and had to wait two hours for the bus. When we finally got on the bus, we got to see two big Brown Bears on the side of a hill!