Sunday, September 15, 2013

Denali National Park Road Lottery


My cousin was lucky-enough to win a ticket to the road lottery in Denali National Park this weekend. The park road is usually closed to private vehicles (buses only), but during the second weekend in September after the buses have stopped running they have a lottery and 1200 private vehicles get to drive into the park. Ann Marie's ticket was for Saturday and my sister and brother-in-law just happened to be in town. We rented a minivan along with one of Ann Marie's friends and were able to camp at Teklanika Campground 30 miles inside the park on both Friday and Saturday night.

On Friday night just as we were getting to the park it cleared and we got to see the mountain on the drive into Teklanika. On Saturday it was pretty cloudy and in some places very foggy so we didn't see many mountains, but we did see four bears, four caribou, and several sheep. It was also the height of the fall colors in the park - they were stunning. Today was a blue bird day. The people who had lottery tickets for Sunday certainly lucked out. We did enjoy the view as we left the park and drove south.






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