We made our first trip of the year up to Denali National Park & Preserve with a bit of apprehension, not quite sure how it was going to turn out. Last fall they closed the road at Pretty Rocks, up in Polychrome Pass, because of rapidly worsening sliding caused by accelerating permafrost melting under the road. So essentially we have lost access to more than half of the park for the next several years.

It’s still our favorite place on earth, so we headed up for a week of biking the park road from the Teklanika campground where we were staying, up to the Pretty Rocks closure. We were worried about increased bus traffic and how that would impact our Denali experience. Well, I’m very happy to say that it turned out just great and we had a blast. We had good omens for the trip even before we left our house—a baby moose in the backyard and one of our local cinnamon bear cubs in the neighbors yard as we drove out.

It was very warm when we got there on Monday, June 6th. Almost 70º, so we were afraid we weren’t going to see many animals. That was put to rest as we were driving in and saw a lynx at the Savage River interpretive trail. I didn’t get a picture, but it was an omen of good things to come.

So as I always do, there are way too many pictures, but come along for the ride. Click on the images and the captions will tell the story.