Denali National Park: Taking the Green Bus Tour 66 Miles to Eielson Visitors Center

denali national park is an amazing wilderness area in the state of alaska that encompasses over 6 million acres the park basically surrounds the central mountain of denali which is the tallest mountain in north america most of the park is wild and remote and you can't easily access it there's only one main road that heads into the interior of the park and it's only accessible via bus tours the bus tours take over eight hours so definitely plan for a full day if you want to experience it here's what my dad and i saw and it was an amazing experience it's 6 am we're checking out of our hotel and we're heading to denali to do the 8 hour bus ride we stayed in the town of healy the night before which is about a 15 minute drive from the entrance to denali national park we got up early for our tour and then grabbed coffee at black bear coffee before heading in if you're planning on doing this as part of your alaska trip i would definitely recommend booking in advance we grabbed tickets the day before and got lucky to get the last two tickets for the entire day so don't be like us and book in advance [Music] don't know what to expect from this bus tour but it is eight hours long so we're gonna spend the whole day eight hours maybe a few animals good morning how are you good while these look like school buses they were actually relatively comfortable i mean as comfortable as anything can be when you're in it all day the tour started with a few empty spots but by the second stop we were completely full our adventure is about to begin eight hours buses are wheelchair accessible as well the back of the bus has good leg room but it's very noisy are a few different types of buses you can take to get into the park the green bus is basically just a transit bus that takes you all the way out to mile 66 in the visitor center at the end that's what most of the other buses do as well but some of them have narrated tours and they give you snacks and things like that so if you're interested in something that provides food you can go with one of those but we really enjoyed our green bus tour and definitely didn't feel like we missed out on anything the first 15 miles of the tour is anti-climactic as this is the part that private vehicles can drive and my dad and i drove it the day before once you pass the savage river trailhead the entire rest of the drive is only accessible by these tour buses the next 15 miles provided an introduction to the beautiful landscape with sparse foliage and some rivers that you crossed we didn't stop as there was no wildlife to see on this section which means we are halfway no animals yet the bus stops twice on the way out for rest stops at bathrooms where you can get out and look around this one's at mile 30 and then the second one's at mile 53. it was nice to get out and stretch our legs and take some photos but believe me when i say that this drive just keeps getting better and better as you go further back make sure you note the bus stop schedule if you get off these buses are technically hop on and hop off so if you wanted to stay longer at a certain area then you can get off the bus our driver told us that because they're pretty packed though it can be a few hours and a few different buses that you have to wait in order to find a spot they recommend you go all the way to the end and then if there's a spot you want to spend more time at you can get off on the way back it stops at the same two rest stops on the way back during this section we had our first wildlife viewing experience a bear the bear was just walking down the center of the road so all the buses approached them very slowly he definitely didn't care that we were there at all and he walked down the center of the road for probably 10 minutes what's funny is that they call it wildlife sharing where each bus takes a turn getting close to the animal so that the people on that bus can take photos as we said goodbye to the bear we headed over the sable pass and started to get great views of the alaskan range the road is basically 1.5 lanes the entire way so we have to pull over in order to let other buses pass i honestly expected the area to be a lot more forested but you had amazing views pretty much the entire drive during this section we saw a lone caribou and a lone moose [Music] as you leave this area and start heading up to the polychrome overlook the drive gets a little bit more sketchy and it definitely scared my dad as he doesn't like drops on the edge you're basically just driving a dirt road with a good drop on one side and amazing views of the alaskan range eventually you reach the polychrome overlook at mile 46 and the bus stops for a five to ten minute walk around to take in the views big pups this is amazing i love it i love the colors out there it's beautiful the polychrome overlook is one of my favorite places we saw on the drive it's impossible to do it justice in this video but the views here are incredible i was basically running around as fast as i could to try to make the most of my 10 minutes i climbed to a little overlook to get some different views and just soaked it all in [Music] i'm sure there's probably some great hiking opportunities here if you wanted to stop but again you never know when you're going to get the next bus back the hop-on and hop-off comments are just about the green bus i don't know how the other tour buses handle this [Music] quick stop at the polychrome overlook now we're getting back on the bus as we left we saw some sheep walking on the hillside and then as we came around the other side of the hill we got some great views of them walking out on the ledge my dad and i talked to a lot of people who had done this trip during our time in alaska and most people talked about how good the wildlife was obviously you never know what you're going to get but it seems like you usually get a pretty good experience almost immediately after we left the sheep we were greeted with our first view of denali we were blown away and so excited but just wait the footage is about to get a lot better coming down the hill to mile 53 in the second rest stop the whole bus was really excited with anticipation about potentially seeing a great view of denali after the stop this is our second rest stop for bathroom break and a couple photos not gonna try to pronounce it there's even a small shop here and there's some animal horns that you can take pictures with [Music] this is so cool out here it feels incredibly remote and the mountains are just stunning it's a long ride but it has been worth it our driver rushed us through this rest stop but no one was complaining as he promised us the denali was going to be worth it surprisingly it's actually pretty difficult to see denali because of how high it is and how many clouds surround the mountain peak just the chance that we might be able to get a good shot of it was enough for everybody to go fast and get back on the bus this section as you head up towards stony hill overlook at mile 62 and then down to the visitor center at mile 66 is easily the best of the entire trip denali wow best view incredible it's hard to overstate how epic this is only one third of all people who go to denali get to see the mountain this view is probably one of the top five most beautiful places i've ever photographed in my life pops seeing denali this is incredible how could you get a better day than this my gosh it's incredible i don't think the bus normally stops to get out here but our driver let us get out since the view was so good that day pops and i got incredibly lucky only a third of all people who come get to see this and we got this view not just but incredible after piling back in the bus we only had four miles left to drive to mile 66 in the eilson visitor center [Music] along the way we got greeted by another friend it was pretty incredible as we were the only bus there and we got to see the bear interact with the surroundings and the road including pooping on it as we made our way forward we got to sit and watch this bear for a good 7 to 10 minutes and it was a highlight on the trip for sure [Music] just check out how remote the landscape is in this last shot and the sense of scale with the bear in it [Music] from there we rounded the bend and made it to the eilson visitor center what do you think pups crazy even with a little bit of clouds it's still incredibly beautiful yeah you're complaining about this view a little bit of clouds look at the look at the where our clouds at valley like this anywhere [Music] less is more at this visitor center and that is a hundred percent true what do you need a visitor center for when you got this view the visitor center had all the normal stuff at it plaques information there was a ranger you could talk to bathrooms you can use but we only had 30 minutes that we could explore before we had to be back on the bus so we decided to head out on a few of the short trails that they have near the visitor center [Music] tundra trail loop pops and i are heading out on undertrail quarter of a mile if i came out here again i'd find a way to spend more time here pops is heading off to hike denali here he goes on his way to denali the trail was just a short little path that took you to a few different viewpoints but i mean look at the area what do you want anchorage and elsewhere there were clouds everywhere we didn't know whether we should do it but i'm glad we uh jumped in and did it because we get this incredible view this is probably one of the best views i've ever seen in a national park if not the best view i've ever seen in the 15 minutes it took us to get here denali was already getting clouds again so you can see how quickly the clouds roll in and change your view here's just some more shots looking out over this stunning landscape [Music] there's the visitor center nestled in that little cliff right there [Music] so you can stay here as long as you like but there's no guaranteed bus back for at least a few hours if you don't leave now so we have 30 minutes to explore but unfortunately we got to get back on the bus for three and a half hours back that's the end of this video i don't know if i'll play some highlights or something but thanks for watching it with us do remember that when you load up on the bus you got three and a half hours to get back to your car and definitely make sure you bring some food for the ride as there was no food or water sold at the visitor center on the way back we saw a few more animals to complete our time in denali national park my dad and i weren't planning on doing this when we set up the initial trip and it was easily a top three highlight for both of us during our time in alaska while you never know what weather you'll get or what type of wildlife you'll see it's a true alaskan experience and one that i'm so glad that i got to have let me know what you think in the comments and we'll see you on the next video [Music]

Channel: Through My Lens

Views: 50,750

Rating: 4.9668779 out of 5

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Id: ZlymNvIW7f0

Length: 12min 44sec (764 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 22 2021