Denali National Park & Preserve guide · 2 min read
Riding the Bus Down Denali Park Road
The Denali Park Road runs 92 miles from the park entrance to Kantishna, an old mining community at its far end.
Only the first 15 miles are paved, and private vehicles may drive that stretch to Savage River at Mile 15, where the Savage River Check Station sits. Beyond that point, you will need a bus, a bicycle or your own two feet. A landslide in the Pretty Rocks section, near Mile 43, has kept the road from being open its full length.
Buses are how most visitors travel the rest of the road. Transit buses, sometimes called shuttle buses, work like hop-on, hop-off service, so you can get off to hike and catch a later bus back toward the park entrance, though seats are given on a space-available basis. Narrated tour buses come with a trained naturalist who calls out wildlife and rock formations along the way. Those buses make stops of 10 to 30 minutes, but you cannot leave on your own and rejoin a later narrated bus.
Along the way, the route passes through boreal forest and open sub-arctic tundra. Low-lying taiga forest covers the start of the road, and farther in the trees fall away to reveal high alpine tundra and snowy peaks. On a clear day, Denali itself may come into view as early as Mile 9. No wildlife sighting is promised, because the animals roam unfenced land, but visitors often hope to see bears, moose, caribou, Dall sheep and wolves, and the odds improve the farther you ride.
Eielson, at Mile 66, is a popular place to hike, and the Eielson Visitor Center is one of the bus stops. Wonder Lake at Mile 85 is another stop on the route. The road ends at Kantishna, a former mining community at Mile 92 with a small cluster of lodges where you can spend the night.
