Denali park road closure for 2022-2023

[flamingos]

The park road, that the bus tours use, will be closed at mile 43, less than halfway in.  

 

From my HAL cruise in May:

 

UPDATED INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR TUNDRA WILDERNESS TOUR The National Park Service has announced that a section of the Denali Park Road will be closed for the 2022 and 2023 Alaska seasons due to road construction. Your Tundra Wilderness Tour will now go to Mile 43 and will continue to offer the best opportunity to view Denali's iconic wildlife and North America's tallest peak. We will provide an onboard credit of USD $35 per person on bookings made before February 4, 2022 to compensate for this change.

 

https://www.ktoo.org/2021/08/31/denali-park-road-landslide-prompts-closure-and-search-for-long-term-fix/

[Alphen]

33 minutes ago, flamingos said:

The park road, that the bus tours use, will be closed at mile 43, less than halfway in.  

 

From my HAL cruise in May:

 

UPDATED INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR TUNDRA WILDERNESS TOUR The National Park Service has announced that a section of the Denali Park Road will be closed for the 2022 and 2023 Alaska seasons due to road construction. Your Tundra Wilderness Tour will now go to Mile 43 and will continue to offer the best opportunity to view Denali's iconic wildlife and North America's tallest peak. We will provide an onboard credit of USD $35 per person on bookings made before February 4, 2022 to compensate for this change.

 

https://www.ktoo.org/2021/08/31/denali-park-road-landslide-prompts-closure-and-search-for-long-term-fix/

We got the same notice, but to be fair, the Tundra Tour normally goes to mile 62, so mile 43 is more than halfway!

[flamingos]

4 minutes ago, Alphen said:

We got the same notice, but to be fair, the Tundra Tour normally goes to mile 62, so mile 43 is more than halfway!

Thanks - I was thinking of half the length of the road.  

[Glaciers]

There is a thread on Trip Advisor regarding the road closure. Posters have been pretty good about keeping it updated.  It’s pinned as the first post. The most recent post is from an article from January 18 regarding the proposed bridge.

https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowForum-g28923-i349-Alaska.html

 

Other considerations for going to Denali with the shorted road are that most of the wildlife sightings are from mile 30 and beyond.  From Anchorage it takes at least 5 hours to get there, 5 hours back and usually requires at least 2 nights.  There are a ton of activities in South Central Alaska that could be done with that same time. The mountain is only visible about 1/3 of the time. 

 

I’m one of the few that is not big on Denali with the road shorted. Matanuska Glacier and/or the Spencer Glacier Whistle Stop would top Denali, as examples, but again, I’m in the minority.  If doing a cruise sponsored land tour, you’re stuck.

 

[flamingos]

1 hour ago, Glaciers said:

There is a thread on Trip Advisor regarding the road closure. Posters have been pretty good about keeping it updated.  It’s pinned as the first post. The most recent post is from an article from January 18 regarding the proposed bridge.

https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowForum-g28923-i349-Alaska.html

 

 

Other considerations for going to Denali with the shorted road are that most of the wildlife sightings are from mile 30 and beyond.  From Anchorage it takes at least 5 hours to get there, 5 hours back and usually requires at least 2 nights.  There are a ton of activities in South Central Alaska that could be done with that same time. The mountain is only visible about 1/3 of the time. 

 

 

I’m one of the few that is not big on Denali with the road shorted. Matanuska Glacier and/or the Spencer Glacier Whistle Stop would top Denali, as examples, but again, I’m in the minority.  If doing a cruise sponsored land tour, you’re stuck.

 

 

Thanks - we will be doing the tundra wilderness tour as part of the cruise package so it's just that last section of one day that will be different.

 

I'm looking forward to reports of how the wildlife is affected by the lack of tourists in the next two years.

[Northern Aurora]

I agree with "Glaciers"  -- I question if Denali is worth visiting this coming summer given the road closure.  I've always thought that folks who visit Denali and don't go in to the park as far as the Eielson Visitor's Center cheat themselves of a full experience.

 

With the closure of the road at Pretty Rocks (mile 42) that means that visitors will lose the Polychrome Pass overlook (mile 46), the Toklat River Rest stop (mile 53) where it is rare not to spot grizzlies, the Stony Hill overlook( mile 62) and Eielson Visitor's Center (mile 66).  The opportunities to spot wildlife are not the same along the road, with greater opportunities at these overlooks which are above the tree line.  Much of the first few miles of the road are in spruce forests, and animals are just hidden in the dense underbrush.  Even approaching Teklanika (mile 29) one side of the road is a spruce forest.

 

As someone who lives in Fairbanks, Alaska I will say that Fairbanks residents were surprised at how many tourists we had last summer.  While there were no motorhomes with out of state license plates and no cruise tour motor coaches, the town was full of tourists.  And the shuttle buses ran at Denali National Park.  While the number of people on the shuttle buses was limited due to social distancing and a smaller number of shuttles operated, the buses still ran.  The NPS  also had contracts with several tour operators to operate tours, and there was a program which allowed a very limited number of private vehicles.  I don't know how to respond to the question about how wildlife was affected by the "lack of tourists" as I suspect that the wildlife didn't notice any difference.

 

 

[gilliansp]

I am reading this topic with interest. As first time visitors to Alaska this September, and it may be our one and only visit, we have booked the shorter Tundra Wilderness tour as it seems that Denali is a "must do" on an Alaskan vacation. I think its a case of  - if we don't visit the park we may regret it forever. Hopefully we will get to see wildlife as well as dense underbrush! However, instead of the usual 2 days in the park we will only spend one day there.

[srpilo]

On 2/7/2022 at 8:19 AM, flamingos said:

The park road, that the bus tours use, will be closed at mile 43, less than halfway in.  

 

From my HAL cruise in May:

 

UPDATED INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR TUNDRA WILDERNESS TOUR The National Park Service has announced that a section of the Denali Park Road will be closed for the 2022 and 2023 Alaska seasons due to road construction. Your Tundra Wilderness Tour will now go to Mile 43 and will continue to offer the best opportunity to view Denali's iconic wildlife and North America's tallest peak. We will provide an onboard credit of USD $35 per person on bookings made before February 4, 2022 to compensate for this change.

 

https://www.ktoo.org/2021/08/31/denali-park-road-landslide-prompts-closure-and-search-for-long-term-fix/

 

We too have a HAL cruise tour in May, with the TWT included, and have not received this notice of the change or OBC compensation, if you don't mind could you tell me when you received the email from HAL ?

[donaldsc]

There are places on Parks Highway that you can see Mt. Denali w/o having to actually go into the park.  However, I seriously doubt that you will have the opportunity to stop and see the mountain if you are on a cruise ship tour.

 

DON

[don't-use-real-name]

And remember the 30% rule -

The top of Mt. Denali is frequently in cloud cover 60+% of the time.

There is a say-in expression - - - "Mountain Out"

 

There are turn-outs on the George Parks Highway #3 to stop and TRY and

view the mountain.

Also a few opportunities on the Alaska Railroad

Flights to-from Anchorage to Fairbanks possible 

 

So the Denali Park Road is not the only viewing point albeit weather and ROAD permitting

to be just a tad closer

 

One trip I spent 4 days in search of that view - the Denali Park Road was a disaster - low

overcast clouds rain all in an attempt to get the close-up view - alas on the 4th day leaving

for Anchorage on the GP Hw the cloud cover blew off and the mountain was in all of its

glory basking in sun lit aurora -

 

Thus I became a member of the 30% club

 

   

[flamingos]

On 2/9/2022 at 11:51 AM, srpilo said:

 

We too have a HAL cruise tour in May, with the TWT included, and have not received this notice of the change or OBC compensation, if you don't mind could you tell me when you received the email from HAL ?

Mon, Feb 7 at 12:01 AM

 

Our cruise is May 21. 

[flamingos]

23 hours ago, don't-use-real-name said:

And remember the 30% rule -

The top of Mt. Denali is frequently in cloud cover 60+% of the time.

There is a say-in expression - - - "Mountain Out"

 

There are turn-outs on the George Parks Highway #3 to stop and TRY and

view the mountain.

Also a few opportunities on the Alaska Railroad

Flights to-from Anchorage to Fairbanks possible 

 

So the Denali Park Road is not the only viewing point albeit weather and ROAD permitting

to be just a tad closer

 

One trip I spent 4 days in search of that view - the Denali Park Road was a disaster - low

overcast clouds rain all in an attempt to get the close-up view - alas on the 4th day leaving

for Anchorage on the GP Hw the cloud cover blew off and the mountain was in all of its

glory basking in sun lit aurora -

 

Thus I became a member of the 30% club

Thanks.  I know too many people who have visited or worked there, so I was not expecting to be able to see it clearly anyway.  If we do - bonus!

[Alphen]

On 2/9/2022 at 9:23 PM, don't-use-real-name said:

And remember the 30% rule -

The top of Mt. Denali is frequently in cloud cover 60+% of the time.

There is a say-in expression - - - "Mountain Out"

 

There are turn-outs on the George Parks Highway #3 to stop and TRY and

view the mountain.

Also a few opportunities on the Alaska Railroad

Flights to-from Anchorage to Fairbanks possible 

 

So the Denali Park Road is not the only viewing point albeit weather and ROAD permitting

to be just a tad closer

 

One trip I spent 4 days in search of that view - the Denali Park Road was a disaster - low

overcast clouds rain all in an attempt to get the close-up view - alas on the 4th day leaving

for Anchorage on the GP Hw the cloud cover blew off and the mountain was in all of its

glory basking in sun lit aurora -

 

Thus I became a member of the 30% club

 

   

 

Luckily we managed to get an excellent view on our Alaska cruise in 2019, when we were on an excursion involving a short ride on a plane, out of Homer.