Alaska - Denali National Park Tundra Wilderness Tour

It's our first full day in Denali and time for our next included land excursion. There's a couple varieties of Princess tours visiting Denali National Park and lots of cruisers who will insist one is better than the other. Either one you choose, it makes for a very long tour with a lot of sitting on the bus. And in most of them, you trade in that relatively comfortable motor coach for an old refurbished school bus. If you thought your 20 minute ride to school as a kid was uncomfortable, start warming up that gluteus maximus now for the nine hour tour we took known as the Tundra Wilderness Tour. The tour currently retails for $185 per person. There's a six hour version known as the Denali Natural History Tour where for three less hours of time and a cost of $115, the only other difference I can find in the two tours' descriptions is that the Tundra Wilderness Tour included the video screens so we could get a much better view of that goat on the hill or the moose crossing the road that no one except those in the front few seats would have been able to spot out the front bus windows. If you're really a glutton for punishment, umm I mean feeling adventurous, there's a twelve hour version that includes a visit to the remote mining town of Kantishna known as The Kantishna Experience costing $285.

I've heard there's a bunch of rules, regulations, and possible need of permits when it comes to entering Denali National Park for your own exploring so it's more practical to take one of these tours. If you're subject to motion sickness or heights, I'd suggest preparing in advance because the bus travels along winding roads cut into mountainous terrain. You will encounter several areas where the bus looks close to the edge or goes around a lot of curves. While most school buses of my youth featured a longer three person bench seat on one side and a two person bench seat on the other side, this bus only had two person bench seats on every side. They fill these buses to capacity with two people to every seat regardless of whether you're a solo traveler or someone who's fluffy. Dad and I had the very last seat on the left side of the bus and I spent the bulk of the ride with one cheek and one leg out in the aisle. I don't recommend it as a core strengthening exercise.

Above - outside of refurbished school bus. Below - inside of school bus sans people.

Below - what it was like when everyone was inside the bus (also note the hanging video screens)

There is a restaurant café in the bottom level of the main building at Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge that sells boxed lunches. You can buy them whether you're exploring on your own or going on an organized tour like this. You pre-order them by the evening before and they are ready for pick up that next morning. I think it was around $12 each for a decent lunch of about 4-5 items and I seem to recall a couple options of sandwich choices. I don't recall whether anything else was offered during the tour if you chose not to spend extra on the boxed lunch.

While wildlife sightings are never guaranteed, you are more likely to see the animals way off in the distance up on a hillside than wandering up close next to the bus. This is definitely a tour where you want to bring along binoculars and a camera with a long zoom lens. At times we even used our 200m zoom lens as a second set of binoculars. The below pictures are what our camera caught with that zoom lens.

The road ahead of us as we travel through the park:

Such wonderful color variations in the land:

One of the few opportunities we were allowed to get off the bus was for a bathroom break in a valley of the park. There were several of these shacks constructed each with 2 single use unisex bathrooms. Can lead to quite the wait when you arrive at the rest stop with a few other bus tours. Lots of trying doors to see if they were locked and having your door checked repeatedly. The inside was literally a toilet seat on top of a cylindrical stand that covered up the reality that there was nothing but a whole in the ground underneath it all. I grew up using latrines at scout camp that had a toilet seat sitting on top of a wooden bench (and looked like the one in Wiseman on the outside) so it wasn't as bad to me but it can be a little off putting to someone whose never experienced that level of "roughing it" before.

Our final stop where we could get off the bus was at a base camp within the park. There was displays to check out inside the tent and a set of giant antlers to examine. This also served as the office for the park rangers so those camping at the park would stop here to deal with permits etc.

Hey, get a picture of me with the antlers!

While this tour can make for an uncomfortably long day, it's also a great overview of the natural beauty Alaska has to offer.