ALASKA ADVENTURE 2024: Denali Disappointment - July 8 & 9 & 10

We arrived at the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge around 6:15 p.m. Monday for our 2-night stay. Tuesday was supposed to be our day to spend in the National Park and enjoy a guided tour. But due to the wildfire of June 30, the Park was still closed - scheduled to be reopened Wednesday morning, July 10. Even a nearby trail that leads to the Park remained off-limits. Of course, we were not the only ones affected. The hotel had reopened on Saturday, but there was not much for the guests to do. Walking through the common area to our room, we saw a lot of depressed-looking people. Many were drinking. It was like a Lobby of Sadness. What was the mood like? This scene from Home Alone 2 captures it pretty well:

Our suitcases, which had come with us on our motor coach, would appear in our room later that evening, we were told. Debbie and I ate at one of the restaurants at the Lodge, and then went to talk with the front desk about our options for Tuesday. It was as we feared. The Park was completely closed. We could still book a nearby excursion of a mountain hike for $130 per person, but the hike sounded both too challenging for us and too expensive. There were few other options. Bummed, we explored the strip called "Glitter Gulch" which is a row of gift stores and snack shops across the road from the Lodge.

Going to our room for the night, we discovered another disappointment. Instead of a queen or king bed, we had been given two double beds. Debbie was not happy. Neither was I. Also, our bags still had not made their appearance. I decided to track their location with the AirTag in my suitcase. I could tell the bags were close, in our building. I went exploring and saw lots of suitcases outside of rooms, but ours were not visible. At about 9 p.m. Debbie called the front desk to find out what was going on. She was told that our room assignment had been changed from what it had been supposed to be originally, but that the baggage people had been working from the old list. Our suitcases had been taken to the wrong room. Not a comforting thought. A little while later, Debbie got a call from someone a few doors down from us. They had just returned and found our suitcases and ID tags in their room, so at least we were reunited with our luggage! (Not everyone on our tour group was as lucky - we later heard some luggage was lost.)

We took the occasion to sleep in the next day since there really wasn't anything for us to do. We noticed at breakfast that the hotel seemed really crowded. This made sense as things had been designed for people to be in Denali National Park, not the hotel, during the day. As we sat around the Lodge, I realized that we were now the sad people we had seen in the lobby the day before! 

To give you an example of the overcrowdedness, we waited in line for a half hour for our Subway lunch. They were out of white bread.

The view from the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge.

These pink flowers along the Nenana River are called Fireweed. We saw them all throughout Alaska.

The scorched trees on this nearby hillside were from the fire a week and a half earlier. Even though our time at Denali was a bummer, I'm glad we weren't there for the fire!

We heard that the shuttle bus to the National Park would be running bright and early on Wednesday morning. Our transport to our next lodge was scheduled to depart at 10:00 a.m. Was it worth trying to at least get into the park? On Wednesday, we woke up early enough to try it. We caught the shuttle at 7:30 and reached the park in time for the opening of the visitor center at 8. Debbie got our park passport book stamped, we watched the park movie on Denali, flew through the visitor center and took a very short trail around the area. We caught the return shuttle at 8:50 to make it back for breakfast and our next motor coach ride. We were at Denali National Park very briefly, but we did make it!