Friday July 20, 2012 - Driving to Denali

Hi Everyone. Today, after scarfing down a quick breakfast, we lugged our many bags of clothes, tents, and food to the ASRA vans and headed off to Denali National Park. The girls took one van and the guys took the other. To keep in touch through the areas without cell phone service, each van had a walkie talkie, with which there started a competition between the genders of who could be the most annoying. We arrived at the Denali Visitors Center by lunchtime and ate outside, enjoying the rare nice weather, before going inside. It was there that we met the two park rangers, Rachel and Michelle, who would be accompanying us on our four days in Denali. On our way to the park entrance, we had our first animal sighting- a caribou! The exciting moment was somewhat diminished when we realized that we didn't have our camping permit, and so Jill headed back to get it while Peter and the rest of us campers stayed at Savage River (where the park entrance is located) and started working on our projects. Savage River was a great place to be stuck at, because it had something that related to everyone's project. (rocks, flowers, bugs, etc). We also had a great time climbing up the huge rock formation situated right at the center of the mountain. When Jill got back, we headed to the Teklanika campground. We set up our tents (all the girls in one, and each boy having his own- all by popular vote), started a fire, and cooked hamburgers and potatoes over the fire. We didn't exactly stick to our schedule, but I think everyone agrees that it was a great first day in Denali!

~ Amanda