Alaska post 3 - Yipee! I'm at Denali National Park

Goodbye Talkneeta, hello Denali National Park.  I made it to the National Park today.   

After sitting in the car for a few hours decided to take a quick hike.  Looks like I found evidence of beavers.  

Yep, a beaver dam at Horsehoe Lake.  I didn't see any beavers but they were probably too busy working to say hi.

Denali is the only National Park with a working dogsled team.  They don't race the animals but they are used during the winter for taking rangers to cabins in the park to do repairs, break trails for other dog sled teams, and act as ambassadors of goodwill. 

Our next day in Denali involved a bus ride.  The first 15 miles of the park road is open to everyone, the other 65 miles or so is only open to busses, walking, and bikes. 

Being short on time we didn't hike the road or bike it for that matter but took a wilderness tour.  Saw lots of tundra, wilderness and a few animals (brown bear, moose, arctic ground squirrels). 

Mother nature cooperated with us and gave us some rain in the night but it cleared a lot of the smoke from the air.  Got one more hike in Denali at Savage River. 

Not a lot between Denali and Fairbanks (our next stop) but we did find this nice little roadhouse.  Big salads and homemade beer (I recommend the hefeweizen). 

Yipee!  Made it to Fairbanks and checked in with the locals at the hotel.  

They recommended hitting the salmon bake for dinner.  Who can argue with that???

Yep, this is a salad, the salmon was scarfed down before the roommates had a chance to take pictures.