Here's how Denali works. You get there somehow - rental car, train, tour bus. You then board either a shuttle bus or a tour bus (different prices and amenities) which will take you into the park's interior. Private vehicles are not allowed into the park past around 15 miles. To see the mountain (which is visible maybe 50% of the time, maybe a little more, always a crapshoot) you need to go farther in, preferably to the Eielson visitor center, at mile 66 on the park road, roughly a four hour bus ride. You'll probably see some animals from the bus - maybe close, maybe not. The shuttles and tour buses require reservations for a departure time; the shuttles are hop-on-hop-off after that.

So the math works out like this - four hours from Anchorage to Denali, more if you stop for nature or food. Then call it an hour to wait for your turn on the bus - if there are openings to be had - then four hours to Eielson. Then four hours back.

So, bottom line, you really need a full day within the park to do it justice, plus two half-days, or at least one, to get there and back from Anchorage.

That doesn't even address the accommodation question. There are a cluster of hotels and faux log cabin souvenir shops and cafes around the park entrance ("Glitter Gulch") which are usually chock full of cruisetour and guided tour people. They are expensive and usually booked solid. Otherwise, there are lodgings in Healy and some B&Bs around, but these will also entail additional driving, to and from the park and to and from Anchorage.

So you can do the math. I'm maybe in a minority, but if I had such a short time in Alaska, I'd think twice before committing to a long and expensive road trip when the odds of actually seeing the mountain are not terrific. The benefit/cost calculus wouldn't work for me.

That's why I tend to recommend "sure things," or at least "pretty sure things" for visitors in a time crunch.

"Sure things" include a glacier cruise out of Whittier, or a longer Kenai Fjords cruise out of Seward. You'll get glaciers (up close, not cruise-ship distances) in both, wildlife in both (much more in the Fjords) and gorgeous scenery, guaranteed.

And I recommend getting off the deck at least once. You cannot appreciate the scale of the place until you're in the air.

As you now know, rental car costs are extreme during the summer. So what if you skipped a couple of days car cost that Denali would require and allocated those savings (as well as probable hotel savings Denali v. Anchorage) to a flightseeing trip out of Anchorage?

If Denali is visible (which you'll be able to tell before takeoff) then approaching it in a light plane is something that will rewire the part of your brain that measures things. It may cost four hundred bucks per person, but (I think) it's well worth it.

But the thing is, if Denali isn't visible, there are other flightseeing options that will be - overflying some glaciers or icefields, for example, or into the Chugach Mountains or out over Cook Inlet and down toward volcano country... Or landing on some lake where it's just you and the moose and the loons. That's the real deal, something the tour bus people don't see.

So my vote would be to take Denali by land off the table and focus on some activity that's more of a sure thing. But I'm only one vote.