I wanted to follow up. We just got back from Denali. And, I already want to go back again.

When I made the reservations on-line, the earliest trip to Eielson I could reserve was 10am.

The road construction on the Parks Highway didn't slow us down as much as we anticipated so we arrived at the WAC (Wilderness Access Center) around 8.30am. We talked to the check-in folks and they indicated we could stand-by for earlier buses or wait for our 10.00 bus. The electronic board at the check-in counter indicated that the 8.30 was FULL (red), and the 9.00 was filling up quick (yellow). 9.30 was still green. There were 4 of us so our concern was getting everyone on the same bus.

The check-in folks asked us to talk to the "handler" out by the buses. Don't talk to the drivers. The "handler" said that we'd be SOL for 8.30 and probably SOL for 9.00 as well (since we were a party of 4).

So, we headed over to the Visitors Center to check that out for a bit. Around 9.20 we arrived back at the WAC. They were just announcing boarding of the 9.30a Eielson bus. We talked to the "handler" and he directed us to a bus.

Lo and behold there were only to be 27 people on the bus. We had a great driver who essentially narrated the entire trip for us. Shuttle bus driver's are required to narrate so we got a bonus. Our driver was Dave C.

On the 4 hour trip out to Eielson, we only picked up 2 additional folks along the way. So, there was plenty of room to spread out and relax.

However, on the return, the bus was 80% full leaving Eielson at 2.30p. And we picked up quite a number of folks along the way. By the time we left Teklanika we were turning people away and asking them to wait for another bus.

However, based on my observation, you should not have to wait more than 10 or 20 minutes for a shuttle bus to pass by. They were very frequent. On the way back, we were basically stalked (within sight distance, you can see the dust clouds) by 4 other shuttle buses.

I highly recommend heading out to Eielson or ever Wonder Lake. We saw the majority of animals between Toklat and Eielson.