Denali Bus Tour - 9 hours no guide?!
 

I was just about to buy my tickets for the bus shuttle run by the NPS, when I read there there is no narration or guide for the trip...doesn't this get confusing, and I dare to say, boring? I don't need someone talking every minute, but I would like to know what I am seeing...Is the 9 hour shuttle ride really 'exciting'? I am used to alot of input being part of Gen X/Y...My SO and I are worried that 9 hours is a bit much...but I don't want to miss out...help?!

FTer Seat 2A is a bus driver at Denali. You might search on his posts in this forum, and send him a message drawing his attention to this thread. Here is one post of his describing a route he drives.

I did the bus ride to Eielson Visitor's Center (about 8 hours round-trip, IIRC) several years ago (when I was, at the most, 13 or 14), and it was the FARTHEST thing from boring. While there is no "official" guide or narrator on-board, the drivers did talk a good bit, and the beauty outside and wildlife to spot were MORE than enough to keep us entertained.

The ride was also broken up into manageable segments, with bathroom and stretching stops every hour or so.

Trust me, you will NOT regret booking the NPS shuttle!

I was just there and the shuttles do not just drive through the park. They stop at all significant animal sightings for 5 minutes or more for photo ops. The drivers are talking about things at opportune times.

Just a side note, not quite a serious one but.... Why do you need someone to tell you what you are looking at? It will be obvious... trees, moose, caribou, bear, lynx, creeks, falls, birds. The same thing you see on the guided tours for 5 times as much. But if you really want a lot of talking take the guided tours that talk all of the time and give you the history of the park and everything else including extra anecdotes.

Hope for good weather
 

We booked months in advance and unfortunately got a
foggy day. It was 9 hours of occasional bears and moose,
but no view of Mt. McKinley.

The drivers are people who love nature and love to learn about it (which is why a summer at Denali is appealing to them). They show you lots of great things, and have lots of information to share. The camper bus is a wonderful experience, and a great deal.

I have one strong recommendation: GET OFF THE BUS. The bus is a great experience, but if you stay on the bus the whole time, you're missing out. The bus will stop almost anywhere along the way you ask for you to get off, and you can flag down any other passing bus and get back on. This was a bit out of my comfort zone, but it was a great thing to do. There is so much land and so few people that there really aren't paths, so you can just wander across the tundra (which has beautiful vegetation up close). Being so alone and so small in that huge landscape is something I won't soon forget. I especially enjoyed the tundra areas short of the Eliason visitor center, but you can ask your driver for recommendations.

Other tips: take the earliest bus you can stomach (animals are more active in the early morning), and bring water and trail mix/bars. You'll also want your longest and widest camera lenses.

Thanks for the tips. We are up here in Anchorage and will be heading to Denali on Thursday. We will be taking the 6:00 AM bus tour on Friday morning, so I'm hoping to see a lot of wildlife.

I'm not expecting to see Mt. McKinley. Many of the locals here are telling me that its usually covered in mist and clouds, so I won't be disappointed if I don't see it.

Quite true. The stat I've heard is 20%--that is, it's visible only 20% of the time. That means that 80% of the people who go to Denali never see it! So if you do, count yourself lucky!

My menubar widget weather forecasting thingy indicated sunny skies through Friday, but since it tends to sometimes be inaccurate (not sure where it gets its data from), I checked the NWS, and it's going to be cloudy this week--warm, 70°, but cloudy...:().

There's always a chance, though!

webcam to see Denali
 

here is a webcam provided by the park service from Wonder Lake:

http://www.nature.nps.gov/air/webcam...am/denacam.cfm

I check it often and have yet to see Denali in all her glory.

Cool link!

The archived image for June 14th wasn't too bad...

Thank you so much for posting this link. I was fortunate in seeing Denali the first time that I visited the park. The mountain appeared briefly. In May of this year, we were not so lucky; no views at all.

I just checked the webcam and Denali is visible! I saved this website to my favorites and will check on it every day. I also have the streaming webcam of Yellowstone's Old Faithful area. It is great since now the camera zooms in on other geysers including: Beehive, Grand, Daisy, Castle, and of course - Old Faithful.

It's interesting how quickly it changes--I just checked (9 hours almost to the minute after you posted) and it's covered in clouds...

All the above tips are very accurate. Getting off the bus is a great idea -- although it SEEMS a bit frightening (you need to remember that nobody has ever been killed in Denali by a bear). Ironically, I've found that I see FEWER animals while walking than on the bus (perhaps because you lose the elevation advantage of the bus?).

Obviously, some of the drivers are more interesting than others. If I get a "boring" driver, I get off the bus and walk a bit (you'll often find the other pax think you're crazy when you get off in the "middle of nowhere", like you're bungee jumping or something). The hard part is that when I get a GOOD driver, I don't want to get off!

Got back from my week in Alaska yesterday and it was absolutely fantastic!

Most of the time, McKinley, or as I got into the habit of calling it, Denali, was covered in clouds. But there were times that the clouds moved and the peaks were visible. It was a sight to behold. The mountains in Alaska are the most rugged I've ever seen. And no, I've never been to Nepal or the Alps area.

We took a 12 hour bus tour operated by Denali Cabins and it was well worth it. While we couldn't stop and get off at predesignated stops like the park bus allows, we did enjoy our trip. The bus ride was like a safari. We saw every animal imaginable, including several grizzlies, one of which was about 10 feet from the bus! We were so very quiet we could hear it chewing the grass it was eating. We even had a wolf come out of the brush and walk in front of us on the road for about a half mile. It was the slowest half mile I've ever spent in a vehicle, but it was incredible to follow a wolf. The joke on the bus was that the Park employees planned it and the wolf was leading us to the gift shop! ;)

And of course we saw caribou, moose, red foxes, sheep, ground squirrels and all kinds of birds. As a matter of fact, one red fox was roaming around a rest area and was quite the ham as we all were taking pictures of it. That is, until it suddenly saw a ground squirrel and went in for the kill! :eek: It was gruesome to see but nonetheless fascinating to see this red fox grab the squirrel by its neck and squeeze until the legs of the squirrel stopped twitching. Then he started to eat. First time in my life I've ever seen a live kill. Don't know how I felt about it. :confused:

Bottom line is that the bus tour, even without non-stop narration, was quite fascinating and well worth it. I would not recommend bringing young children on this trip, however. We had a seven year old boy and two nine year old girsl and on the six hour ride back to our cabins, they were getting quite antsy. And the parents weren't very resonsible. :mad:

Overall, I was very pleased with our time there and would highly recommend a trip to Alaska for all. But not on a cruise. Its critical to tour the interior and drive.

:) Thank you for saying that! Now if only the world would listen...