The mountain is out

We left Fairbanks this morning and headed to Denali National Park. We were a bit worried because of the air quality. We knew that the forest fires were along the road that we were taking. We had to take a long break to wait for a pilot car, which was guiding vehicles through the worst section. There, smoldering flames were right along the side of the road. We passed that section, but the smoke continued. Greg was very nervous about the conditions at Denali because there was still thick smoke when we were just a dozen miles from the park entrance. As we got closer, we saw that the mountains blocked the smoke, and the air quality is excellent inside Denali National Park.

They say there is only a 30-40% chance of seeing Denali because of the frequency of rain in the summer. We got lucky today, our arrival day. (Rain is forecast for the rest of our visit).

For the next three nights we have a special campground. There is only one road in Denali, which is only paved to mile 15. You cannot drive your vehicle past the checkpoint at mile 15; you can only proceed by bus, foot or bicycle. There is one exception: if you have a campground reservation at one of the campgrounds beyond the checkpoint. We have a reservation at Teklanika River Campground, the one that allows RVs. The rules are that we can drive to the campground. Once we park, the vehicle cannot move until we're ready to leave the campground. We will be able to take the bus from here, but if we drive away we lose our campsite. The road has some other unusual rules. One rule is that you cannot make dust; if you pass a pedestrian or cyclist, you have to drive slow enough that you do not make dust. Another rule applies to a section that is set aside for sheep crossing. You are not allowed to enter that section for the first 10 minutes of the hour. So if you reach the sign at the top of the hour, you have to wait until 10 minutes after. Luckily, we reached the sheep crossing at 2:58!

There are no rules against stopping along the drive, so we used several turnouts to take pictures of the mountains and the lush valley.