Exploring Alaska by RV: North Pole to Denali

100925 North Pole to Denali

After a sleep in, we washed our clothes, filled with water and headed across to the North Pole. Not the Magnetic nor True North Pole but a small town that lays to the East of Fairbanks, whom the early trappers named North Pole.

The main feature at North Pole is Santa’s House. Have a look at these two pictures. The first is taken in 2006 of our daughter, Tayla, the second photo was today. Some more pics below.

Tayla 2006 visit

Joshua and Tayla 2010

After popping into a quilt shop and restocking with food and fuel, we attempted to located the Uni of Alaska’s wildlife research farm to view musk ox and bison. We knew where the Uni was, found some research area on caribou, but could not find the farm. We rang the number but it went to an answering machine. Their advert in the Mile Post (travel guide) has no address. We failed to locate it, so we got on the road to Denali.

You can see Denali from Fairbanks which is about the same Distance, as if Denali was at the Bunya Moutains and you could view it from Brisbane. See photo below.

After nearly three hours of driving, having crossed and followed the Nenana River, we drove into Denali Park to find it empty at 6pm. The Park is open all year round, but it turns out in September the visitor centre closes at 4.00pm, that park is open as far as Teklinika Camp, there is no camping inside the park boundary, but Riley Camp Ground is open which is at the front. It is free to enter and to camp.

This is a vast difference to when the Tourist Season is on, it is quiet pricy, with camping fees, vehicle entry fees, you can’t take your vehicle into the park unless you are camping for a minimum of 3 days, and if your vehicle is over 21’ long, it can only travel on the road between 10pm and 6 am. So, it seems we have the park to ourselves, or so we thought.
For us this is heaven.
After driving into the park and enjoying dinner with a view of Denali in the distance, and establishing all this info from a German couple who had also pulled up at this point, we returned to Riley Camp Ground to find only the front section open (Bear Loop) and it was ¾ full. I spoke to Rus Gustep who is a video photographer and he enlightened me on why all the campers. Besides some coming down from Fairbanks for the weekend the rest were professional photographers who were here to photograph the Moose in their Rut and hopefully film some predation (wolves attacking moose calves). He also advised the weather for tonight, an expected 5 degrees F or a bit lower, maybe down to 1F. That equates to about minus 18 C. He kindly provided the kids with a copy of his video on Denali which we watched before lights out.

Enjoy the photo’s of Denali on our day 1 and some of Santas House at North Pole

Weather: Cold Low minus 9C High 5 C at Fairbanks.

Wildlife: Nil

O/N N 63 43.891 W 148 53.861

Dinner view of Denali N 63 43.635 W 149 21.450