2nd full day in Denali NP – Part 1 of 2

October 3, 2025

When I awoke for my second full day in Denali National Park it didn’t appear to have snowed overnight but I was in the town of Healy, which is 20 miles north of the entrance. The temperature was still right around freezing and so I didn’t leave until about 845am. I stopped for coffee and food for breakfast and lunch and proceeded to the Park.

The highway getting to the Park was wet but not slippery.

When I arrived in the Park and climbed up the hill to get to the part of the road which had the best views, I discovered that it had snowed there and there was a little more accumulation than there had been yesterday. I did hit a slick spot as I rounded a curve while climbing the hill and slowed my pace a little bit.

Again today, there clearly had been some traffic, mostly going in, but I think it was construction workers who were able to go deeper into the Park.

The sun was out but there were dark clouds on the horizon.

I drove back down to the main Visitor Center parking lot to update family and a few friends via text messages. There is no cell signal once you venture away from the Visitor Center so I would always retreat to the parking lot to send or receive messages.

When I got back up to the main road I discovered that the maintenance crew had plowed the little bit of snow that had been there about 30 minutes before. In addition to a small staff of rangers (to make sure visitors behave, and help with any problems) evidently there was a skeleton maintenance staff on hand as well.

There were clouds moving much as they had the day before, but there were more periods when the sun was out so I was able to get some mountain photos with the new fallen snow.

There were more dark clouds moving in but it turned out to be a little bit nicer weather than it had been the previous day. Hardly any traffic. At one point I stood outside the car at the high point on the road just before the Savage River bridge for 20 minutes and never heard a sound. Pretty remarkable for being on the only road in a major National Park.