Our introduction to Denali National Park involved a very small plane and a “flight seeing” adventure. We wanted to stay inside the park, and Denali doesn’t have the typical lodges like you might find at Yellowstone or Glacier. Most of the lodging is outside the park. However, there is an area 90 miles deep inside the park called Kantishna.
Kantishna was an old mining area before the national park existed and there are four private lodging facilities. There is no electricity (except what the lodges generate themselves) and no cell coverage. Truly a time to be off the grid.
We’re staying at Skyline Lodge which is the base of operations for Kantishna Air Taxi, hence the flight seeing adventure. Typically, to stay at one of these lodges you ride a bus for several hours from the entrance. With Kantishna, they offer the ability to fly in because there is an airstrip near the lodges where they fly in and out. And by airstrip, I mean a long strip of gravel.
The weather was absolutely perfect. Bright blue skies and very few clouds. Denali is a vast park and seeing it from the air was incredible, but without a doubt the highlight was getting up close and seeing Denali Mountain. The tallest peak in North America at over 20,000 feet, it was called Mount McKinley for decades before returning to its original native name. Spectacular probably isn’t a good enough description. It was truly awe-inspiring to see. I took way too many pictures, but I think this one is my favorite:
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