Part of The US National Parks
- Where
- Interior Alaska, Mile 237 of
the George Parks Highway - Coordinates
- 63.73° N
148.92° W (visitor centre, NPS) - Established
- 26 February 1917; renamed
and enlarged in 1980 - Area
- About six million acres;
two million designated wilderness - Highest point
- Mount McKinley, 20,310 ft
(Park Service) - Best visited
- Bus season 20 May to
mid-September (Park Service) - Advisory
- United States
(no State Department level)
One road in, and we rode it slowly in a bus that stopped whenever anyone whispered. Dark spruce gave way to open tundra, rust and gold, with grey braided rivers across the valleys like dropped ribbon. A bear dug at a hillside and did not look up once. All day the great mountain kept its cloud on like a lid, and then, for the length of a sandwich, it lifted.
The short answer
Denali National Park and Preserve is a unit of the US National Park Service in interior Alaska. The Park Service’s anniversaries table dates it from 26 February 1917, when Mount McKinley National Park was established, and says the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980 incorporated it and Denali National Monument into the present park and preserve; the park’s kennels history says that act tripled the park’s size, renamed it, and made the original two-million-acre park designated wilderness. The park describes itself as six million acres with one road. At its centre is the mountain the Park Service calls Mount McKinley, 20,310 feet high. The Interior Department’s Secretary’s Order 3424 restored that name for the summit, superseding a 2015 order that had named it Denali, and directed that the park keep the name Denali National Park and Preserve.
Why it's worth knowing
One road, kept quiet on purpose. The Denali Park Road was first brushed and surveyed in 1922 and finished in 1938, the Park Service says: a 92-mile road from the entrance to Kantishna, paved for its first 15 miles, two-lane gravel to mile 31 and a rustic one-lane gravel road beyond. After the George Parks Highway opened in 1972, a park regulation restricted private vehicles beyond the Savage River and set up a public transport system; in 1986 the park set a limit of 10,512 vehicle trips a season. In summer, private cars may drive to Savage River, at mile 15, and buses run by a private company under contract go farther. In spring and autumn the road may be open to private vehicles for anywhere from 3 to 30 miles, depending on conditions.
A park made for animals. The Park Service says Denali was the first national park created to protect wildlife, and counts 39 mammal species, 169 bird species and one amphibian. Its kennels history tells how the naturalist Charles Sheldon, studying Dall sheep in the winter of 1907–1908 with the musher Harry Karstens as his guide, lobbied Congress to protect the area, and how Karstens, the first ranger and first superintendent, set up a kennel to fight poaching of caribou, moose and sheep.
Ice on a large scale. Glaciers cover one million acres, about one-sixth of the park, the Park Service says, and at least 40 named glaciers flow from as high as 19,000 feet down to as low as 800 feet. The Kahiltna, at 44 miles, is the longest glacier in the park and in the whole Alaska Range. The Muldrow Glacier surged in 2021, the park says, and part of its traditional climbing route now appears impassable.
The field notes
The first ascent
On 7 June 1913 Walter Harper, Harry Karstens, Hudson Stuck and Robert Tatum became the first people to stand on the summit of the mountain, the Park Service says. A National Native News report hosted on the park’s pages adds that Harper, an Athabascan, was the first to set foot on it, and gives “Denali” as an Athabascan word meaning “the High One”; the park also hosts a reading by the late Chief Mitch Demientieff of Nenana of the legend of Denali, “the Great One”. Today, the Park Service says, more than 90 per cent of climbers attempt the West Buttress route, which may carry 500 to 600 climbers at the peak of the season from late May to early June, and an average expedition takes 17 to 21 days.
Rangers with four legs
The Park Service calls the Denali kennels the only sled dog kennel in the National Park Service and one of the oldest in the country. Karstens bought the park’s first seven dogs; the first were bought on 23 February 1922, and the present kennel building dates from 1929. When the 1980 law made the original park wilderness, where motorised equipment is prohibited, dog teams became the way rangers kept working in winter. Each dog runs around 1,500 miles a year through the park’s interior, the park says, hauling supplies, breaking routes and carrying staff and scientists; in summer more than 60,000 people a year watch the kennels’ sled demonstrations. The park aims to breed or adopt one litter a year and names each one on a theme: one litter is named for the weather, with pups called Fog, Graupel and Squall.
Two names
The park was Mount McKinley National Park until 1980, when the same law that enlarged it named it Denali. The mountain’s name took longer: the Interior Department’s Secretary’s Order 3337 of 28 August 2015 changed it from Mount McKinley to Denali, and Secretary’s Order 3424, implementing Executive Order 14172, “Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness”, superseded it and reinstated Mount McKinley. The same order says the park keeps the name Denali, and directs Interior bureaus in Alaska to work with Alaska Native entities on names for other landmarks. The park’s wilderness page names the traditional homelands within it as those of the Benhti Kenaga’, Denaakk’e, Dena’ina, Hwt’ana and Hwtsaay Hwt’aene, and says people have made their homes on these lands for perhaps as long as 12,000 years.
September 2017The park road running west through the forest towards the Alaska Range.
Photograph: NPS Photo / Emily Mesner · Public domain · cropped
September 2011A full-curl Dall sheep ram.
Photograph: AlaskaNPS · Public domain · cropped
August 2007The aurora over Mount Healy, near the park entrance.
Photograph: NPS / Lisa Fay · Public domain · cropped
- Sit on whichever side of the bus you like. The animals have not read the seating plan.
- When the bus stops for something, whisper. Then whisper less.
- People still feed their families from this land. Leave it exactly as you found it.
- Visit the sled dogs and say good morning to each of them. It takes a while. Allow for that.
- Write down every animal seen from the bus. (Wrote ‘bear’ several times. It may have been one bear. It may have been a rock, which I have not crossed out, out of politeness.)
Hudson Stuck's thermometer. Hudson Stuck carried a thermometer to record the weather on the first ascent of the mountain, which he made with Walter Harper, Harry Karstens and Robert Tatum on 7 June 1913. It was recovered near the summit decades later by a later expedition, the Park Service says, and its digital exhibit on the climb shows both sides of it. Of the four, Karstens stayed with the mountain longest: he became the first superintendent of Mount McKinley National Park and bought its first sled dogs.
Tally, in the marginI nearly walked past it as a bit of old kit. Then it dawned on me that it had stayed up at the top long after everybody went home, quietly keeping notes on the weather, and I have rarely felt so much fellow feeling for an instrument.
Getting there
How to get there. Anchorage and Fairbanks are the easiest airports for reaching Alaska, the Park Service says, with the trip continuing by train, bus or car. The park’s one road entrance is at Mile 237 of Alaska Highway 3, the George Parks Highway, 240 miles north of Anchorage and 120 miles south of Fairbanks; the state-owned Alaska Railroad between Anchorage and Fairbanks runs through the entrance, and its depot is a five-minute walk from the Denali Visitor Center. In summer, private vehicles may drive the park road as far as Savage River, at mile 15, and free shuttles serve stops up to there; beyond it the park directs visitors to its transit and tour buses. The bus page read on 31 October 2026 said the road was closed to all traffic at mile 43 because of the Pretty Rocks landslide, while the park’s construction blog of 28 August 2026 said the new bridge there was complete and that hikers and cyclists could travel west of mile 43.
When to go. The park is open all year, with no gate at the entrance. Summer runs from 20 May to the second weekend after Labor Day, the Park Service says, and it is the only season when buses operate in the park; fall colours can appear on high ground in early to mid-August and reach the valleys by the second week of September. In spring and autumn the road opens to private vehicles as far as conditions allow, up to Teklanika River at mile 30, and in winter it is plowed only to Park Headquarters, at mile 3.
What to arrange ahead. The park’s fees page, read on 31 October 2026, gave an entrance fee of $15 per person aged 16 or over, valid for seven days and charged all year, with no cash accepted. Bus trips are run by a private company with a contract to do so, and the park strongly encourages advance reservations for visitors with less than two full days. Backpacking needs a free permit, and camping is allowed only in designated campgrounds with a reservation or in the backcountry with that permit.
Safety. The State Department’s travel advisories cover other countries, so none applies here. The park says wildlife sightings are not guaranteed, that animals roam unfenced land, and that mobile coverage does not reach far beyond mile 3; it publishes its own wildlife safety guidance, and climbing the mountain needs a permit and registration 60 days ahead.
Mark this place
Common questions
Is the mountain in Denali called Denali or Mount McKinley?
The federal name is Mount McKinley again. The Interior Department’s Secretary’s Order 3424 reinstated it, superseding the 2015 order that had named the peak Denali, and said the surrounding park keeps the name Denali National Park and Preserve. Denali is an Athabascan name; a report on the park’s pages translates it as “the High One”.
How high is Mount McKinley?
The National Park Service gives Mount McKinley, at the centre of Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska, as 20,310 feet, the highest peak in North America. Glaciers flow from its flanks from as high as 19,000 feet; the Kahiltna Glacier, on its south-western side, is 44 miles long.
Can you drive your own car through Denali National Park?
Only part of the way. The Denali Park Road runs 92 miles, but from 20 May to mid-September private vehicles may drive only to Savage River, at mile 15, the Park Service says; buses run beyond it. In spring and autumn private vehicles may go as far as mile 30, conditions allowing.
How do you get to Denali National Park?
Most visitors fly to Anchorage or Fairbanks, the Park Service says. The park entrance is at Mile 237 of the George Parks Highway, 240 miles north of Anchorage and 120 miles south of Fairbanks, and the Alaska Railroad between the two cities stops at a depot a five-minute walk from the Denali Visitor Center.
When is the best time to visit Denali?
The Park Service says most visitors come between 20 May and mid-September, the only season when buses run on the Denali Park Road. Spring and autumn bring limited services and a road open to private cars for up to 30 miles, and Denali stays open all winter, with the road plowed to mile 3.
Why does Denali National Park have sled dogs?
Rangers have patrolled Denali by dog team since 1922, when Harry Karstens bought the first dogs to fight poaching, the Park Service says. Since 1980 much of the park has been designated wilderness, where motors are prohibited, so the dogs still haul supplies and carry rangers each winter. Visitors can watch summer demonstrations at the kennels.
What happened at Pretty Rocks on the Denali Park Road?
A landslide at Pretty Rocks closed the Denali Park Road at mile 43. The park’s construction blog said on 28 August 2026 that the new bridge was complete and that hikers and cyclists could cross it; the park’s bus page, read on 31 October 2026, still said the road was closed to all traffic there.
How much does it cost to enter Denali National Park?
Denali’s fees page, read on 31 October 2026, gave an entrance fee of $15 per person aged 16 or older, valid for seven days, charged all year, with younger visitors free and no cash accepted. America the Beautiful passes are accepted. Bus tickets are sold separately by the park’s contracted bus company.
What to pack: the Road trips kit, cold and high