August 23, 2026

Tuesday 23rd of August

Up just before 5 so we could be ready to leave the campground at 6 and catch the bus at 6.30. We had no problems catching our bus and we got to the train depot with lots of time to spare. Checked in and it turned out we could also check our baggage in so we got rid of the big rucksack and one of the smaller ones which was nice.

There was a lot of people going to Denali among them a whole school class but we were not in the same carriage as them. We were in a quite nice carriage, it was divided in the middle by an information center and on top of that was a dome. It was a 3 hour train ride to Denali and it had great views of what I saw when I was not asleep!

When we got to Denali we went to the visitor center but was sent on to Riley Creek Mercantile where we had to book in, luckily there was a shuttle bus going every half hour there. Chris had to queue for quite a while but everything was fine and we found a spot in Wolf Loop which was the middle loop between Bear lLoop and Caribou Loop.

We used the rest of the day to wander around and we booked a bus ride out to Wonder Lake for Thursday.

As you’ve probably guessed, our last days in Fairbanks had more to do with passing time than going on an adventure. We were trying to make things fit a schedule, especially as we found tickets to England from Vancouver via Dallas, and Seattle before that. Yeah, it was getting complicated, and included trains, planes, and ferries, more trains, and bigger planes. But first … Denali!

A little perspective, I grew up dreaming of Mount McKinley, because that was it’s ‘official’ name in much of the climbing literature I was reading in my teens. However, the name Denali kept popping up, and the more I encountered it, read about it, and looked into it, the more it made sense. The Koyukon Athabaskans called the mountain Denali and did so for centuries, but according to Wikipedia, some fella called William A. Dickey named the mountain McKinley in 1896 to curry favour with the presidential candidate. Ah, currying favour with politicians never goes out of style, but Trump had yet to get elected at this point in 2016, and Obama had already renamed McKinley as Denali in 2015. In Trump’s second term, he ‘officially’ or Federally changed the name back to Mount McKinley, which is one of those humungous red flags that spells trouble for the people of Greenland, if he ever gets his hand on their island. That man has zero respect for indigenous peoples!

However…

I’m with the Koyukon Athabaskans on this one: we were going to Denali.

I will confess to being rather excited about boarding the train to Denali, not least because it reminded me of The Polar Express. I know, pop culture and all that, but it helped when the conductor called out Allll aboard! Followed by Aaaaallllll aboooard!

Yep, suddenly we were tourists!

More confessions, this is more of a photo blog today!

With lots of similar photos, I should add.

Jane’s notes have got you covered with the events of the day. So I’ll just finish off with some proof of our stay in Denali National Park.

Fair warning, there will be more than a few photos over the next coming days! ;-)

More tomorrow?

Oh, yes!