Denali Express

Arrival to Anchorage

Day 1 in Anchorage

Make your way to Anchorage. Most organised tours will have you spend a night here before heading out into the wilderness so take some time to explore the town and the Anchorage Museum. For those with more time to spend here, you could rent a bike and cycle down the Coastal Trail, or go whale watching at Turnagain Arm.

Anchorage-Denali National Park

Day 2 in Denali National Park

Denali National Park and Preserve is a sprawling, 6-million-acre land of snow-clad peaks, tundra-carpeted hills and rushing glacier-fed creeks.

Easy access from the road system and being home to Denali (formerly Mt. McKinley) which, at 20,310' / 6,200m, is the tallest mountain in North America, make this one of the most-visited parks in Alaska, with an enormous variety of wilderness excursions—from flightseeing to whitewater rafting and ATV tours—to choose from.

Hiking Backside Glacier

Day 3 in Denali National Park

Spend a day hiking the Backside Glacier. While not at all technical, a trek on the ice gives you the chance to learn firsthand the glacial features of this frozen river of ice, the valley that bears the scars of thousands of years of glacial activity, and the more recent visual indications of climate change on the Alaska landscape.

Denali—Talkeetna—Anchorage

Day 4 in Anchorage

After breaking camp one final time, you'll take a flight back to civilisation, returning to Talkeetna by early afternoon before boarding the Alaska Railroad's Denali Star train bound for Anchorage, a three-hour through the beautiful Matanuska-Susitna Valley, through southcentral Alaska's forests and small farms & homesteads, and finally to Anchorage by evening.