Best Denali hikes and trails

Q: I’d like to do some hikes in Denali on my own, and plan on using the hop-on, hop-off Park Shuttle to explore. But how do I know when to get off—any good suggestions?

A: The National Park Service’s green shuttle buses make exploring the park pretty easy and very liberating: You hop off when you want, and then hop back on when another bus comes back through. (The only catch: the schedule varies, so make sure you know the return times from your driver before you hop off.)

Since there are few maintained trails in Denali, hiking here is pretty free-form. The challenge is not always distance or elevation but terrains: you might need to whack your way through brush, get your feet wet in creeks or bobble on the tundra (which some people have likened to walking on carpeted basketballs). One popular way to hike in Denali is along the river bars, which tend to be wide and fairly dry.

That said, there are a number of spots to get out that have had enough hikers to create casual trails.

They can be as long, or as difficult, as you’d want them to be—the only set variable is the particular terrain, which may or may not meet with your own threshold for difficulty. But they each offer their own atmospheres, too, whether it’s the taiga (forests), tundra, wildflowers or wildlife.

• Savage River, Mile 15. This is a maintained trail up in tundra. If you opt to hoof it off the trail, going north, you’re likely to see a whole different set of animals—marmot, pica, hare, ground squirrels, snowshoe hares—as well as alpine-zone flowers, such as azaleas or moss campion. Watch out for alder thickets, which can be arduous, and remember to make plenty of noise: bear encounters happen a lot around here.
  
• Primrose Ridge, Mile 17. During June and July, this area is teeming with wildflowers. You’ll be bushwhacking through the willows for about 10 minutes, but if you have the energy to get to the top of the ridge you might get a view of Mt. McKinley, weather permitting. Doing the ridge roundtrip can take up to 3 hours.
  
• Sanctuary River, Mile 22. You’re still below the tree line here, so this is a forested hike with a lot of peace and quiet. Walking upstream, you might encounter some thick brush.
  
• Teklanika, Mile 30. The river bar here has more wide open spaces than Toklat, and lots of spruce trees, since you’re below the tree-line; you’ll walk on mostly sand and pebbles. Check out the braided rivulets that are classic for a glacial river like this. The route south of the river is temporarily closed, as of June 2009, but when you walk north of the river, check the silt by the water for fresh moose, caribou or wolf tracks.
  
• Tatler Creek, Mile 50. You’ll likely see plenty of other hikers here, since this is a popular maintained trail, but you’ll get plenty of scenery, too. You start by following a creek, walking beneath alders then hiking up out of it onto tundra. Dinosaur fossil footprints were found here, and today you can hear plenty of songbirds, too. Terrain goes from pebbles to squishy tundra.
  
• Toklat River, Mile 53. Walled in by mountain ranges, this hike along this wide river bar is a great place to see Dall sheep and caribou. The walk is flat, but you’re walking on pebbles most of the way.
  
• The Eielson Visitor Center, Mile 66. Here you can either head north of the road on a maintained trail up to Thorofare Ridge: you may be with other hikers, but you get an expansive mountain and glacier view. To the south, you’ll be off-trail, so you’ll need to jump some streams to reach Glacier Creek, as well as make plenty of noise for the benefit of nearby bears.
  
• Wonder Lake, Mile 85. Your reward for being out this far is a pretty easy, two-mile hike on a maintained trail from the Wonder Lake campground to the McKinley River. You’re amazingly close to the mountain itself, and on the same path that that old-style climbers walked to embark on climbs of McKinley, including the famed Sourdough Expedition of 1910.