Our Great Alaskan Adventure continued as we picked up our camp at Savage River and left the campground and headed back to Riley Creek to pack up on supplies as we would be without utilities etc. for three days once we started camping at Teklanika. The rule with Teklanika is that once you've passed from the paved area (you go through a Forest Ranger Checkpoint) you can't go back in. You have to have what's called a Tek Pass which is something you have to pay for and it's a three night minimum.
So on the road back to Riley Creek I stopped on the side of the road and captured this three shot panoramic called, "Road to Denali" that is just breathtaking. Once we had all our supplies and a hot shower we headed back up the road and towards Teklanika (Tek for short). The cool thing about having restricted access to Tek is that there are so few cars, mostly only a small amount of tour buses and other campers so the wildlife is more abundant and you are able to get out and take pictures as you'd like.
On one stop where I was taking pictures of a caribou the boys got out and were checking out their Denali Junior Forest Ranger Guide. The other funny thing is that the Caribou will just walk in the middle of the road as you can see below!
We got the Tek campground, found our spot and headed out to the Teklanika River which is a beautiful braided river alongside the campground. We took a nature walk (they warned of bears and wolves) and had an amazing time. Some of the boys decided to draw pictures as I took them while Kara was in a silly dancing kind of a mood. The other really cute thing was that we bought all the boys small digital cameras for the trip and I caught a picture of Michael taking a picture of me!
We headed back to the campground and at last fulfilled one of the boys biggest requests which was a good old fashioned campfire. We had dinner inside the RV earlier so the campfire was all about hot chocolate and roasting marshmallows over the campfire. My son Kevin then grabbed my camera and took some family pictures of us which was awesome. All in all a wonderful day in a truly amazing place. I don't think it got dark until close to midnight! If you haven't been to Alaska, you need to go!!
