Camp Denali — Hotel in Alaska

We loved our 4 night stay at Camp Denali as a family of 3. My husband and I traveled with our 7 year old son, who is a bit younger than their recommended age. I would largely agree that the experience is generally best for older kids, teens, and adults. As an only child, our son is comfortable in the company of grown ups and enjoys "grown up" food and had spent a lot of time hiking and being outside and did well keeping up on strenuous and moderate hikes and he loved his time here. The staff was all wonderful with him--Jenna let him ring the breakfast and dinner bell, kitchen staff made snacks for his stuffed animal, Simon hunted down a bike his size. The personal attention is one of the many things that makes Camp Denali special. ||Camp Denali is one of a few lodges in the north side of the park which was cut off from the rest of the park following a landslide in 2021 and has been operating as a fly in lodge since that time. It’s the only one with views of Denali. The fly in includes a flightseeing tour of the Alaska range (assuming weather cooperates) and the fly out a more direct route across the tundra. We had the Alaska range tour both ways because low clouds blocked the other route on our way out. The flight in is in a Cessna 6 seater, which some people may struggle with.||Camp Denali is not rustic, but it’s also not luxurious. Think upscale glamping. Our cabin--quite comfortable for the three of us--had running water, but I think most have water just outside the cabin. Each has a dedicated lovely very clean outhouse. Flush toilets are available in the shower building and dining room. Dining is communal at long tables with assigned seating, so your experience definitely can vary based on the guests who join for your stay. The food is fantastic with beautiful presentations, fresh baked goods daily, and a focus on local ingredients with blueberries sourced from the park and veggies grown in in a greenhouse on site.||The focus is hiking/wildlife with guided hikes or “forays” daily at 3 different intensity levels. You can also engage in independent activities like biking the park road, fishing in Moose Creek, and canoeing on Wonder Lake. We were especially impressed by guide Rob whose enthusiasm was infectious and my son looked up to as a "big brother." There is a nightly educational program--entirely optional and also attended by staff--with lectures from a visiting scholar/artist which really adds to the experience. Overall, this is a place meant for people to slow down, look around them, and learn about and enjoy the flora and fauna of the park. It's a place of community amongst the staff who warmly welcoming guests into that community. || If you are looking for a splurge--there is no way to downplay that this is an expensive stay--but are comfortable without all the amenities and are active and want to explore this amazing park and feel like it’s your own personal playground, Cape Denali is a fabulous spot. When Denali is out of the clouds, the views cannot be beat. Waking up and seeing that mountain out my cabin window the first morning we were there was...

We splurged on a one-week, once-in-a-lifetime trip to Camp Denali with our two daughters for a 40th wedding anniversary. In retrospect, I can’t imagine how we could have made a better choice for our celebration. ||The cabins: |My wife and I had our cabin, and our adult daughters had their cabin, but theirs was split down the middle, into a duplex of sorts. So they could share a cabin without sharing rooms -- a perfect arrangement for them (one that we didn't ask for, so it was a really nice treat when we saw it). The cabins are well-crafted, and there are no two alike, which is just the sort of touch we came to expect from Camp Denali; standard-pattern cabins repeated across the campus like Monopoly houses wouldn't match their esthetics or their values. Our outhouse was clean and well-maintained, and had a direct view of Denali through the heart-shaped window. The small wood stove kept the place warm well into the night, but the spruce firewood burned fast and we needed to replenish it once or twice if it got too cold for us. ||The common areas and food: |-There's a building that houses the showers, the outdoor equipment for guests to borrow, and a resource room that has a microscope, maps, animal pelts and skeletons, textbooks (geology, botany, etc), and a host of other resources to help guests gain deeper knowledge and context about the nature surrounding them. I could have spent the better part of a day just in that space. |-There's the lodge which houses comfortable chairs, a writing desk, and a generous library, and also serves as the venue for presentations by visiting scholars and artists. |-And there's the main building where the meals are served. My family and I commented more than once that if the Camp Denali dining hall were a restaurant in our neighborhood, it would be our go-to place for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. ||The hikes: |We were there seven days, and I had originally expected that we'd do independent activities at least two of those days. In the end, we went on guided hikes every day. The guides were just too good, and the trips they offered were to places that were just too jawdroppingly beautiful, to think we could come close to having those experiences on our own. In another life, I would have stayed two weeks, and maybe done some independent activities the second week. As it is, we made the right choice. ||Before we went, I knew we would have a great time at Camp Denali. I had done the research. We dreamed about this trip and planned for it a long time. What I did not expect was to encounter the deep-seated ethic that informs this place. It's not an exaggeration to say that the current owners -- and the two generations before them -- carry on in all the best aspects of the tradition of Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and Aldo Leopold. It was an honor and a privilege and a joy to be part of it for even...

This is our fourth visit to Camp Denali - it is truly a world class venue. From the gracious welcome by staff and owners to the amazing food and beautiful lodges and cabins, it can feel like both a home away from home and a trip of a lifetime. There is always a feeling of camaraderie as we share events of the day after dinner. | As always, one can set one's own schedule, be it hiking short or long, canoeing, biking, exploring on an easy guided naturalist foray, or simply having some quiet down time among the many books on regional topics.| The guides have been uniformly excellent during our several trips. They are very knowledgeable and enthusiastic, and always cheerful and responsive to guests' needs and wishes. The guest speakers have always been educational and though provoking.| The setting is priceless and unique in wilderness lodges, especially now that the park road is closed. Most of the 6 million acres of Denali National Park wilderness can now be accessed only by plane. The plane trip is spectacular, passing over glaciers and seeing 20,000+ ft Denali up close.| A heart-felt thank you to Jenna, Simon, Jerry and Wally, the family who has loved, respected, and protected this special place for...