Driving north from Palmer and Wasilla the country is just as spectacular as the Anchorage area. Highway A4 is the main route north from Anchorage to Talkeetna, Denali, and onward to Fairbanks. Healy is a small town of about 1020 people in the Denali Borough and sits approx 400 miles north of Anchorage and 200 miles south of Fairbanks. We reserved our hotel at the Denali Park Hotel just south of town. The hotel was once the home to the National Park service with a 2 story building, thus it was called a hotel. The property has three Alaskan Railroad cars and one is Lobby of the hotel property. I may have posted some information in an early post, but wanted to dedicate this post to the hotel and surrounding area.
Each of the four buildings has 12 rooms and you park your vehicle right outside your door. Room rates were extremely reasonable at $160/night plus tax. We had coffee in the room, full bath/shower and satellite TV.
After we checked in, it was around 8:30, so we decided to get some dinner at the 49th State Brewery just up the road. The brewery has a large open area out front with a stage for live music, picnic tables and a replica of the bus from Into the Wild. The place was busy even at 8:30.
Mind you, the sun did not set until 10:30 pm, so that was definitely hard to get use to. Had a great dinner and headed back to the hotel for shut eye. It was an early morning day on Friday. We had to be in the park by 6 am to catch our bus for the Eilison visitor center.
Check out my other posts from Alaska including: Denali, Gulf of Alaska Fishing, Anchorage, and our trip back down to the Kenai Peninsula. Thanks for stopping by.
ToddMGrivetti Photography 