Denali National Park 4K (September 2021): Hiking The Triple Lakes Trail & Riley Creek (short form)

This day hike is part of a larger 7-Day trip to Denali National Park in September of 2021. This is a short-form day-hike edit of a longer form video.

This chapter see us head to our final Denali Campground of the trip, Riley Creek. We saved the last big hike for our last few days.

We had 2 days at Riley, & we decided to spend that first day taking it easy. We drove into the town of McKinley Park, about 5 miles outside of The Park Entrance... right over The Nenana River Bridge.

Most of the business were closed & shuttered for the season. The ones that were open were enjoying their final few days before closing until late Spring.

We then headed to the Park's Visitor Center to check it out. While there we discovered that the Denali Dog Sled Team & Discovery Center was just down the road. We decided to take the drive over there to check that out as well.

We cannot recommend this detour more, especially if you're a dog lover. It was a highlight of the trip.

Our last day we decided to hike The Triple Lakes Trail.

This trail is probably the most popular, the longest, & most well-known of all of the maintained trails in Denali. However, there aren't many of them (as most of the gigantic park is off-trail hiking).

The Triple Lakes Trail is a one-way, 9.5 mile hike (this can be modified to your mood/taste) that sees about 1,000 feet of elevation gain. I'd say that the trail is easy, however that'd be dependent upon your fitness level. It's also incredibly rewarding, with a VERY high return on investment for the effort exerted.

Even though it's one of the most popular trails in Denali, we basically had it all to ourselves. We maybe saw 3 people the entire time out there. There really is something to be said about taking the chance of planning a Denali trip this late in the season.

We only did about 8 miles of the trail, but they were amazing! Again, we got lucky with another spectacular day in terms of weather.

After heading back to Riley Creek, we cooked an amazing meal of Ribeye steaks & fresh-caught salmon over the campfire and reflected upon our incomparable trip of a lifetime.

As if the trip couldn't get any more majestic, we were rewarded that night with our best views of the Northern Lights (the Aurora Borealis)!! The star riddled Milky Way was bathed in an incredible array of colors. Starting with deep blues, purples, & indigo, and finishing off with bright greens & yellows. It was an experience we will never forget!

Just some info for anyone planning a trip to Denali, especially if you plan to go as late in the season as we did:

Upon arriving in The Park, the first campsite you'll encounter is Riley Creek. It's no more than a mile into The Park when you turn onto the only road that traverses The Park (The Denali Parks Road). It's right next to the visitor center. Upon arriving at Denali, 6 days earlier, we spent our first night at Riley Creek (before heading deep into The Park).

We found this to be the best way to experience Denali. We spent the first night at Riley Creek (upon arriving in the late afternoon of our first day). We then booked the campground that is the most sought after, Teklanika. The reason we did this is because you must book Teklanika for at least 3 nights. It is also the campground that is the deepest into The Park (other than Wonder Lake, which is basically at the base of Denali).

You're not allowed to take private vehicles much further past Teklanika. You must either take the Green Denali Hiker Buses, or a bush plane. So for us, it made the most sense to spend our first 4 days as deep into The Park as we could.

We then backtracked for the next few days to Savage River. Savage is an awesome campground that lies between the Park entrance (Riley Creek) & Teklanika.

We finished the trip by spending our last 2 days back at Riley Creek. That way we could head out of The Park, and back to Anchorage, without adding a lot of driving and time to our trip.

The great thing about The Parks Road, however, is that you're never at a bad campground. Even if you had to start at Riley Creek everyday, the drive into the depths of The Park (whether that be on the buses, or a private vehicle) is still an amazing & fulfilling adventure.

This trip was fairly spur of the moment for us, & we weren’t sure if we were taking too big of a chance going this late in the season. We couldn't have been more wrong! The Autumn colors, bluebird days, mild temperatures, & easy hiking was an absolute dream. Not to mention that we basically had the entire Park to ourselves.

We hope you enjoy joining us as we explore this wild & massive wilderness playground. If you did, please consider subscribing, as we'll be dropping more content like this regularly. Not to mention that it really helps justify all of the hard work we put into it, to provide you with a little bit of cool entertainment that we hope you enjoy. Thanks!

Love Always & Forever & Ever,

noBear (specifically Buldo & Evan, on this trip)