Denali Road Lottery -- WE WON!!

[TenerifeSharon]

We just had word that we are among the winners for this year's Denali Road Lottery. Whoo-hoo!:D Can't wait to drive in on September 12th. Please, all, keep your fingers crossed that the weather is willing! Apparently, the wildlife sightings have been wonderful this season.

 

Many, many thanks to PSSunshineGal (Janice) for all her help. We are thrilled!

[PennyAgain]

Are you going to camp at Wonder Lake?

[gg3]

Come on now, Sharon.....tell us what this Denali Road Lottery is.....for those of us who do not know.........so we can celebrate with you :D :D :D gg

[Coral]

Fabulous! You better takes lots of pictures and post them when you return!

[mytime53]

Are you going to camp at Wonder Lake?

Unless they've changed it since we were fortunate enough to get one drawn, you can't camp. It's in and out on the same day. Only so many are allowed on the road each day.

[nothriver]

Congratulations! I'm super excited for you, hope the weather is great and that you have a really fabulous day.

[crazycath]

So you cant drive in unless you win the lottery? or just cant camp?

 

Why wasnt I told about this???

 

Cathy

[muffy6445]

The only (usual) access is by shuttle bus. There's a good reason, its dirt road. As for camping, I'm not sure about reservations at the campgrounds, but from what I heard, its kind of limited number of spots. Check the NPS website. I don't think I would want to drive Polychrome pass! I'll leave the driving to the experts.

[Budget Queen]

They allow the public access for 4 days per year. Lottery in July. A very limited number of winners.

 

They will have to have an independent company car rental, that allows this access. A few companies out of Anchorage. NONE of the major rentals will allow the drive. I suggest, they note every ding and photograph the car before they leave the lot.

[PennyAgain]

Before Alaska became so popular with tourists, Alaskans (Alaskan license plates on cars and Alaskan driver's license) were allowed to drive the road (weather providing) one weekend a year. I drove in and camped at Wonder Lake. About 4 the next morning the Rangers came in the camp site and woke us all up and told us we had to leave immediately as they were pushing us out ahead of a storm.

 

How did they wake us up? BEEP, BEEP, BEEP! That'l do it. We made the best of a cold breakfast and got out of there. We had booked hotel rooms in case we had to move out and spent the rest of our mini vacation in a nice warm hotel room.

 

 

If you are used to driving in Alaska (especially where we lived) Polychrome Pass is nothing special to drive.

 

They reserve the right to close the road when they please. I would hate to fly all the way to Alaska just to drive the road and then be turned away!

[Pssunshinegal]

NONE of the major rentals will allow the drive. I suggest, they note every ding and photograph the car before they leave the lot.

 

I am posting this just for correctness. This isn't particularly true. Because of the fact that so FEW people with rentals even know about the lottery, even fewer win, and even fewer get to drive in, Denali National Park road is not one of the roads listed as being specifically precluded. I know this because I called. In addition the winner in this case has a motorhome and while the gas mileage isn't great, motorhomes are allowed on many dirt and gravel roads. In any case, it is always smart if you are going to attempt this to make sure that you can accomplish what you want by asking questions. If the motorhome had not been allowed my plan B was to get one of my friends to loan their private vehicle so that the winner, who was going to be in the area after the shuttle bus schedule was finished for the year, would be able to get into the park as far as they want to go.

 

It is just so wonderful that what started out as an inquiry, turned into a joke, and in reality forged a partnership/friendship of two women from two different countries to make something possible in one of the most beautiful places on earth.

 

Janice

[Pssunshinegal]

Denali National Park road is not one of the roads listed as being specifically precluded. Janice

 

Sorry, I tried to edit this, but was too late. This was also irresponsible of me. I tried to add, this is currently true, but could be changed at any time. Most people don't gamble on getting a lottery ticket to be able to drive in without having several back-up plans.

 

Janice

[Chenega]

You can get information on the Denali Park Road Lottery at http://www.nps.gov/dena Anyone can apply but it is not well known. Only 400 vehicles a day are allowed.

 

We got one for this year but you can only drive in and out on the same day. Since they instituted a fee for the lottery, they seem to be doing a better job at keeping the road open. Conditions permitting, you can drive all the way to the end of the road at Kantishna.

 

Rooms used to be really hard to find but the main lodges now stay open through the lottery period (this year it is September 12-15). Nice thing is that rates are much better than the main tourist season.

[TenerifeSharon]

Hi all,

 

Sorry it's taken me so long to get back here to answer. We are on Tenerife at the moment and don't have any broad-band internet access for this week:(. Janice has brought everyone up to date on this fantastic opportunity for us. We are thrilled and hope everything works out so that we can take the RV into the park for the day. We'll be in Denali for the first time in our lives and certainly hope it won't be the last time! I'm really glad that we just bought a new Nikon D40 to help us get all of those great pictures.

 

Janice was so fantastically helpful to make this possible for us and we really wish she were able to join us in celebrating our great win:D on the 12th of September.

[PennyAgain]

I'm thrilled that you have the chance to do this. Don't let what people sometimes say about the difficultly of driving the road put you off.

 

The key thing is not to rush....not that you would rush. Take your time. You don't have to do the entire road to call the day a success. Having a motor home means that you can have a hot meal if you wish. You will also a toilet of your own.

 

I drove the road in an elderly Subaru (compact size car) that had the 4 wheel drive option. I don't think I used the 4 wheel drive at all, but did operate in the lower gears as I was driving slowly as not to miss anything. When in doubt, I use a lower gear.

 

A bit of housekeeping. Take along a spray bottle of a window cleaner and some paper towels. You may want to clean your windows along the way. I stopped to clean my windows and folks begged to 'borrow' my Windex and towels.

 

The usual bits about having warm clothing apply.

 

Do not feed the bears!

 

I think it is wonderful how this turned out! I'm very happy for you!

[kenish]

For what it's worth, we took the shuttle bus on July 15 and there was a lot of wildlife....we saw the mountain, too! Driving the road doesn't look particularly hazardous or challenging (well, it might be if I was driving a shuttle bus).

 

I think the reason camping is not allowed is the rules are set up to keep the entire park visually "wild". For example campsites and tents cannot be visible from the road. If they allowed lottery drivers to camp, their vehicles would need to be parked somewhere.

[knorrisb07]

That sounds interesting! How do we enter the lottery?

[PennyAgain]

They want one day's lottery winners out of the park before they let in the next day's bunch. It looks like most of the winner's are Alaskans for whom driving the road is likely not an issue.

[themerle]

Congratulations on your win! Hope you have a fantastic time.

[Pssunshinegal]

They want one day's lottery winners out of the park before they let in the next day's bunch. It looks like most of the winner's are Alaskans for whom driving the road is likely not an issue.

 

This may change because starting next year, the drawing will be one month earlier, so that will give more outsiders a chance to get airline tickets and plan to make a trip. With the old rules, you didn't even have 30 days notice of winning, so tickets were very expensive.

 

I am rather surprised about all the comments on driving the road. It isn't like you are driving around mountain corners with someone on your tail going 75 miles an hour.

 

Janice

[fleckle]

Congratulations Sharon!

 

Hope you have a wonderful time. Please post back on this board afterwards and tell us all about your adventures.

[whale-watcher]

Sounds fantastic! I have been to Denali in mid May and was able to drive the first 30 or so miles of the park road. It was wonderful to be able to stop and observe/photograph wildlife on our own schedule; but your experience will be MUCH more amazing!

[JerseyJaguar]

I am rather surprised about all the comments on driving the road. It isn't like you are driving around mountain corners with someone on your tail going 75 miles an hour.

Sounds like my drive through the Colorado Rockies. The worst was rounding a bend and coming upon a slow moving RV - - I once saw an 18 wheeler burn out his brakes because this RV was going about 20 miles an hour looking for a turnoff.

 

This sounds like a great thing and will make for a truly memorable trip.

[PennyAgain]

This may change because starting next year, the drawing will be one month earlier, so that will give more outsiders a chance to get airline tickets and plan to make a trip. With the old rules, you didn't even have 30 days notice of winning, so tickets were very expensive.

 

I am rather surprised about all the comments on driving the road. It isn't like you are driving around mountain corners with someone on your tail going 75 miles an hour.

 

Janice

 

We had to move out of the park when they came to wake us up. They didn't say 'drive fast', but they did say 'pack up now and go.' We got out of Wonder Lake quickly and had no one ahead of us on the road heading out for a long time. There was rough weather coming. There are no plows to clear that end of the road. We all had to get out.

 

I can promise you that this whole access lottery program will end if someone has a bad accident. We left the camp ground in the dark and drove carefully so not to have a meeting with a moose. Inspite of the typical advice to see the park early in the morning in order to see animals, we saw few. There were some touchy moments when we had to share the road with an RV.

 

We have a huge amount of Alaska driving experience in all seasons. I also knew my Subaru and what it could do.

[TenerifeSharon]

To add a first update to this thread, we have encountered such wonderful, helpful people as a result of entering this Road Lottery.:D We debated all the possibilities about driving the road. We have the RV rented (and non-cancellable), so that part was a no-brainer and I reserved us a spot at the overnight park possibility at Riley Creek (already within Denali NP). We thought about additionally renting a car and driving up from Anchorage to Denali with 2 vehicles (didn't make a whole lot of sense, but a lot of expense). THEN, I thought about doing some parallel postings on other websites that I frequent -- decided on the Alaska threads at flyertalk and also the Alaska forum of tripadvisor. BINGO -- 2 wonderful big-hearted posters (one who is in Anchorage studying at the university, and the other who is from Eagle River and will be right in the area for a hunting trip) volunteered to be our chauffeur for the day. How great is that?!? We are thrilled at the generosity and helpfulness of all. PSSunshineGal started the ball rolling for us several months ago by suggesting that we enter, and she's been an enormous help the entire time. Wish she could join us on the 12th, but it's just not working:(. Guess we'll have to plan on entering again.

 

(BTW, it seems as though we are the only winners living outside the U.S. At least, I didn't spot any other foreign addresses in the winner's list posted on the Denali website.)

 

So, for now, we are GOOD TO GO!! I promise to post -- might take a while since we will be on our way to Bangkok on the Diamond Princess shortly thereafter -- and let you all know the details of this phenomenal opportunity. For now, thanks to all for the good wishes and suggestions.