Camping at Wonder Lake in Denali National Park, close by the tallest peak in North America, seemed like the perfect way to end our trip to all 59 national parks. It was even more than we expected.

Our first two days in the park (first day shuttling out to Wonder Lake, and second day exploring the Eielson area) were completely cloudy and rainy with no visibility of Denali. We were losing hope that we would ever see the mountain until we woke up on our third morning. We opened our tent at 4 a.m. to use the bathroom and saw Denali in all its glory. We hadn’t even known how amazing of a view we had from our tent until that final morning.

At the campground, we enjoyed walking around Wonder Lake at sunrise (around 4 a.m. in July!), cooking in the nice pavilion areas, seeing moose ramble around the campsites, and attending evening ranger programs. We also were able to catch the park shuttle to other areas of the park. (I’d recommend Eielson Visitor Center & its surrounding trails!)

You can read much more about our two days in the park on our blog: Switchback Kids (Denali)