20260907 Monday September 7, 2026 Denali Horseshoe Lake Hike and Natural History Tour

20260907 Monday September 7, 2026 Denali Horseshoe Lake Hike and Natural History Tour

The Princess Denali Lodge has blinds, privacy curtains, and blackout drapes on the windows, so it was so dark in the bedroom we couldn’t tell it was daylight, but we did hear other guests dragging luggage around at around 7 a.m., and managed to get ourselves up and out of the room by 10 a.m.  The weather was overcast but not raining, so we decided to take the Princess shuttle to the Horseshoe Lake hike trailhead and do the hike.  

This descends down about 250’ in elevation to the lake and is 2.6 miles round trip.  The colors of the undergrowth are becoming more dramatic with yellows and reds with each passing day.  The trail actually ends up circling the banks of the lake and is between the river and lake for a portion of the trail.  It is well marked and maintained for the most part with just a few slightly damp sections.  

It is a scenic hike through woods featuring transitional tundra understory with spruce trees intermixed with a few aspens and alders.  There are lots of red squirrels scurrying about gathering spruce cones and stripping them bare of seeds to prepare for winter.  The lake also featured a pair of trumpeter swans and a beaver dam.  There were no beavers active at the time we were there, but they do seem to keep busy as there is a series of dams between the outlet of the lake and the river.

 

There are some interesting rock formations on one wall of the hike that looks like gnarly schist that has been folded and twisted like taffy.  

We encountered a lot of Chinese tourists speaking Mandarin on the trail.  While the hike down was all downhill, we did have to climb a long series of steps to return to the railroad grade at the trailhead.  The hike ended up taking us about 90 minutes. 

This gave us just enough time to grab something for lunch before our scheduled 1:30 p.m. Denali Natural History tour, which was included with our Princess Cruise tour package.  We split a hamburger at the fast-casual Grizzly Burger venue for $20, as well as deep-fried cheese curds for $12 and a mountain blueberry cream soda made by the local 49th State Brewing company for $6.  

The burger was comparable to a Carl’s Jr. Double, and the onion rings served with the burger were fairly meager in portions, but OK in quality.  The blueberry cream soda was hyped by the shuttle bus driver, but for us, it was a one-and-done experience.  What surprised us was the deep-fried cheese curds turned out to be a huge bowl filled with a heaping pile of cheese curds.  There were probably 3 cups of deep-fried cheese curds, which could have been a meal by itself.  It was served with a jalapeño relish.  We ended up taking most of the cheese curds back to the room to have for dinner.  

The Natural History Tour drove us back into the National Park with 3 stops where we got out of the bus.  The first was at the so-called Park Bus Terminal.  At one point, this had been the main visitor center, but after a newer and larger complex was built further into the park, this building became a central hub for bus tours into the park, which does not allow private vehicles beyond mile 15, or Savage River Campground.  The Park road actually terminates at mile 92 on the western side of the park at Kantishna airfield with 4 campgrounds between and the Eilson Visitor Center at mile 66 accessible by bus service from the Park Bus Terminal.  We watched a movie in the theater at the Bus Terminal about the development of the National Park and early tourism into the park in the 1920s to the 1950s.  There is a coffee shop and gift shop in the Bus Terminal.

Denali National Park Tour buses are converted school buses.

After viewing the movie, we reboarded the bus and headed up Park Road to Mountain Vista picnic area, where we visited “Savage Cabin,” which was half of a cookhouse structure used during the construction of the Park Road, and then later by rangers as a ranger cabin.  

It is a log structure hewn from the local Alaska spruce trees that grow in Denali National Park.  It was adorned with a collection of antler sheds, as well as a set of Dall Sheep horns which the ranger used to explain the importance of Dall Sheep in the establishment of the National Park, and the difference between antlers (bony structures which are shed annually) and horns (permanent keratinized structures).  The cabin is furnished with a wood stove, bunks, bear-resistant containers for food and emergency supplies because during the winters, it is used by dog sledding teams that deliver freight to the ranger stations throughout the park during the winter months.  

The bus did slow at a location where there were a lot of vehicles pulled over, and it turns out there was a male moose about a half mile or so off the road, intermittently visible as it walked among the spruces in the tundra.  It was extremely hard to get photos of it from the bus, which was caught in stop-and-go traffic, but we did see it for sure.  

Then we encountered another slow down just a little further down the road as a moose cow and calf crossed the road just a few vehicles in front of us.  They disappeared into the woods as quickly as they had appeared.  

After visiting the Savage Cabin, we drove to the end of the unrestricted part of the Park Road, which ends at Primrose Ridge.  This is a location with a nice view down the Savage River valley, which is painted with a remarkable color palette this time of year.  

We got out of the bus and listened to a Native Alaskan tell a few stories about his hard scramble upbringing and some of the challenges faced by his family growing up in the shadow of Denali.  We did have to stand outside in the wind while he told his stories, so when he finished, people were eager to pile back into the warmth of the bus.  

On the return trip, the driver did point out some willows ptarmigans which wore a camouflage of reds and browns with white heavily feathered feet which act like snowshoes in the winter.  During the winter, their plumage becomes all white.  

 

The bus encountered another traffic jam where a pair of moose were in thick woods and brush off the roadway, but we were not able to see them and the driver was anxious to get us back to the lodge on time.  Then a bit further down the road, near where we had seen the bull moose coming into the park, we spotted him again, but this time the bus did not slow or stop.  The driver was rather preoccupied with getting through his script on the evolution of wildfire management strategies employed by the park over the years and recent wild fire events, including one that severely affected the Princess Denali Lodge 2 years ago.  The lodge lost power and essential resources causing chaos and a very unpleasant experience for guests at the time of the Riley Creek fire.  

As we approached the lodge, he did point out the rather obvious burn scar on the hillside just behind the Princess and Holland America lodge complexes.  

We called it an early night after finishing the fried cheese curds and hitting the showers.  Tomorrow we have an ATV tour scheduled.  We hope that the weather will be cooperative.