Denali's road work starts the day after the last bus of the season

Denali National Park's buses stopped running for the season on Sept. 17. The next day, work began on the roads they run on.

The National Park Service awarded a $6,150,854 contract to AMES 1, LLC of Anchorage for work on bus depot roads, trails in the visitor center area and replacement of a water line at the visitor center campus. It runs from Sept. 18 through Feb. 4, 2028.

The buses are how most people see the park. Denali's Vehicle Management Plan states that transit buses carried more than 70 percent of total recreation visitation in 2008 and 2009, and serve as the sole means of interior access for the overwhelming majority of visitors.

The water line piece is underground and mostly out of sight. The Park Service's 2026 list of proposed projects describes abandoning a water line already out of service in the visitor center parking lot and installing a new main to the historic Powerhouse building, about 640 linear feet of excavation. A historic preservation review found no historic properties affected.

None of this reopens the far end of the road. Public bus service to the west end of the park is not scheduled to resume until 2027. That closure is at Mile 43, from the Pretty Rocks landslide, separate from this contract. The park's conditions page lists no closure tied to this work.