Denali and the Northern Lights: An Alaskan Winter Rail Journey

Most travelers visit Alaska in summer, but the winter months offer their own unrivaled rewards: lower lodging costs, enchanting snowscapes, and a welcome lack of crowds. This is also the best time to spy the aurora borealis, those dazzling if unpredictable celestial displays that light up the night sky. To experience Alaska in its winter glory, hop aboard the Aurora Winter Train between Anchorage and Fairbanks. 

Stretching along a rugged expanse of wooded valleys and raging rivers, the Alaska Railroad was hailed as an engineering marvel upon its completion in 1923. Builders green-lit the multidecade project to link Alaska’s resource-rich interior with ice-free ports near Seward, but today the state-owned former freight line is better known for its incredible sightseeing. 

The classic rail journey links Alaska’s two largest population centers on a 350-mile trip that takes around 12 hours. It’s worth adding a day or more on either side of your itinerary for other Alaskan adventures. 

Planning your trip 

In the winter—which in Alaska means late September to early May—trains run northbound on Saturdays and southbound on Sundays. There are also extra weekday runs in February and March, a good option if you want to spend a couple of days in Denali National Park before continuing to Fairbanks. Purchase tickets at least a few weeks in advance. Like everything else in Alaska, prices are not cheap (one-way tickets are $259 for adults, $130 for children), but you can save money by flying into Anchorage and out of Fairbanks, or vice versa, with open-jaw tickets often costing little more than a round-trip flight to either of those airports. 

The journey

The Anchorage train station is conveniently right downtown, within walking distance of major hotels, restaurants, and key sights like the excellent Anchorage Museum. At the station, there’s a buzz of excitement as travelers gather amid the wooden benches and oversize windows inside the three-story moderne-style building. Nattily attired staff take luggage, guide travelers to their boarding cars, and seem happy to share insights on the journey ahead. 

On the Aurora Winter Train, there’s just one class. Seats are spacious and comfortable (with charging outlets in some but not all seats), and large picture windows allow ample views across the horizon. There’s also a restaurant car, so no need to scramble for a meal before arriving at the station for the 8 a.m. departure. In the morning, vegan-friendly hot barley cereal with blueberry-peach compote and biscuits and gravy with reindeer sausage are on the menu. For lunch or dinner, you can also try reindeer in penne bolognese, though there’s also chickpea masala, smoked salmon chowder, and slow-braised pot roast. 

This rail journey can be taken in either direction, though the following describes the more popular northbound route from Anchorage to Fairbanks. 

As the train pulls out of Anchorage, you pass a light industrial landscape, skirting the huge Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson military installation (where Trump and Putin met back in August) and chug past pyramid-shaped mounds of gravel—an essential insulating building material used on roadbeds in this land of permafrost. Within 15 minutes, you leave the industrial world behind and enter a land of snow-covered marshes and rolling pine forests crisscrossed by frozen streams glinting in the early morning light. Off to the north, you get sweeping views of the Chugach Mountains as you cross the Knik River, a glacier-fed waterway that takes on a gray, silty color when it’s not frozen solid (typically December through March). 

On board, train staff call out key landmarks and weave in stories about Alaskan history and culture. You’ll see the 4,396-foot Mt. Susitna and learn the legend of a sleeping lady (squint and you’ll see it): Her true love never came home from war, and she stretched out and turned to stone while waiting for him. Staff shed light on the Iditarod—the world’s most famous dogsled race, which begins just north of Anchorage—as well as the 1925 Nome serum run, when dog teams raced across 674 miles of frozen terrain to bring life-saving medicine to a community stricken by a diphtheria epidemic. 

Wildlife plays a starring role on this rail journey. Moose sightings are a regular occurrence in the winter months (the leaf-free forests offer better views). Bald eagles sometimes fly right alongside the train. Caribou, lynx, and even wolves are a possibility. The train staff keep an eye out, and if an animal is spotted, the train will slow, giving everyone a chance to catch a glimpse.  

Just before the train reaches the small village of Talkeetna, windows on the left reveal the dramatic expanse of Denali. At a towering 20,310 feet, the gargantuan mountain is always covered in snow and remains notoriously shy as clouds often shroud its summit. On board, the announcer describes Denali (“Great One” in the native Koyukon language). It’s not only North America’s tallest peak but also arguably the tallest mountain on Earth. Denali’s base-to-peak height is over 18,000 feet, compared with Everest’s roughly 15,000 feet, and the Himalayan icon is cheating in a sense, since it sits on a very high plateau. 

Denali is just one of many mountains you see while rolling past the vast expanse of the Alaska Range. The view is particularly striking at Broad Pass, just south of Denali National Park, with chiseled peaks in every direction. Farther north, you’ll chug high above the Nenana River as the train winds its way through the lofty rock walls of Healy Canyon. The rare stretches of flat landscape just south of Fairbanks offer a fine counterpoint to the craggy heights. This rolling stretch of uninterrupted forest is home to spindly trees, mostly black spruce, that have learned to flourish in the challenging environment of permanently frozen soil and often devastating summer wildfires. In fact, the cones, perched high on the tree, rely on fire to release their seeds, which then sprout on charred, nutrient-rich soil.     

About four hours past Denali, the train rolls to a stop in Fairbanks, a fairly flat, spread-out city stretching along the Chena River. Like many other settlements in the Alaskan interior, Fairbanks grew from a rural trading post after gold was discovered nearby in the early 1900s. Though it’s a fraction of the size of Anchorage, Fairbanks has its charms, including a lively downtown and the University of Alaska Museum of the North.

The northern lights

Although dubbed the Aurora Winter Train, it’s unlikely (though not impossible) to spot the northern lights while riding the rails. Instead, it’s worth adding a few days on to your time in Fairbanks to spot this natural phenomenon. Outfitters like Borealis Basecamp offer multinight packages in a glass-ceilinged igloo some 25 miles from Fairbanks. The Chena Hot Springs Resort, some 60 miles northeast of Fairbanks, is a great spot to look for the lights (particularly while soaking in a steaming outdoor pool), and you can spend the night in a lodge-style room, a cabin, or a yurt and enjoy daytime activities like dogsledding, snowshoeing, and ice skating. Transportation is available from Fairbanks ($180 round trip).