Chooch - this is what we did on one of our trips up there. Flew to Fairbanks and spent the night. It's a long way, as you know. Wore my sunglasses into the hotel at almost midnight.
Rented a vehicle there and took out the next morning for Denali. Spent as much time as we wanted there and then went to Talkeetna.
Flight seeing is a MUST DO in Talkeetna if they can do small planes. Make reservations way ahead. We're went with K2 Aviation. We did the flight that didn't require oxygen so we didn't go as high as the summit of McKinley/Denali but we were plenty high.
From there we went to Anchorage and spent the night. From there to Summit Lake Lodge in Moose Pass to stay and floated the Kenai River. Then to Homer and halibut fishing, sight seeing. Back to Anchorage, dropped the car and flew home from there. Last trip we stayed around Seward some - best wildlife viewing ever in the Kenai Fjords. Can't recommend those tours enough. They were long - like 9 hours but you see so much wildlife and up close and personal to the glaciers.
Well darn, now I want to go again. Next time will be the fifth trip.
...I did manage to sneak in last night and pick up the Summer Rising tip (and that was no easy feat as I was more than halfway gone from my "big drink"..required lots of retyping my info
