Denali National Park
Denali National Park is quite the place. We visited Denali as part of a Land/Sea Cruise in July 2019. Travelling through the park we saw a lot of wildlife and a vast, pretty much untouched wilderness. Frankly, most all of Alaska is untouched. The park is named for the mountain in the park, Denali, which many might only know by it’s old name…Mount McKinley. With some controversy, the park was renamed on the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service.
Denali
Mt. Denali is the highest peak in North America topping out at 20,310 feet. Because of Denali’s height and the climate of Alaska guides told us that it is often hidden or partially hidden from view by clouds or fog.
On the day we visited the park the view of the mountain was clear, no fog, very few clouds….a lot of blue sky. Our guides told us it was one of the clearest days they’d ever seen. So, the pictures we got are unusual because the mountain was in full view.
Grizzly
I think everyone’s hope when going into Denali National Park is to see some of the widllife you’ll see only there, or in few other places. For me, one of those were grizzly bears.
That day we saw five grizzly bears. Three were solo, but we also saw a mother and her cub. Unfortunately, the mother and cub were too far away to get a good shot even with my zoom on it’s highest setting. Even from a distance we got some good pics though.
Moose
Another animal many people hope to see in Denali are moose. I espcially wanted to see a moose because I had never seen one before (I’ve actually seen three Grizzlies at the rescue zoo near Big Bear, CA) Even though I wanted to see grizzlies in the wild, I was REALLY hoping to see a moose.
Denali did not dissapoint as we saw several during our six hour trip through the park. Magnificent.
Denali Landscapes
It’s VERY hard to understand just how vast Denali National Park is in pictures. Most tours only go about 50 miles into the park. The terrain was certainly different than I expected…a vast unending forest. As can be seen there is plenty of forest, but there are huge rivers, glaciers and other geography that is simply stunning in both scope and granduer.
In a few of the pictures you’ll see a bridge or road that might give some indication of the vastness of the park. It’s a gorgeous, virtually untouched wilderness (like much of Alaska and the Yukon). Being able to enjoy this unspoinled land was truly a joy.
More Denali
Finally, here are some other miscellaneous pictures taken both inside and outside of Denali National Park.
The picture to the right was taken as we were appraoching the park the night before our tour.
