Denali

Alaska is blessed with 8 National Parks with Denali being the most visited. We arrived on a beautiful clear day to awe at the towering mountain rising 20,300 feet. The old white men in Washington occasionally make good decisions and this park is one of them. Established in 1917, the sprawling park stretches along 150 miles of the Alaska Range, with the snow covered peaks fading into the horizon in both directions . With a 80 mile width, the park is larger than New Hampshire. Denali can be seen 100 miles away.

A single road meanders the full length of the massive park. Vehicles are banned, we accessed the scenic interior by green school buses. With very limited traffic, the abundant wildlife wanders everywhere including the roads. Much of Denali is open Tundra with the remainder Taiga . We spotted a HUGE grizzly wandering across a stretch of Tundra, he looked the size of a small car. His brown fur graduated to almost blond on his giant back. As top predator, he feasts on the large numbers of moose, caribou, marmots, etc in the Park. Although we didn’t see any, wolves roam the area too.

Considering the huge number of people visiting, the Park Service does an admirable job protecting this gem of a National Park. Most of the Park is open to backpacking. The buses we rode will stop wherever you want and let you off. A permit is required but restrictions seems few. Within a couple of miles of the place we saw the monster grizzly, a young man tapped the bus driver on the shoulder and requested to be let off. Off he went, alone into the Tundra with his backpack. I guess it’s Darwinism. With the sun setting after midnight ( over 21 hours of sunshine) , the hiker had plenty of daylight left.