Denali -- Autumn Beauty and Wildlife

---

Geo: 63.2237, -151.002

The following morning, we had a Tundra Wilderness Tour which departed at 6:30am. At Denali Park, no private vehicles are allowed into the park. Even though Denali Park is almost unfathomably large – covering more than 9,500 square miles – it isn't even the largest park in Alaska. It also has a very colorful history, and used to be known as Mt. McKinley National Park. For those who don't know the story – I didn't – the name Mt. McKinley was officially attributed to what had been Denali Mountain (highest in North America) in 1897 by a local prospector. This guy had been prospecting with a couple of other men and as often happens, they spent way too much time arguing politics. Evidently the big topic of the day was whether the U.S. would adopt the gold or silver standard. William McKinley was running for office at the time, and he was the primary advocate for the gold standard. The prospector – who also favored the gold standard – returned to the lower 48 later in the year and provided the name Mt. McKinley to the Interior Department, and it stuck. The prospector later admitted he did it only to spite the men with whom he was arguing, and President McKinley never even set foot or took a particular interest in Alaska. All that said, I guess the name was never widely used in Alaska, and as part of the work President Carter did, in 1980 he had the parked renamed from McKinley to Denali, and added land to the park, more than doubling its size. As an interesting aside, the Alaskan legislature has been trying ever since to have the official name for Mt. McKinley also changed to Denali, and they have appealed to the U.S. Board on Geographic names. In a politic move, a congressman from Ohio – who occupies the seat once held by President McKinley – has prevented the USBG from taking action on the request every since year since 1980. Evidently the USBG can take no action to change a name if there is pending legislation regarding the property in question, so every year this congressman opens the congressional session by introducing a bill stating that the name of Mt. McKinley not be changed. The bill never even gets to committee, but by simply submitting it the USBG is not allowed to take action.

Also unique about Denali is that it is a complete ecosystem, in that it is large enough and access is so limited and controlled, that all the animals and plants in the park are native, and nothing has been introduced to alter this balance. For this reason, it is wholly unique among all the national parks. There is only one road into the park, and it is a dead end. Off road camping access is heavily controlled and huge areas are simply off limits because of animal sensitivities. The tour we took was put on by a park service concessionaire and was outstanding. A man who has been giving the tour for 36 straight summers was our driver, and he was one of the best guides I have ever had anywhere. The tour is long – almost seven hours – but the time really flew by. The landscape was breathtaking and the wildlife did not disappoint. From well before we left, K's goal for this trip was to see moose. She'd missed seeing them with us in Yellowstone two years ago, and we weren't one mile into Denali when we were right along side four moose. The changing of the trees and bushes to fall colors, signal the moose to go into rut and the other animals to commence food gorging. The moose were very evidently in heat, and had no interest in our presence. Throughout the trip, the guide and all of us on the bus were on the look-out for wildlife. Sometimes it was close to the road, and easily seen with the naked eye, while other times we broke out our binoculars. The driver also had a great system, with a high-powered telescopic camera. When we saw an animal, he would take out the camera and zoom in on the wildlife. On drop-down TV monitors throughout the bus, we could then see the animals "up close." Our driver said we hit a “game grand slam” during our tour, as we saw all the big animals, and some added bonuses, including the moose, a pack of wolves, dozens of mountain Dall Sheep, grizzly bears, caribou, and fox. The numbers of smaller rodents and birds were too many to count. We also were very fortunate with the weather, as we had partly cloudy skies with no rain, and when we reached the farthest point into the park on the road, at which point we were physically closest to Mt. McKinley, the sun was out and we could clearly see the mountain. This is really quite the big deal, as it turns out that less than 30 percent of people who visit Denali ever even catch a glimpse of the mountain, as it is so often obscured in clouds. From this point we were 36 miles from the mountain and, as I said, this is as close as anyone can get in a car. Also of interest is the fact that while McKinley isn't the tallest mountain in the world, its height relative to where it is viewed is the greatest. In other words, the difference in elevation from its peak to the valley below is far greater than that of any other mountain, such as Everest, which is surrounded by other high mountains and very elevated plains.

---

Photos

Two of Four Moose...
...we saw right after entering the park. They were in full rut, and could have cared less that we were there.

Mt. McKinley
On this day, it was visible except for the two peaks. On two of the follow days, we had full views from the south.

Brown Bear
Brown Bears and Grizzly Bears are the same species, but Grizzlies live on the coast and east fish (and therefore are bigger), which Brown Bear are primarily vegetarians.

40 Below!
At the lodge, they had a special exhibit in which people can enter a controlled room and feel what it is like to be in 40-degree-below-zero weather. They did some neat things, like blow bubbles (which froze), toss hot water at the wall -- it evaporates immediately, etc.

The Sheep
These bronze statues of key Alaskan animals are placed through the Princess lodges.