Denali National Park

Posted by cat on August 30th, 2008

Entering the grand Denali National Park means stepping into a time machine, where you’ll go back before there ever existed highways, malls, or cities. Instead, you’ll be amidst totally unspoiled terrain, gazing at massive icy mountain peaks, rivers teeming with fish, and maybe you’ll get a glimpse of caribou or moose, who roam freely over the six million acres of Denali National Park. This is what travelers seek when they venture to Alaska. Untouched tundra, amazing glaciers, hundreds of miles of mountains, and of course the highest mountain in North America, Denali itself.

Denali is the name given the highest peak in the Alaskan Range of mountains, by the Athabascan people of the southcentral region of Alaska. Their name for this massive peak actually means “high one”. Rising 20,320 feet above sea level, Denali is the highest mountain in North America, and is also known as Mt. McKinley. It sits amidst a 600-mile stretch of mountains (the Alaskan Range), 100 miles north of Anchorage as the crow flies. The Alaska Range is both stunning to see, and awesome in its size and unspoiled wilderness. Denali’s national landmark summit pulls a thousand hikers a year to its rugged trails, hoping to reach the top but ecstatic just to be on this famous peak, surrounded by an area of tundra, forests, and glaicers that covers more land than the state of Massachusetts. You’ll want to see as much of it as you possibly can, so bring binoculars for up-close viewing of this venerable landscape and its wildlife.

Denali also gives its name to both a State Park and a National Park in Alaska, both of which are both stunning to visit. The National Park covers six million acres (larger than the state of Massachusetts), and was first established as a wildlife refuge in 1917, with the name Mount McKinley National Park. William McKinley was a former senator and president. Part of Denali National Park is designated as National Wilderness area, meaning strict usage guidelines and limitations are put into place to preserve the unspoiled quality of the area. Denali is truly one of the U.S.’s greatest natural resources, a superbly preserved, unspoiled region containing spectacular tracts of wilderness, teeming with wildlife. The Park has been named an “International Biosphere Reserve”, signifying its importance and uniqueness for scientific research. The area of untouched wilderness is so vast, that scientists may observe species relationships here, which may no longer exist anywhere else on earth because of human contact.

The Athabascans, who gave Denali its grand name, were nomadic, taking advantage of milder weather in lower elevations near the river valleys during wintertime, when snow begins to fall around October. In warmer weather, starting around the month of May, they ventured uphill to hunt wildlife and gather plants and preserve them for winter. Bueberries were and, fortunately for us, still are everywhere at certain times of the year (autumn), as are cranberries and crowberries. Nowadays, keep an eye out for bears foraging for these tasty delights.

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