Intro to Denali

They have a policy at Denali National Park that requires one to take a bus into the park after a certain point.  You cannot drive your car all the way into the park, with certain exceptions.  Needless to say, Jeff & I did not meet any of the exceptions!  For the first day and a half, we made ourselves content to drive the distance (15 miles) that we were allowed minus the bus.  We did sign up for a bus tour the 3^rd day, but this posting just covers what we saw on those first 15 miles on our own.

 

Of course, everyone’s interested in seeing the mountain – Denali – aka Mt. McKinley.  However, there are many other views that are just as beautiful and here’s one of them!  I love all the different terrain that you can see throughout the park, and this shows off some very nicely.

 

I’m used to seeing pine trees all bunched together, and was very taken with these that seem to just randomly sprout up.  Most of what’s between the pine trees is, I believe, willow (which moose love to eat).  Interestingly, we did learn that the tree line in Denali used to be about 2500 feet, and now they are starting to see trees as high as 3900 feet (in elevation).  I don’t know if that’s why these are so scattered – that they are forging new ground, but regardless of the reason, I found this quite interesting!

 

Isn’t this a cool sky shot?  We actually saw this from our campground just outside of Denali, but I decided to include it in an intro posting because it was early on in our visit there.  I don’t know what caused this cloud pattern.  At first, I thought it might have been the Aurora Borealis forming (even tho it’s too early to really see that), but it never changed color, so that wasn’t it.  I just love the way the sun was lighting the clouds.

 

Here’s a nice wide view of the Park from about mile 15.  Just looking at this makes me want to run out in the fields…..except there are moose, caribou and even grizzlies out there!!  More about them later!

Enjoy!