Denali National Park is an area about the size of Massachusetts visited by about 450,000 people a year. It is home to the tallest mountain in North America, Mt. McKinley (known to most locals as just "Denali"). The park is beautiful beyond description and was one of the most amazing experiences of my life.
By car you can drive only about 15 miles into the park before rangers turn you back; to really get into the park you must board a converted school bus. The bus tour was sort of like an Alaskan safari frequently stopping so tourists could take pictures of wildlife. It was great fun to search for movement along the hillside, and to witness the dramatic changes in terrain, but you really need to step off the bus and away from its engine to experience the park in all its majesty.
There are no real hiking trails inside the park. You just holler to the bus driver if you want to be let off, and you are free to roam wherever you like. When you are ready to be picked up, you just find your way back to the road and give the hitchhiking sign to the next driver that comes by. The photo above was taken in the Polychrome area, where my girlfriend and I first hiked.
To truly appreciate the tundra, it must be hiked. The ground is covered not in grass but in some sort of squishy moss; with every step, your feet sink probably a couple of inches. Standing out here you can see for miles, and since the landscape is completely still, it's not hard to spot bear or caribou wandering around on a distant mountain (or, in our case, a bear chasing a caribou up a mountain). Sound, too, travels. In places sheltered from the breeze, you can hear for miles because there is nothing making noise -- no rustling leaves, no birds chirping, no humming of roads, planes, or AC units. We could hear every word coming from a few fellow hikers on the mountaintop probably 1,000 yards away, speaking at a normal level. It's hard to imagine how predators could sneak up on anything up there.
Only in Denali, it's quipped, are you more likely to see a bear than the tallest mountain in North America. You have about a 95% chance of seeing a bear in the park (and similar chances to see caribou, dall sheep, and moose) -- the average bus, the driver said, sees 5-7 bears -- but Mt. McKinley peeks out of the clouds only about 20% of the days in the summer. From this, you might think that the park is teaming with wildlife. It's not. It is just that you can see for such long distances that it would be unusual not to see large animals wandering around. We were both surprised at the lack of wildlife given the giant salad bar that it is. Even the birds are few and far between. The most frequent sighting was little prairie dog looking things called arctic ground squirrels, which apparently serve as snickers bars to bears, and is eaten by just about everything in the park.
There is a grizzly bear in the photo below. Can you spot it?
Try now.
