Denali
Denali National Park is home to Mt. Denali, North America’s highest mountain. The park protects an incredible wilderness area that contains grizzly bears, caribou, moose, wolves, and numerous other creatures.
Denali National Park comprises a massive area of six million acres, slightly more than the entire state of Massachusetts. The park is best known for the 20,320 foot Denali/Mt. McKinley (named after then-senator and future President William McKinley). The tremendous 18,000 foot difference from the mountain’s lowlands near Wonder Lake up to its peak is a greater vertical relief than that of Mount Everest. The park is bisected from east to west by the Alaska Range and the Park Road is the only vehicle access into the park.
Denali, the “High One,” is the name Athabascan native people gave the massive peak that crowns the 600-mile-long Alaska Range. Permafrost ground underlies many areas of the park, where only a thin layer of topsoil is available to support life. After the continental glaciers retreated from most of the park 10,000 to 14,000 years ago, hundreds of years were required to begin building new soils and revegetation. The dynamic glaciated landscape provides large rivers, countless lakes and ponds, and unique landforms which form the foundation of the ecosystems that thrive Denali
Denali
Denali
