My wife Louise and I explored Denali National Park, in Alaska, for 3 days, in early Sept. of 2003. The tourist pamphlets informed us we had less than a 20% chance of viewing the mountain, due to the frequent cloud cover and storms. Denali Peak at 20,320 feet tall, was clearly visible every day, beating the odds and defying the authorities. A few low dark clouds scudded across the hazy blue sky, and in direct contrast to the massive glaciers, snow fields, horns and craigs and the low lying tundra and taiga forest.
The base of the mountain is 2,000 feet elevation which grants the mountain 18,000 feet of vertical rise. The tallest peak in North America. The Athabascan's called Denali the Great One, which seems rather appropriate. It's a land of perpetual ice and snow.
Denali and the surrounding peaks loomed over us, even though we never came closer than 40 miles. It was hard to take my eyes off the great massif, with its massive glaciers, rock walls and a protective warren of smaller peaks. When you first view Denali, the surrounding glacial horns seem insignificant until you realize, many of them are well over 13,000 feet in elevation. The mountain dominates the land, and the sky, in every way. If I had to characterize Denali I would call her haughty, overbearing, arrogant, lordly, superior. But beautiful.
On the day we drove south, back to Anchorage, the wind was blowing up a hurricane on the highest peaks and ice and snow was being ripped off the highest points, migrating south, creating streamers of ice, some of which must have been many miles long. An airborne dune of shifting snow. If an airplane flew through these grainy ribbons of frost, I would imagine the paint being torn off the fuselage, followed by gale force winds ripping the plane to pieces. A mountaineer on those peaks would be hard pressed to survive that storm of howling, furious wind, and would be forced to make a hasty retreat.
The tundra and taiga at the lower elevations is vegetated with willows, birch, alder, currants, rose and dogwood, a colorful blend of red, orange and yellow. Many of the leaves had already blown away, and fall would soon recede to winter. Some of the stream courses were outlined by dark green spruce trees (20-30 feet in height) which stood tall over the shrubs. Scattered spruce trees dotted the tundra, in total disregard of symmetry and order.
I spotted two caribou, and one of them was an enormous bull. The caribou seemed to be wandering aimlessly, half hidden in cooperating willow, but about half and hour later, they formed up and loped to the east. The big horns in the lead. At another stop I heard a wolf howling in the distance, and scanning with my binoculars, located a wolf pack on a far ridge, in varied colors of black, white and gray. The wolves seemed to be quite engaged in meddlesome play and needless howling.
The first expedition to climb Denali Peak was on April 3rd, 1910, by a group of 4 miners. It's better known as the Sourdough Expedition. It is said they spent 3 months climbing the mountain, spending most of that time on rock and ice, with no other living plants or creatures to be seen, other than a wandering raven or two. As for me I will make no attempt to ascend Denali and will stake my claim to the taiga forest, in good company with caribou and willows. My Sourdough Expedition will be limited to cooking over a roaring campfire of dry spruce wood and climbing mountains, by hefting a pair of binoculars.
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