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| Denali |
Our next destination was Denali National Park., a six million acre park. The keystone of the park is Mt. McKinley. More commonly called by its Athabascan name, Denali, meaning “the High One,” or often referred to by Alaskans simply as “the Mountain,” the peak measures in at 20,230 feet, the highest point on the continent. Denali is also the the tallest mountain in the world- yes Mt Everest is higher, but it sits on the Tibetan plateau, like it was standing on a chair to rise above Denali, which starts barely above sea level.
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| Mirror Lake |
We were very fortunate as the ‘Mountain was 'Out’ both days we visited. Only 30% of visitors get to see Denali, most of the time it is hidden behind clouds. The mountain is part of the Alaska range, a 600-mile long crescent of mountains that separates South Central Alaska from the interior. The Park is also filled with multicolored rock, glacially fed streams, debris and tundra-covered ice glaciers, lakes, rivers, and ponds.
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| Caribou |
Of course, along with the mountain, we saw sixteen grizzlies, along with cubs, hundreds of caribou, moose, fox, wolves, eagles, ptarmigans, and Dall sheep.
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| Grizzlies |
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| The plane! |
We spent the first day taking a 13 hour tour all the way through the park and this is when we saw all the wildlife. Some of our group were on a bus going out at a different time and actually saw a grizzly kill another bear, drag it across the road right in front of the bus, and start eating it….. kinda happy I missed that one! The whole area was cordoned off by the time we made it back to that stop, as the bear sat on his ‘food’ all day.
The second day we flew over the park and landed on a glacier - an unbelievable experience. We will let the pictures speak for themselves because, quite honestly, We don’t have the words to describe the magical wonder of what we saw.
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| View of the park, taken from the pl;and |
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| Glacier, taken from the plane |
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| Glacier, taken from the plane |
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| View of the mountain range, taken from the plane |
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| Glacier, taken from the plane |
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| Glacier Up Close, taken from the plane |
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| On The Glacier! |
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| View of the Park with rainbow, taken from the plane |
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| Denali from the Plane |
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| Denali from the Plane |
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| View of the Park, taken from the plane |
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| View of the park, taken from the plane |
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