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General Information
There are a number of things to do while enjoying Denali National park. These activities include but are not limited to backpacking, biking, birding, bus tours, camping, driving tours, fishing, hiking, mountain climbing, photography, ranger led activities and wildlife watching.
Join a National Park Service ranger to explore Denali's natural and cultural history. Learn about the forces that once shaped this landscape, and continue to do so, see the Calendar Page. Ranger / Naturalist programs include scheduled hikes, talks and walks. These are just some of the ways to discover the diversity of the scenic, natural and historic wonders that comprise Denali National Park.
Today Denali National Park & Preserve features a wide variety of visitor use including wildlife viewing, mountaineering, and backpacking.
The park accommodates North America's highest mountain, 20,320 foot Mount McKinley. The Alaska Range also includes countless other spectacular mountains and many large glaciers.
Wildlife
Denali's more than 6 million acres also encompass a complete sub arctic ecosystem with large mammals such as grizzly bears, wolves, caribou, Dall sheep, and moose. The bears and wolves are two of the favorite animals of visitors to watch and photograph.
Glaciers
Visitors can view glaciers and see their impact on surrounding mountains, valleys, lakes and rivers.
Birds
Although not famous for its birds, birdlife is varied and interesting. Most birds migrate long distances between their nesting grounds here in the park and their wintering areas. Wheatears winter in Africa; arctic terns in Antarctica and southern South America; jaegers take to life at sea in the southern oceans. On the open tundra, you may easily see ptarmigan, Lapland longspurs, and various shorebirds. Short eared owls and northern harriers can be seen soaring low in search of rodents. Golden eagles patrol the higher elevations and ridgetops. Raptors, birds of prey of the spruce forest are the hawk owl and goshawk. In these forests, you may also see the spruce grouse and varied thrush. Plovers, gyrfalcons, mew gulls, and snow buntings are among the 156 species of birds recorded at Denali. Raven, ptarmigan, magpie, and gray jay are some of the species that winter in the park and preserve.
Wildflowers
Another thing of interest to the park visitor, is the great abundance of wildflowers. Denali comes alive with colors of the many varieties of wildflowers and berries, willow catkins, monkshood, glacier avens, fireweed, Alaska cotton, dwarf fireweed, bearflowers, corydalis along with blueberry, crowberry, bearberry and mosses display a mosaic of colors and beauty to the scenic wonders of the park.
Taiga
Taiga, a Russian word for northern evergreen forest, describes the scant tree growth here near the Arctic Circle. Much of the park and preserve's taiga lies in valleys along the rivers. White and black spruce, the most common trees, are interspersed with quaking aspen, paper birch, larch, and baslam poplar. Strands of deciduous trees occur along streamside gravel bars or where soils have been disturbed by fire or other action. Woods are frequently carpeted with mosses and lichens. Many open areas are filled with shrubs such as dwarf birch, blueberry, and a variety of willow species. The limit of tree growth occurs at about 2,700 feet in the park and preserve. For comparison, the elevation at the park hotel is 1,750 feet. Above the tree limit, taiga gives way to tundra.
Tundra
Tundra is a fascinating world of dwarfed shrubs and miniaturized wildflowers adapted to a short growing season. There are also two types, moist tundra and dry tundra, with myriad gradations in between.
Moist tundra varies in composition: some areas contain tussocks of sedges and cottongrass; others contain dwarfed shrubs, particularly willows and alders. Plants of the dry tundra occur above shrubline. There, meadows abound. Higher up the mountain slopes close to 7,000 feet, complete plant cover yields to scattered patches amidst barren rock. These tiny highland plants grow closely matted to the ground, creating their own livable microclimate. Mountain avens, dwarf fireweed, moss campion, dwarf rhododendron, and forget-me-not (Alaska's state flower) dot the rocky landscape offering stunning summer displays of delicate blossoms. Although small in stature they loom large in importance because their nutrients provide food that sustains even the largest species of park wildlife.
The Mountain
Mount McKinley has been called the Alaskan landscape's most impressive feature. While you may not see this great peak during your stay here, it is there! Mount McKinley is the highest mountain on the North American continent. Measured from the 2,000-foot lowlands near Wonder Lakes to its summit, this mountain is considered to be the highest in the world. The vertical relief of 18,000 feet, greater even than that of Mount Everest, tops out on the snowy summit at 20,320 feet. McKinley's north summit is North America's second highest peak at 19,470 feet. Temperatures at the summit are severe even in the summer. Winter lows at just 14,500 feet can plummet below -95° F! During storms, winds can gust to more than 150 mph. Permanent snowfields cover more than 50 percent of the mountain and feed the many glaciers that surround its base. The mountain's granite and slate core is, in fact overlain by ice that is hundreds of feet thick in places.
Mount McKinley reigns in lofty isolation over the Alaska Range, that magnificent 600 mile arc of mountains that divide south-central Alaska from the interior plateau. Its life as a mountain range began some 65 million years ago, the result of the Denali Fault, north America's largest crustal break. This fault, where two tectonic plates have moved against each other, stretches for 1,300 miles from the Yukon border down to the Aleutian peninsula. There the Alaska and Aleutian Ranges meet in a mad jumble of peaks that include active volcanoes. Earthquakes tremors both mild and moderate are frequent occurrences in the park and preserve.
The building of these massive mountains began out of flat lowland. The material that Earth's inner turmoil thrust up has subsequently been eroded, sculpted, and weighed down by huge masses of ice. Numerous glaciers still radiate from the high peaks of the Alaska Range, where the frigid temperatures prevent them from melting. Some of the glaciers are visible from the park roads. The debris-laden snout of the 35-mile-long Muldrow glacier lies within a half mile of the park road. The park and preserve owes its beautiful landscape contrasts - wide, low plains and dark, somber mountains; brightly colored peaks and sheer granite domes - to the Denali Fault. Geologists say that Mount McKinley still rises today.
While McKinley is a great mountain, there are many other interesting mountain peaks to view in the park which include but are not limited to Foraker, Mather, Hunter and Cathedral Spires.
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