Day Seventeen, Denali National Park

This A.M. we drove on the "Parks Highway" from Fairbanks to Denali National Park.  It was a low mileage day, just 124 miles.

The photo on the right is just south of Fairbanks.  It's looking east at the Tananan River.

 Here's one of the jewels of the National Parks System, Denali National Park and Preserve.  Charles Sheldon promoted the legislation that created Mt. McKinley National Park.  He visited the area in 1907-1908 to see the Dall sheep and wanted to make the park a preserve for the sheep.  It became a park in 1917.  The park is larger than the state of Massachusetts, 6,000,000 acres.  Of the total over 2,000,000 acres was added in 1980.  That was during the Carter administration.

The picture is of Charles Sheldon.  Above right is the plaque of the first to climb Mt. McKinley.  I was especially interested to read that one of the first people to climb the mountain was an Archdeacon of the Episcopal Church, Hudson Stuck.  It took five of them 83 days after leaving Fairbanks to make the climb.  That was in 1913.

The photo to the left is what we came to see, Mt. McKinley.  Too bad I didn't take this photo.  It's a picture of a picture.  On a clear day this might be what you would see, moose included .  Unfortunately today was not one of those clear days.  Tomorrow we have an 11 1/2 hour bus trip as far back into the park as you can go, 91 miles to Kantishna.  We are hoping for some clear skies so that we can see the mountain, but the forecast isn't favorable.  I hesitate to tell you how cool it has been here since many of you are still dealing with extreme heat.