Denali National Park

General Information about Denali

The park itself is also enormous, bigger in square miles than the state of Massachusetts. Despite its enormity, there is only one road in the whole park, and it isn't even paved.

My wife, Stephani, and I were crazy enough to go on our honeymoon in Alaska in September of 1996, and these pictures were taken then. The pictures were taken by both of us.

Regular (paper) prints of the photos can be purchased in a variety of sizes. Contact me at the address below for details and prices.

To download a larger version of an image, click on the links below it.

Copyright ©1996 David Becker
Use of these images without written consent is strictly forbidden.

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Could nature be more spectacular? Denali in front of Wonder Lake in the stillness of early morning.

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A closer view of the mountain taken the moment after the last picture.

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The only road in the whole park. Imagine all of Massachusetts and this is the road. The Alaska Range Mountains are in the background.

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Another shot of the Alaska Range.

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This photo is my favorite of the whole batch...

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This area of the park is dubbed Polychrome Pass due to the many colors seen during the "fall" -- the one week during which the tundra changes color. The large grey swath of land cutting through the picture is land carved by a glacier, the tail of which is to the left of the border of the photo. The water running through the land is a "braided river" -- water melting off from the glacier. It is so full of silt that it fills in land rather than carving it away, and this behavior results in the braided pattern you can make out faintly in the photo.

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Polychrome Pass from a different angle. The small pools in the photo are called "kettle ponds" and are left over from when the glaciers of this area melted.

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The weather in Alaska during the summer is often overcast, lending to the frequent appearance of rainbows.

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We took this photograph on the bus ride from the front of the park to Kantishna, 90 miles into the park where our cabin was. There was a lot of wildlife in the park...unfortunately we don't have a telephoto lens so we couldn't take very many wildlife pictures. In this photograph, there is a caribou grazing in the tundra, which covers most of the land in Denali.

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This dumb bird (as described to us by our nature guide) is the Willow Ptarmigan, the state bird of Alaska.

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Here Steph poses by the entrance to Kantishna, where our cabin was. We took this picture in the early morning as we prepared to go hiking. It was 20 degrees outside the night before and a nice frost covered the ground.

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Mt. McKinley with Wonder Lake in the foreground. We took this in the morning on the day after the busride. A clear sky is somewhat of a rarity in Denali, so we were lucky to be able to see the whole mountain.

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Yep, that's me at Mt. McKinley. Good thing I wasn't happy that day.

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After climbing up a mountain (okay, hill), Steph and stopped to have lunch. Suddenly, these Dall Sheep climbed up the other side of the hill and surprised us.

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Another view of Denali from the top of our mountain. You can really see the braided river in this shot.

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View of the Alaska Range from top of our mountain.

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Mt. McKinley in front of Wonder Lake with an afternoon sun.

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These dogs are part of a "mushing team" -- the teams of dogs that pull dogsleds during the winter. They provide the only form of transportation allowed in the park during the winter.

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A single head of cabbage in front of Steph. The produce in Alaska grows huge during the long summer hours of sun.

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A mother bear and her cub showing us their best sides. They sure seemed a lot closer when we took the picture!

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