Discovering the Tallest Peak in North America
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Denali National Park, Alaska
Take a drive two hours north of Anchorage and you will stumble upon Talkeetna, Alaska. Try not to blink or you might just miss it. Sitting at the juncture of the Talkeetna, Susitna, and Chulitna River, this town bursts to life just as the last bit of snow has melted from the winter season. With a year-round resident population of only around 1,000 people, you can just about see the entire town from end to end if you stand in the middle of main street, which covers just five blocks. Talkeetna is quirky, their resident mayor for 20 years straight being none other than an orange tabby cat named Stubbs; Talkeetna is rugged, surrounded by dense vegetation that encompasses the town in northern boreal forest; Talkeetna is quiet, unless, like me, you park your motorhome right next to the train tracks that parallel the town. In that case, you WILL wake up to the sound of a steam locomotive hurtling towards you at 2 a.m. and smack your head against the wall. I speak from experience here.
The vibe of Talkeetna is perfectly encapsulated by their welcome sign: Cute, rough, and unbothered by what you think about it. Photo by Chris Boese
What makes Talkeetna famous is not its collection of bohemian storefronts, or its surprising array of Asian-inspired fine cuisine, but that on the fortunate chance that you are there on a very clear day, a glance towards the northern horizon rewards you with breathtaking views of Denali. You may better know this landmark as the tallest peak in North America. Like many others, Denali National Park was what brought me to Talkeetna in the first place, an excellent overnight stay as Drew and I prepared for four nights of off-grid camping 29 miles into the park itself.
The thing you should know about Alaska, if you ever have the fortune of visiting the state, is that it is unpredictable. It is not uncommon, as we quickly learned, for a snowy morning to transition into a clear afternoon worthy of sunbathing. Wildlife will turn up when you least expect it, a realization we both had after a full day spent hiking through the park in search of a grizzly bear sighting. Despite the park rangers boasting about the healthy bear population in the area, they had eluded us all day. And as I kicked the dirt, holding firm onto my “why can’t I just get what I want?” mentality, Drew and I had a private encounter with a moose, often an animal that many people leave Alaska without ever taking a glimpse of. She peered out from a line of trees, making eye contact with Drew and I before rightly assessing our nonexistent threat level and gracefully trotting off. Hands shaking from adrenaline, I snapped a blurry picture and named her Marsha.
After returning to camp, we were told by our temporary neighbors that a grizzly bear had just wandered through our campsite. I gave myself five minutes to pout, brushed myself off, and told myself I would try again the next day when I got to see a mother grizzly eating a caribou with her two cubs. I was, quite luckily, inside the safety of a transport bus for this one.
This is the way of Alaska. It rarely cooperates, often acting in complete opposition to what you would have requested. This is what makes these moments of fleeting victory all the more magnificent.
It may surprise you to know that the most evasive sightings at Denali National Park isn’t a particular species, but the summit of Denali itself. Often hidden in the clouds, it is said that only 30% of visitors ever get the opportunity to observe an unobstructed view of this sought-after mountain peak. Luck was on my side for this one, seeing the peak from Talkeetna, where it looks as if God himself painted the snow-capped mountains above the horizon, and also finding it within the grounds of the national park, where it looks like the top of an ice cream cone as it peaks over shorter counterparts in the foreground. It is my wish that you too find an opportunity to see Denali in person, to take in the beauty that only nature could create, and to be reminded of how small we are on this magnificent rock of ours that just happens to orbit an ideal distance from the yellow dwarf we call the sun.
Despite the fact that my fortune in seeing Denali should have left me elated, I had quite a bit of traveler's guilt as I overheard disappointed conversations by fellow tourists who were not as lucky. Perhaps in an attempt to distract from the remorseful thought spiral that had begun to churn inside my skull, I began the process of answering a simple question. Why is Mount Denali so often hidden in the clouds?
We spent 4 nights in Denali National Park, giving us a lot of opportunity to capture a clear view of the mountain, like the one here.
The Origin of Denali
First things first. As the tallest peak in North America, Denali reaches 20,300 feet above the ground, a distance that I simply cannot wrap my mind around. Put another way, its height equates to almost 4 vertical miles, and makes it roughly a mile taller than Mount Everest from base to summit. Because of its proximity to the poles, and its impressive elevation, Mount Denali sits covered in snow all year round, a land of perpetual winter.
While it is easy to assume with our easily skewed human perception that Denali has always been here, it actually took millions of years to reach its current height. The 400-mile long Alaska Range that Denali resides in connects the southeastern tip of the state to the Alaska Peninsula and was formed by the slow but continuous collision of the Pacific and North American tectonic plates. Beneath Denali Mountain is the Denali Fault, a crack between these two tectonic plates. As the plates collide, creating large fragments of bedrock, a distinct bend in the fault causes a concentrated clustering of rocks which grew to be Denali at a painstakingly slow pace. Actually, this phenomenon is still happening, causing Denali to grow about half a millimeter a year, or roughly the rate that fingernails grow at. Slow and steady wins the race, am I right?
Denali is also composed mostly of granite, an igneous rock less dense than most others, causing it to float near the top of the earth’s crust. As one of the hardest materials on earth, this composition makes Denali much less prone to weathering over time. I know that this thought is a result of my first world upbringing, but this whole thing is making me curious about where my mother’s granite countertops came from.
The Polychrome Pass, shown above, was Drew’s favorite spot in Denali National Park, as it left you surrounded by breathtaking views of the Alaska Range.
The Clouds of Denali
There is an old saying in Alaska that I feel sums up my experience there nicely. “If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes.”
The weather around Denali can change both unexpectedly and drastically, and is a result of the mountain range itself as well its relative location to the ocean. Water changes temperature at a much slower rate than air does. So in the summer months, when Alaska’s inland tends to be warmer than the Alaska Peninsula, a low pressure current leads moist and cold air northwards before it eventually collides with the south-facing side of Denali, condensing into clouds as the slope of the mountain causes the air to rise. This is a common occurrence known as the “Orographic effect”, I suppose because some meteorologist somewhere wanted to come up with a name that no environmental science student would ever be able to remember. Bitterness about my days in undergrad aside, the Orographic effect occurs when prevailing winds travel inward from a body of water and then collide with an area of high topography. The side of the mountain which faces these winds, better known as the windward side, is often an area of lush vegetation due to its frequent precipitation, and contrasts the opposing leeward side where precipitation is much more rare and weather patterns remain at least partially predictable.
One day, we woke up to rain that was supposed to last all day. Instead of hiding in the RV, we put on our rain jackets and hiking boots for what turned out to be our best day for wildlife viewing.
Not to call myself out or anything, but where Drew and I stayed while we were in Denali was actually the leeward side of the range, meaning we had much less variability than we would have had if we had stayed south of the mountain. As my grandfather would say, we should probably “quit our bellyaching.”
Denali’s Ecological Footprint
Seeing the icy peak of Denali, and learning about its perpetually arctic microclimate, can lead one to believe that it does little in providing ecological services to its neighboring wildlife. As it happens, the high degree of precipitation that occurs on the mountain range makes way for massively thick snowpack which compress into extensive glaciers along the frozen valleys. These glaciers then melt to feed the braided network of glacial rivers that serve as a steady source of clean water to support the diverse assortment of plants and animals that constitute the central Alaskan ecosystem.
This picture was taken during a plane tour of Denali National Park and pictures a cloudy view of Kahiltna Glacier and its surrounding mountains.
Borrowed from the Koyukon language spoken by the Native Alaskan people of the area, Denali translates to mean “the great one”. For more than just its grandeur, Denali serves as the great provider of its land, watering the flora which feeds the fauna, and standing guard over its people. Denali is magnificent not just because of its size, but because in the days where there are no more humans to cut down its trees, Denali will remain to heal the land, steadily rising all the while.
Discover it for yourself
Waiting for you in Alaska is the America that used to be, a glimpse into the history of our land before we tamped it down to make way for parking lots. Unlike a vacation to the Florida Keys, or a cruise through the Caribbean, Alaska will not welcome you with a warm hug. Instead, it will slap you on the back, ask you why it took you so long to arrive, and kick your sorry butt out into the rain. I do solemnly promise you though, that when the clouds pass, and they always do, you will find why so many others have completed the long trek to experience the last frontier. While you’re there, turn off your cell phone - you won’t have reliable service anyway - watch the unpredictable behavior of wildlife, and if Denali shows itself, be ready to meet it head on, ready to learn what The Great One is there to teach you.
Denali inspired Drew and I to take a midnight bike ride through Denali National Park. This picture was taken during the ride, when the sun hung low, but never fully setting.
Thank you for joining us at Discovery Detour, where the destination is always unknown.
