Denali is the name that the native Athabascans gave to North America’s highest peak (20,320 feet). It means “the great one” according to our guide book, but we have joked that it must mean “the mountain that hides” because so far we haven’t seen a whole lot of it. Supposedly it is only visible one day out of three, to me it seems like those clear days must be bunched together for the lucky few and the rest of us get great views of mist and clouds. Our first glimpse of The Mountain looked like this:
Clouds obstruct the summit but the north peak is visible. Supposedly we were lucky to even see this much of Denali
What’s in a name? Near the turn of the century, someone re-named The Mountain (as native Alaskans will tell you, it already had a name) after William McKinley who would eventually become president. That name has stuck around over the years, even though most people (especially Alaskans) now prefer to call it “Denali”. The name of the park itself was officially changed at some point from Mt. McKinley to Denali, but every time the issue of changing the name of the mountain comes up in Congress, the legislators from Ohio (McKinley’s home state) manage to maintain the status quo. We’ve heard it called by three names during our stay: Denali, Mount McKinley, and just “The Mountain” – when someone calls it that they seem to say it in such a way that you can actually hear the uppercase letters.
We saw other people’s images of Denali everywhere. It was as though the mountain was taunting us.
Although Mount Everest is higher above sea level, it only has a rise of about 10,000 feet from its base. Denali has a rise of nearly 18,000 feet from base to summit. So Denali definitely has the edge on drama if you could look at them side-by-side. If only we could look at it! This is our best photo of The Mountain so far:
The rounded south peak (left) is the summit; the tip of the shorter north peak is almost visible on the right
We have found Denali to be a source of frustration. Apparently just last week, The Mountain was completely visible. Every chance we have had to see it so far, it has been shrouded in clouds. Just today someone who had camped at Wonder Lake told us that although it was obscured all day yesterday, last night it came out completely at around 10pm (we were fast asleep by then, arggghhh!). One of the rangers we spoke to told us that if your main goal is to see the mountain (with no obstructing clouds), you have a 16% chance of success. But if your goal is to climb the mountain, you have a 50% chance of success. Yeah, that sounds about right. Clearly we have been going about this all wrong. Instead of buying a van we should have paid to be part of a summit expedition (it runs about 20,000 to 30,000 dollars, so we’ve heard. Of course 92 people have died up there – it’s the most unpredictable of the Big Seven – but 50%? I like those odds.)
Anyway, although we didn’t see it so well on this part of the trip, we will still have other chances to see Denali as we continue to drive around this part of Alaska. Supposedly there are some great viewpoints along the road to Anchorage, so we haven’t given up yet!
The view from Wonder Lake. I am not doing the YMCA, this is me showing where the mountain should be.
We've seen it (from Anchorage). It does exist!
ReplyDeleteI believe you -- we'll keep trying!
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