lickity list

Day 11 . Denali National Park to Mt. McKinley lodge

For those of you not 'in the know' (myself included until this trip) Mt. McKinley and Denali are one in the same. Personally, I like the name of this 20,320 ft mountain as Denali and especially now that I've heard the history of the name. I take this excerpt from Wikipedia, which is similar to the account I heard in Alaska:

"William Dickey, a New Hampshire-born Seattleite, who had been digging for gold in the sands of the Susitna River, wrote, after his return to the lower states, an account in the New York Sun that appeared on January 24, 1897. He wrote “We named our great peak Mount McKinley, after William McKinley of Ohio, who had been nominated for the Presidency”. By most accounts, the naming was a pure political one; he had met many silver miners who zealously promoted Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan's ideal of a silver standard, inspiring him to retaliate by naming the mountain after a strong proponent of the gold standard."

But this mountain demands respect:

• One of the 7 summits
• Has a larger bulk and rise than Mt. Everest
• To climb (helicoptered from base camp) is something along the lines of 18-21 days with a 50% success rate. To hike into base camp and then climb I think was 6 weeks - though don't quote me.
• The mountain creates it's own weather, causing clouds to surround the mountain and only 20-30% of visitors (depending on who/what you listen to) get to view Denali. When it's visible, it can be seen from Fairbanks and Anchorage.
  

So we saw the peak from within the park (70-80 miles north of the peak) and driving into the Mt. McKinley lodge (40 miles south of the peak) - very lucky indeed. I have pics from Denali National Park, but unfortunately failed to snap pics on the motor coach to the lodge and some views are very brief, this one included. At the lodge overlooking the park and mountain, though completely cloudy, was still an awesome view.