Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
In the Shadow of the Great One
(Part 1)
ON A SUNNY DAY
in southcentral Alaska, an official indicator of just how nice a day it is is,
“The mountain's out.”
Which mountain? Well, obviously, you don't live here.
“The mountain” is of course, Denali, all 20,320 feet of it. A hundred miles from Anchor-
age, it looms up substantially on the northern horizon nonetheless. Known to people from
Ohio as Mt. McKinley, it was named in 1917 for US President William McKinley, also
from Ohio, by a miner who wanted McKinley to put the United States on the gold standard
so he could make a killing on his gold claims. Mind you, President McKinley never had a
thing to do with—or ever set foot in—Alaska, but the mountain got named for him just the
same. Locals prefer Denali, Dena'ina for “great one” or “mountain of the sun,” depending
on which Native language-English dictionary you pick up.
I've never been in the park itself. I've been by it on the train on the way to school at the
University of Alaska in Fairbanks. I've been over it in a 727 on my way to and from work
in Prudhoe Bay. I decided it was time. I emailed the folks at Denali Lodge, ninety miles in-
to the Park and twenty-eight miles from the mountain, and said, Can I come? They said
yes, and before they think better of it I throw binoculars and bug dope into a bag, leap into
my car and gallop 237 miles up the Parks Highway to the entrance of Denali National Park.
There is a big blue bus waiting at the train station, with a driver named Simon Hamm, a
lithe young man with dark hair and smiling eyes who is quick to reassure us that while we
are driving ninety miles into the park over “kind of a bumpy road with a lot of character
and some dust” that there will be three pit stops, one including a picnic lunch and all in-
cluding outhouses. We will be driving through four high passes at an average altitude of
4000 feet. “Anybody sees critters, give a shout. The best indicators of critters are color and
motion.”
“Critters” by definition in Denali means bears, although Denali became a park not for
the preservation of grizzlies but as a game refuge for Dall sheep, and this because a guide
wanted to make sure there would always be a herd for his big game hunter customers to
