Denali National Park

This was some of the view driving into Denali National Park. It is located about 240 miles from Anchorage along the Parks Highway.

You can only drive 33 miles into the park. You can take a shuttle bus the full 55 miles into the park. Denali is 6 million square acres and there is only one road for access - the rest is total backcountry and backpacking.

These grizzlies were massive and certainly looked like they were ready for hibernation, which won't take place until sometime around the end of October, depending on how the food supply holds out.

These were the cutest looking red fox and ground squirrel.

This incredible mountain is Mt. McKinley, or in Athabascan language, "Denali", which means great one. It is North America's highest mountain with the Southern summit reaching up to 20,320 feet above sea level. I cannot begin to describe how massive this mountain is. At our closest viewing, we were 30 miles away and the mountain was literally in our face. The climbing season is only June through mid-July and it takes about 3 1/2 weeks to climb it. Most of that time is used to acclimate to the high altitude. Only about 10% of visitors to Alaska get to actually see the mountain due to the extreme weather that it seems to create and hide in. We were very fortunate on this incredible day!

My mom and I at Eielson visitor center only 30 miles from McKinley.

These two big bull moose were only about 20-30 yards away and had a small cow following them around. If they were in the rut, they would not tolerate each other. This is pretty rare to see two of this size together, especially so close to the rut. For those that don't know, the rut is when the hormones are raging and you don't want to get anywhere near them!