Travel Guide Denali National Park

Stretching over 24,500 km2, Denali National Park and Preserve is the largest American national park after Yellowstone. It spreads its glacial immensities covered with forests and lakes 400 km south of the Arctic Circle. Located in the heart of Alaska, Denali Park includes Denali, still called Mount McKinley by some, the highest peak in North America (6,194 m above sea level), which, for 55 million years, has been raising its granite mass to the sky. Its altitude, extreme climate and arctic location make it one of the most difficult peaks in the world to climb, and it was not until 1913 that the mountain was first conquered by man. Since 1917, the mountain has been an integral part of the Denali National Park protected area. Denali means "the top" in Athabaskan. Its summit was renamed after U.S. presidential candidate William McKinley, but it reverted to its native name of Mount Denali at the request of Barack Obama. Eternal snow and ice envelop its last 2 000 m. Climbers, be careful! The less adventurous will enjoy contemplating this summit from afar, especially on a clear morning, from Anchorage, nearly 400 km to the south. This towering colossus amidst stark beauty overlooks the neighboring mountains that form the curving Alaska Range, a natural barrier stretching more than 900 km across southern Alaska. Large areas of the park are, to great depths, the domain of permafrost. For thousands of years the ground has been frozen. The extreme temperatures maintain numerous glacial flows, descending from the highest peaks. Among these, the Muldrow glacier, which stops less than a kilometer from the road. From mid-June to mid-September, during the tourist season - when daylight can last for 22 hours, with temperatures as high as 26 degrees Celsius - private vehicles are prohibited from exceeding the first 15 miles of the park's only 87.5-mile road. The purpose of this strictly enforced measure is to preserve the extraordinary wildlife of this immense expanse.