Mt. McKinley? Or Denali? Depends on where you're from. Most people call it Mt. McKinley, but Alaskans proudly call the mountain "Denali", which is the Athabascan Indian word for "The Great One". At 20,320 feet, Mt. McKinley is the tallest mountain in North America and the crown jewel of Denali National Park. The park is bigger than the state of Massachusetts and is 240 miles north of Anchorage. While the park itself is full of grizzly bears, caribou, dall sheep and wolves, Denali is so high up that there is no life at the top. Just rocks and snow and glaciers.
You can spend several weeks climbing to the summit to get views like this or take the easy road and hop a 10-seater plane on skis (ours was called a "beaver"). If you can believe it, we landed on our airplane skiis on the 6-mile long "Upper Ruth" glacier on Denali. We were above the clouds!
On the way home, we all took turns being the co-pilot. What fun!
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