"...in Wildness is the preservation of the world." - Henry David Thoreau

Denali National Park and Preserve, Alaska

Sketch of Mt. Denali from Eielson visitor center  

This month friends of ours in Alaska invited Linda and I up for a grand Alaska adventure. This was a truly unprecedented opportunity to see the real Alaska with good friends from a unique perspective, they had won the Denali Road Lottery. Each September the Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska hosts a four-day event called the "Road Lottery." During these four days, winners of the lottery drawing are given a rare day-long permit, allowing winners to drive personal vehicles the length of the 92-mile Denali Park Road. Routine travel in the park with private autos is prohibited and with exception of the Road Lottery visitors must use buses operated by a concessionaire to travel the park.

We started our grand Alaska adventure by visiting and hiking the Matanuska Glacier and jumping on the Denali Highway for a 135 mile journey along some of the most pristine and wild country anyone could image. Denali Highway is lightly traveled, mostly gravel road with a posted speed limit of 30 mph and is just a spectacular drive. Traveling this you get a real feel for the wildness and immensity of Alaska, and ending at Denali National Park you're treated to “the Great One” Mount Denali.

A place to remind you of the vastness and grandeur in nature and take you on a transcendent journey into the sublime.

Mount Denali photographed at Reflection Pond in the Wonder Lake

area within Denali National Park and Preserve, Alaska (9/15/13). 

 "...in Wildness is the preservation of the world."

                                                                                                  --- Henry David Thoreau

Explore - Question - Learn - - Enjoy, Jim