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UNITED STATES | Fairbanks, Alaska Travel Guide
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Denali National Park
Overview of the ParkThe Denali National Park and Preserve is located just over 100 miles to the southwest of Fairbanks (approximately 240 miles north of Anchorage). This is one of Alaska’s premier attractions, encompassing some 6 million acres, and home to the state’s (and North America’s) tallest mountain, Mt McKinley, elevation 20,320 feet. The park is actually named for the peak: Denali is the Athabascan word for “the high one,” referring to Mt McKinley.The park is also rich in wildlife, with sizeable populations of Dall sheep, grizzly bears, caribou, moose, wolves, foxes, wolverines, weasels, lynx, snowshoe hares and other indigenous animals and birds, including owls, eagles and ravens. There are also more than 650 species of plants in the park, and scores of lichens, mosses, fungi and algae, largely concentrated in Denali’s lowlands, the tundra and taiga.Touring DenaliDenali National Park can be accessed directly from Fairbanks or Anchorage by road or train. But once there, you must take a guided tour, for private vehicles are not permitted in the park. Tour buses, however, travel the length of the park’s 91-mile road, past such natural landmarks as Wonder Lake, Savage and Sanctuary rivers, the Outer Range, Polychrome Pass, and Muldrow Glacier, among others, ultimately leading to the old Kantishna mining district deep inside the park. Also worth visiting is the Denali State Park, along the southeast of the national park, which offers memorable, panoramic vistas of Mt McKinley.The Denali park area offers good accommodations, both hotels and campgrounds, and all sorts of outdoor recreational possibilities, including hiking, horseback riding, kayaking, river excursions, rock climbing, glacier touring, wildlife viewing, photography and nature walks.
Last updated June 7, 2008
Posted in United States | Fairbanks
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