Denali or Mt.McKinley

Yesterday I made the amazing flight to see "the great one," otherwise know as Mt. McKinley, otherwise known as Denali. Let me clear up that confusion before I show you the photos. The original inhabitants of the area were the Athabaskans and they called the mountain Denali meaning"the great one." However, rarely do pioneers use the terms that they should when arriving into an area and when the first miners arrived in the area and named the massive peak they named it after then governor of Ohio, William McKinley, for no good reason. He had no connection to the future park nor ever visited the region, it was strictly a political ploy. In 1917, Mt. McKinley National Park was established however it did not include the entire mountain. The main purpose of the park was to protect many of the species of the area that were near extinction due to hunting and trapping. Mt. McKinley remained the main name until the 1980's, when more then 1.3 million acres, adjacent to the park, were placed in preservation creating the Denali National Park and Preserve, the entire 6 million acres makes the DNP&P larger then the state of Massachusetts. At that time the Alaskan Board of Geographic Names changed the name of the mountain back to "Denali," even though the U.S. Board of Geographic Names maintains "McKinley." Is it all clear now?

Good. Now back to the flight.

We headed out about 3:45 in a six seat airplane and I hoped that this time I would actually get to see Denali, last year during the flight, it was completely clouded over. There were plenty of clouds but it looked like we would have a chance of catching some glimpses. We flew up the glaciers and came within sight of Denali. We were unable to see the mountain in it's entirety however, only 30% of people that come to visit get that view and I saw it many times last year. The whole trip is an amazing experience, the rest you can see in pictures.





































Thanks for reading.