Aloha,
Back in 2014 I was very fortunate to spend a little over a week in Denali National Park. I was lucky to have a ranger friend living inside the park that let me stay in their dorms, and scored a road pass given out to 5 professional photographers at a time that allowed me to drive inside the park on my own instead of taking the bus. This gave me amazing access to everything the park had to offer. I was also graced with some great weather, getting a clear view of the mountain on SIX days, which is pretty unusual. Spent a couple evenings this week going through the images and wanted to share a couple I've re-edited.
I shared this view with exactly zero people, and one huge bear...though he seemed more interested in a squirrel dinner than the nice light. Being alone in a landscape that is this vast and huge and incredible makes a person feel pretty small in the grand scheme of things.
Denali Sunset is offered as a limited edition, up to 36" x 72" as a lumachrome or on aluminum.
Here's a view I was treated to one early morning, a little over 85 miles inside the park at the aptly named Reflection Pond. Again, nobody else anywhere around. In fact, I don't think I was around more than 3-4 people at once the entire time I was there. Pretty special!
Denali has had an interesting history with its name. The original Native American name Koyukan name 'Deenaalee' means tall one or great one, which makes sense with its peak at 20,237 feet. During the gold rush, it was renamed Mt McKinley after president William McKinley. Recently, (and hopefully finally) in 2015 President Obama returned its name to 'Denali'.
Not to stray too far from my Maui theme, there are only three mountains taller than Denali if you measure from the bottom of the ocean. One of those is? You guessed it, Haleakala!
Reflections on Denali is offered as a limited edition, up to a whopping XL 60" x 120" as a lumachrome or on aluminum up to 48"x96".
Funny story...I'd spent probably 10 hours on this trip trying to get a nice photo of a fox. Or just to simply see one, to be honest! I staked out a couple of dens throughout the trip with no luck and had long given up by this point. After I took this, I was having lunch on the tundra a couple of miles from the road. Literally laying on the comfy tundra with my camera on the tripod maybe 20' away eating a sandwich, when out of nowhere this beautiful fox comes running across RIGHT in front of me...no shots, but at least I got to see one!
Mahalo,
Lyle