Certainly it is the mountain, if you are lucky enough to see it, dominating the landscape, rising stunningly white and beautiful on a clear day.
Yet, it’s more than the big one, it’s the whole Alaska Range, snow-peaked vistas profiled on a field of blue sky.
But Denali is not just the mountains, it’s the wildlife people flock there to see…
The grizzly bears, huge blond bruins:
And brown fluffy cubs:
The moose:
The caribou:
The Dall sheep, traversing the far mountain peaks:
It’s not simply the animals, but the relationship and balance…
Of predators like
wolves
And golden eagles
And prey:
Snowshoe hare
And Arctic ground squirrels
To experience Denali, you must look beyond the mountain and the animals. You must use all your senses
And see the colors of land and sky,
Of rocks, moss and wildflowers,
To notice the shapes and contours of hills, valleys, and rivers
How the roads curve with the land, made purposely to blend in and not detract
The shapes of trees,
Of leaves and butterfly wings
You must take the time to meander down quiet paths
And listen to the sounds of water rushing over rocks,
Insects buzzing, birds chirping, wind in the willows, and nothing else…
To stop and inhale the perfume of wild roses
And smell the hint of wood smoke from a distant tundra fire, set naturally by lightning and allowed to burn unopposed as is the nature of things here. Certain species depend on it…the black spruce cones don’t open and release their seeds until heated by fire. And observe how the smoke mutes the mountainsides with shades of bluish gray
All these things, living and nonliving are braided together like the rivers, dependant one upon the other.
Living harmoniously and blending in perfectly with their environment.
God created it so, in perfect alignment, for no human could so much as create one tiny butterfly
Or one drop of water
So simple, and yet each so complex our human mind cannot comprehend the intricate systems of even the tiniest of things, let alone the enormity of the universe and all that keeps it in perfect balance.
So on this 4th of July, Denali is a symbol of our freedom to enjoy and appreciate God’s bountiful gifts to us, and is a profound reminder of our responsibility to help protect it for future generations.
To take only pictures, and leave only footprints…
And to leave the wild things wild, as God created them.
Denali
