Over the Memorial Day weekend, I drove north to spend a few days visiting Denali National Park & Reserve.
While spring is mostly passed, and outside of Alaska Memorial Day marks the "unofficial start of summer," up here the tundra is still just waking from the long sub-arctic winter.
Even at the lower elevations, there are patches of snow still on the ground.
(As always, clicken to embiggen.)
The tundra is just beginning to green. Over the four days I was there this late May, the landscape became noticeably greener. With a short growing season, it all has to happen fast.
A lone caribou searches for greener tundra:
Few wildflowers are yet blooming. Mountain Avens and Nootka Lupine were welcome sightings.
Mt. McKinley has its own weather. Even on a clear day in the park the mountain can be shrouded with clouds. The National Park Service tells you that visitors have a twenty percent chance of seeing North America's largest mountain. I got this view of it early Saturday morning. The rising sun is at my back. A few hours later, Mt. McKinley would no longer be visible, and would remain cloaked in cloud cover for the next several days.
These fellows found their greener pasture:
This mama moose and her two calves liked to hang out and browse around the campground:
Oops! I've been spotted! (If you look carefully here, you can see the two moose calves hiding in the brush.)
Oh! Yes! This is a tasty root!
Okay! Gotta go now! Got bear stuff to do!
It's always exciting to visit the sled dog kennel!
But everybody wakes up when it's time to run!
And now for some more pictures of rocks and trees, and braided river drainages.
And, of course, one old fossil:
