The dotter was excited when she awakened me this morning. "The sky at Denali is clear," she said. "We have to go before the clouds close in again." And so we set forth on today's adventure to see the Big One.
Would you believe that the 20,000-foot-high peak LOOMED before us 50-60 miles away? Difficult to capture that overwhelmed feeling in the standard snap shot.
And so I took advantage of the telephoto effect to show just how we felt as we gazed at North America's tallest mountain. Cheating, I know, but emotionally correct.
Many miles later, we found the first Denali overlook, giving a fine view of the ice-covered Alaska Range.
I supposed that the panorama painting at one end of the overlook was to compensate (in a small way) the thousands of visitors who have been thoroughly disappointed by cloud cover at least 75% of the time, which causes the real peaks to disappear totally for days on end.
Of course, I couldn't resist this very, very jaggedy set of dark peaks to the front of the heights. The Alaska Range, as well as the Aleutian Islands and Range plus other mountains, are all the result of the Pacific plate grinding smack dab up against the North American plate, creating much of the Alaskan landscape (and, literally, land). Not to mention those earthquakes and those volcanoes that might cause my flight home to be canceled if the wind shifts in the wrong direction.
Nor could I resist the picture of the picture takers. Which reminds me -- the SIL has been following me around, snapping shots of GrannyJ snapping shots.
The granddotter takes advantage of the fixed viewing scopes to close the distance to the high peaks.
And as a parting shot, the dotter and GD in front of Denali (Mt. McKinley to some of us old folks).
Would you believe that the 20,000-foot-high peak LOOMED before us 50-60 miles away? Difficult to capture that overwhelmed feeling in the standard snap shot.
And so I took advantage of the telephoto effect to show just how we felt as we gazed at North America's tallest mountain. Cheating, I know, but emotionally correct.
Many miles later, we found the first Denali overlook, giving a fine view of the ice-covered Alaska Range.
I supposed that the panorama painting at one end of the overlook was to compensate (in a small way) the thousands of visitors who have been thoroughly disappointed by cloud cover at least 75% of the time, which causes the real peaks to disappear totally for days on end.
Of course, I couldn't resist this very, very jaggedy set of dark peaks to the front of the heights. The Alaska Range, as well as the Aleutian Islands and Range plus other mountains, are all the result of the Pacific plate grinding smack dab up against the North American plate, creating much of the Alaskan landscape (and, literally, land). Not to mention those earthquakes and those volcanoes that might cause my flight home to be canceled if the wind shifts in the wrong direction.
Nor could I resist the picture of the picture takers. Which reminds me -- the SIL has been following me around, snapping shots of GrannyJ snapping shots.
The granddotter takes advantage of the fixed viewing scopes to close the distance to the high peaks.
And as a parting shot, the dotter and GD in front of Denali (Mt. McKinley to some of us old folks).
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