Denali National Park & Preserve

Alaska · Established February 26, 1917

Six million acres of taiga, tundra and ice beneath North America's summit

Area: 4,740,911 acres
Established: February 26, 1917
Recreation visits: 543,300 / yr
State: Alaska
Highest point: Denali, 20,310 ft (6,190 m)
Lowest point: Yentna River

Denali Weather Forecast

Loading the National Weather Service forecast for Denali…

Seven-day outlook at the park's reference point (63.298, -151.053). Elevation changes everything in the mountains — expect colder, windier and wetter conditions on high ground.

Map of Denali National Park & Preserve

The Park

Denali National Park and Preserve spreads across the heart of interior Alaska, a wilderness larger than the state of New Hampshire in which a single gravel road reaches only partway into the country. At its southern edge the Alaska Range lifts into a wall of ice and granite, and above everything stands Denali, the Koyukon Athabascan name for the tallest mountain in North America. On clear days its snowfields float so high above the tundra that first-time visitors often mistake them for clouds.

Congress set the land aside on February 26, 1917, originally as a refuge for Dall's sheep and other game. The 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act tripled its size and gave it the name it carries today. What the park protects is less a single view than a working subarctic ecosystem: braided rivers, spruce taiga, willow thickets and open alpine tundra where grizzly bears dig for roots, wolves follow caribou, and the brief summer arrives in a rush of wildflowers and nesting birds.

Geography

The park straddles the central Alaska Range, which arcs east to west through its southern half. North of the crest the land steps down through foothills and broad glacial valleys to the lowland flats drained by the Kantishna and Toklat river systems, part of the great Yukon basin. South of the crest, in the preserve lands, rivers such as the Yentna and Chulitna carry glacial meltwater toward Cook Inlet.

Relief here is extreme. Denali rises roughly 18,000 feet from its surrounding lowlands to a summit of 20,310 feet, one of the greatest base-to-summit rises of any mountain on land, while the park's lowest ground lies along the Yentna River. Massive valley glaciers pour from the range: the Kahiltna runs some 44 miles, the longest in the Alaska Range, while the Muldrow drains the mountain's north side and the Ruth threads a deep granite gorge to the south.

Most visitors see the park from the 92-mile Denali Park Road, which follows the northern foothills past the Savage, Sanctuary, Teklanika and Toklat rivers, climbs over Polychrome and Highway passes, and ends at the old mining settlement of Kantishna near Wonder Lake.

Landmarks

DenaliPeak · 20,310 ftNorth America's highest summit, a granite massif mantled in permanent snow and ice.
Mount ForakerPeak · 17,400 ftDenali's great western neighbor, the second-highest peak in the Alaska Range.
Mount RussellPeakA remote, heavily glaciated summit anchoring the southwest reach of the range within the park.
Kahiltna GlacierGlacierThe longest glacier in the Alaska Range and the landing strip for most Denali climbing expeditions.
Ruth GlacierGlacierSqueezes through the Great Gorge between sheer granite walls on Denali's south side.
Muldrow GlacierGlacierA surging glacier draining Denali's north face toward the McKinley River lowlands.
Wonder LakeLakeA kettle lake near the road's end whose calm surface famously mirrors the mountain.
Polychrome PassAreaA Park Road overlook above the braided Plains of Murie, framed by banded volcanic rock.
Mount EielsonPeakA mineral-streaked peak rising beside the Thorofare River near the Eielson Visitor Center.
KantishnaAreaA gold-rush mining district of 1905 at the far western end of the Park Road.
Eielson Visitor CenterAreaA ridgetop center at about Mile 66 with a sweeping view of Denali and the Muldrow Glacier.
Savage RiverRiverA braided river at Mile 15, the farthest point private vehicles may normally drive.

Geology

Interior Alaska is a mosaic assembled by plate tectonics. For hundreds of millions of years the Pacific plate has carried island arcs, slivers of seafloor and fragments of distant continents northward and plastered them onto the edge of North America. Geologists call these fault-bounded blocks terranes, and several of them meet within the park, which is why a short drive can cross rocks of utterly different ages and origins.

The seam that stitches much of this together is the Denali Fault, a great strike-slip fault running more than 1,300 miles across Alaska and into Canada, roughly parallel to the Alaska Range. It is still very much alive: in November 2002 a magnitude 7.9 earthquake ruptured a long segment of the fault east of the park. Where the fault bends, the crust is squeezed and forced upward, and that compression helps explain why the Alaska Range reaches such heights here.

Denali itself is built largely of the McKinley pluton, a body of granite that cooled deep underground about 56 million years ago, far younger than most of the rocks around it. Granite resists erosion better than the softer sedimentary and metamorphic rocks that once covered it, so as uplift continued the pluton was exhumed and left standing as a colossal block. Ice then went to work, carving cirques, arêtes and the deep glacial troughs that radiate from the massif.

North of the range, the Cantwell Formation preserves a remarkable window into a vanished polar world. Its sandstones and mudstones, laid down by rivers and lakes roughly 71 to 69 million years ago in the Late Cretaceous, hold thousands of footprints left by hadrosaurs, theropods, birds and other animals that lived through dark Arctic winters. Much of the park's lowland is also underlain by permafrost, and its thaw is now reshaping slopes, most visibly at the Pretty Rocks landslide that closed the western Park Road in 2021.

Deep time

Hundreds of millions of years agoPlate motion begins delivering exotic terranes of seafloor, island arcs and continental fragments to Alaska's margin.
About 71–69 million years agoRivers and lakes deposit the lower Cantwell Formation, recording the tracks of Late Cretaceous polar dinosaurs.
About 56 million years agoThe McKinley pluton crystallizes deep underground, forming the granite core of Denali.
Last several million yearsCompression along the Denali Fault system lifts the central Alaska Range to its present heights.
Pleistocene ice agesVast glaciers carve the range and spill onto the northern lowlands, leaving moraines, kettle lakes and braided outwash plains.
November 3, 2002A magnitude 7.9 earthquake ruptures the Denali Fault east of the park, one of the largest on land in U.S. history.
August 2021Accelerating movement of the thawing Pretty Rocks landslide closes the Park Road beyond Mile 43.

The rocks

McKinley plutonPaleocene–Eocene, about 56 million years
Pale granite forming the upper bulk of Denali and neighboring peaks.
Cantwell FormationLate Cretaceous
River and lake sediments with abundant dinosaur and bird trackways, capped in places by colorful volcanic rocks.
Denali FaultActive today
A continental-scale strike-slip fault that slices through the park along the Alaska Range.
Accreted terranesPaleozoic to Mesozoic
Fault-bounded blocks of oceanic and island-arc rock that make up much of the park's bedrock.
Glacial moraines and outwashPleistocene to present
Rubble ridges, kettle ponds and braided gravel floodplains left by advancing and retreating ice.

Trees, Plants & Ecosystems

797vascular plant species recorded

Lowland taigaBelow about 2,500–3,000 ft
Open forests of white and black spruce mixed with birch, aspen and balsam poplar, laced with bogs and muskeg over permafrost.
Shrub tundraTreeline zone
Dense thickets of willow, dwarf birch and alder where moose browse and willow ptarmigan shelter.
Alpine tundraAbove treeline to about 7,000 ft
Low mats of mountain-avens, heather, lichens and wildflowers where caribou, Dall's sheep and ground squirrels live.
Braided river corridorsValley floors
Shifting gravel bars and channels fed by glacial melt, used as travel routes by bears, wolves and caribou.
Rock, snow and iceHigh Alaska Range
A nearly lifeless realm of glaciers and granite, visited mainly by climbers and passing ravens.

Trees

White sprucePicea glaucaThe tallest conifer of the taiga, favoring well-drained slopes and river terraces.
Black sprucePicea marianaA spindly, slow-growing spruce of cold, boggy permafrost soils.
Alaska paper birchBetula neoalaskanaWhite-barked birch that turns lowland hillsides gold in early September.
Quaking aspenPopulus tremuloidesColonizes warm, south-facing slopes and burns, spreading by root sprouts.
Balsam poplarPopulus balsamiferaA fragrant cottonwood of gravel bars and river bottoms.
TamarackLarix laricinaA deciduous conifer of wet lowlands whose needles yellow and fall each autumn.
Feltleaf willowSalix alaxensisA tall willow of river floodplains and one of the moose's most important winter foods.

Wildflowers, shrubs & other plants

FireweedChamerion angustifoliumMagenta spires that flood burns and roadsides; its upper blooms are said to mark the end of summer.
Dwarf fireweedChamerion latifoliumA low, large-flowered cousin that brightens gravel bars along glacial rivers.
Eightpetal mountain-avensDryas octopetalaA mat-forming alpine shrub with white flowers and feathery seed heads.
Alpine forget-me-notMyosotis asiaticaSky-blue flowers of alpine meadows; the forget-me-not is Alaska's state flower.
Moss campionSilene acaulisDense pink cushions that trap warmth on windswept ridges.
Arctic lupineLupinus arcticusBlue-purple spikes that enrich tundra soils by fixing nitrogen.
Marsh Labrador teaLedum palustreAn aromatic evergreen shrub of boggy taiga and tundra.
Bog blueberryVaccinium uliginosumA late-summer staple for grizzly bears, whose leaves turn crimson in fall.
LingonberryVaccinium vitis-idaeaTart red berries on a creeping evergreen shrub of forest floors.
CrowberryEmpetrum nigrumA heath-like mat bearing glossy black berries eaten by birds and bears.
Tussock cottongrassEriophorum vaginatumForms the lumpy tussocks that make tundra walking so strenuous.
Dwarf birchBetula glandulosaA knee-high shrub birch that paints the tundra orange-red in late August.
CloudberryRubus chamaemorusA single-flowered bog plant with amber, raspberry-like fruit.

Wildlife

37mammals
154birds
1amphibians
19fish

Mammals

Grizzly bearUrsus arctosTundra grizzlies here are mostly vegetarian, digging roots and ground squirrels and grazing berries.
American black bearUrsus americanusKeeps mainly to the forested lowlands, away from open grizzly country.
Gray wolfCanis lupusDenali's wolves became famous through Adolph Murie's pioneering field studies in the 1940s.
CaribouRangifer tarandusThe Denali herd drifts across the tundra, and both sexes carry antlers.
MooseAlces alcesThe largest deer on Earth, often seen browsing willows near kettle ponds.
Dall's sheepOvis dalliWhite wild sheep of steep ridges whose protection helped inspire the park's creation.
Red foxVulpes vulpesHunts voles along the road corridor in red, cross and silver color phases.
WolverineGulo guloA wide-ranging, rarely seen scavenger of high, snowy country.
Canada lynxLynx canadensisA snowshoe-hare specialist whose numbers rise and fall with its prey.
Arctic ground squirrelSpermophilus parryiiHibernates up to eight months and supercools its body below freezing.
Hoary marmotMarmota caligataA whistling boulder-field dweller of alpine slopes.
Collared pikaOchotona collarisGathers 'haypiles' of plants among talus to last the winter.
Snowshoe hareLepus americanusTurns white each winter and cycles dramatically in abundance.
American beaverCastor canadensisEngineers ponds in lowland streams near the park entrance and Wonder Lake.

Birds

Golden eagleAquila chrysaetosNests on cliffs and hunts ground squirrels and ptarmigan over open tundra.
Willow ptarmiganLagopus lagopusAlaska's state bird, molting from mottled brown in summer to pure white in winter.
Rock ptarmiganLagopus mutaKeeps to higher, rockier tundra than its willow-loving cousin.
GyrfalconFalco rusticolusThe world's largest falcon, a year-round hunter of ptarmigan.
American golden-ploverPluvialis dominicaNests on dry tundra after a migration from South America.
WhimbrelNumenius phaeopusA curve-billed shorebird that breeds on the park's upland tundra.
Long-tailed jaegerStercorarius longicaudusAn elegant, streamer-tailed predator of rodents over the tundra.
Northern wheatearOenanthe oenantheArrives from wintering grounds in Africa to nest among alpine rocks.
Trumpeter swanCygnus buccinatorNests on lowland lakes, the largest waterfowl in North America.
Common loonGavia immerIts wavering call carries across Wonder Lake on summer evenings.
Sandhill craneGrus canadensisMigrating flocks pass over the park in spring and late summer.
Canada jayPerisoreus canadensisA bold year-round resident that caches food to survive winter.
Northern hawk owlSurnia ululaA day-hunting owl often seen perched atop spruce spires.

Reptiles & amphibians

Wood frogRana sylvaticaThe park's only amphibian, and it has no reptiles at all; this frog survives winter partly frozen, its heart stopped, and thaws back to life in spring.

Fish

Arctic graylingThymallus arcticusA sail-finned fish of clear-water streams.
Lake troutSalvelinus namaycushA deep, cold-water char found in Wonder Lake and other large lakes.
Chum salmonOncorhynchus ketaMakes a long upstream journey through the Yukon River system to spawn in park waters.
Coho salmonOncorhynchus kisutchSpawns in spring-fed, clear streams in the Kantishna drainage.
Northern pikeEsox luciusAn ambush predator of weedy lowland lakes.
Dolly VardenSalvelinus malmaA colorful char of cold mountain streams.

Insects & other invertebrates

Old World swallowtailPapilio machaonA yellow swallowtail that patrols alpine ridgetops in early summer.
Western bumble beeBombus occidentalisOne of several bumble bees that pollinate tundra wildflowers in the short summer.
Mourning cloakNymphalis antiopaOverwinters as an adult and is often the first butterfly seen in spring.

Species totals are the park's certified NPSpecies checklist (occurrence: present).

Climate & When to Visit

Denali has a subarctic continental climate shaped by latitude, elevation and the Alaska Range itself. The range acts as a great weather divide: moist air from the Gulf of Alaska piles against its southern flank and drops heavy snow on the glaciers, while the northern side where the road runs is drier and colder, with long winters and brief, often cloudy summers.

Near the park entrance, summer highs are typically in the upper 50s to low 60s °F and lows sit in the 40s, but snow can fall in any month. Winter settles in by late September, and January temperatures can plunge to −40 °F. Around the summer solstice there are more than 20 hours of daylight. The mountain makes its own weather, and its summit is hidden by cloud on most summer days; a high-altitude station there has recorded temperatures below −75 °F.

Spring
A short season in April and May when highs finally climb above freezing, daylight lengthens rapidly and bears emerge from dens.
Summer
June through August is cool, often wet and buggy, with long days, wildflowers and the most wildlife activity along the road.
Autumn
Tundra colors peak in late August and valley birch and aspen turn gold in early September, with first snows soon after.
Winter
From about mid-September to April the park is cold and dark, with temperatures that can reach −40 °F and aurora displays on clear nights.

Weather hazards

Hypothermia: Cold rain, wind and summer snow are common, so carry waterproof layers even on a day bus trip.
River crossings: Glacial rivers rise quickly on warm afternoons and in rain, and their cold, silty water hides the bottom.
Bear encounters: Keep at least 300 yards from bears, store food in bear-resistant containers and never run.
Mountain weather: Storms on the Alaska Range can pin climbers and ground flights for days with little warning.
Mosquitoes: Clouds of mosquitoes peak in June and July in wet lowlands; head nets and repellent are essential.

Denali Questions

When is the best time to visit Denali National Park?

Early June through mid-September, when park buses run along the Park Road and daylight is long. Late August and early September bring fall color and fewer mosquitoes, though snow can come at any time.

How often can you see Denali from the park?

The mountain generates its own clouds and is fully visible on only a minority of summer days. Clear views are generally more likely in the drier, colder weather of late summer and in winter, but no month is guaranteed.

What is the weather like in Denali in summer?

Expect cool temperatures with highs in the upper 50s to low 60s °F, frequent showers and occasional snow. Warm spells into the 70s and 80s happen but are unusual, so pack layers and rain gear.

Where is the best wildlife viewing in Denali?

The open tundra along the Park Road beyond Savage River offers the best chance to see grizzlies, caribou, Dall's sheep and moose. Early morning and evening buses tend to see more animal activity.

How was Mount Denali formed?

Denali is built largely of granite that cooled underground about 56 million years ago. Compression along the bending Denali Fault has driven it upward, and because the granite resists erosion better than surrounding rock, it now towers above the range.

Why is the Park Road closed partway?

A thawing permafrost landslide at Pretty Rocks, near Mile 45, began moving so fast in 2021 that the road beyond it had to close while a bridge was planned across the slide. Check the park's road status page for current bus turnaround points before you go.

Are there dinosaur fossils in Denali?

Yes. The Cantwell Formation preserves thousands of Late Cretaceous footprints from hadrosaurs, theropods and ancient birds, evidence that dinosaurs thrived in a polar environment roughly 70 million years ago.

More parks in the Alaska

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Sources: www.nps.gov · www.nps.gov · irmaservices.nps.gov · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · Official NPS site