Denali

After a while, the word "spectacular" starts to become meaningless when applied to Denali National Park. Even on a cloudy day, as we experienced, the park is beautiful and — spectacular. We never saw the whole of Denali (Mount McKinley) because of the clouds, but we didn't feel deprived.

The scenery was partly what we expected: snow-covered peaks, glaciers, spruce forest. Unexpected were the vast, flat plains and moraines.

We did see critters — hares, ground squirrels, Dall sheep, caribou and brown bears (which are really blond in Denali) — but mostly too far away or too quick to photograph.

Did we mention that the secenery was spectacular?