JITrekking: Denali Flyover

Last night we did a flyover f Denali. It was breathtaking. There were 4 of us that went. Irene and I and separately (and someone that we'd never met before) Ximena and Eduardo. Ximena is a professor at (drumroll here) PURDUE UNIVERSITY!! Eduardo is her father. How totally bizarre. We lived in West Lafayette (the town Purdue is in) and Lafayette for 32 years. She moved there in 1997 and she and her family have moved into a house 2 blocks from where we lived in West Lafayette. So, where do we meet? Denali National Park - 2919 miles from here as the crow flies.

Denali National Park USED TO BE CALLED Mount McKinley National Park. Mount McKinley is the highest peak in North America at 20,308 feet (For you international JITREKKING fans that is 6189.878 meters). It was renamed Denali National Park in 1980 by Jimmy Carter. Denali is the Athabaskan word for "The High One." The Athabaskan people are the Native Americans that have lived in Alaska since the beginning of recorded time. At the same time it was renamed Denali National Park they expanded the size of the park from 2 MILLION ACRES to 6 MILLION ACRES! That's a B-I-G park! The biggest in the world. Alaska itself is almost the size of 1/5 of the 48 contiguous United States. And Denali is about 1 1/2% of Alaska's total area.

I thought I'd share some of the Videos and Pictures we took on our flight. First, below is a map of the path our flyover took.

If you look at the upper right hand corner of the map you will see from where we took off and landed. The arrows indicate the direction of our travel. Our flight last about 90 minutes. We flew in a Cessna Navajo, a 2 engine (turboprops at that) plane.

Above: Denali is in the "Alaskan Range" an extension of the Rocky Mountains as they extend back into Alaska from British Columbia and the lower 48. At the end of the video you can see a long glacier in the middle of the screen from bottom to about 1/2 way up.

Above: This video starts by looking at a Basalt Peak and then zooms in on the glacier

between it and the next ridge line on the left of the video.

Above: some of the mountains at the base of Mt. Denali. The video ends with our

first peak at the summit of Mt. McKinley (Denali).

Above: A video where I try to keep Mount McKinley in the center top of the

frame and zoom in and then out from it again.

Above: This short video begins by showing the lighter colored granite on

the Pacific Plate side of the Denali fault then pans across a glacier to the

Darker Basaltic Peaks on the Alaskan side of the Denali fault.

Above: A closer look at the shear face of one of the granite mountains

Above: The video scans across a glacier and onto the face of a granite mountain

Above: A view across the Basaltic section of the Alaska Range. It ends looking

at a glacial floe on the right of the video.

Above: This isn't a "really dirty" glacier. This is a run-off river. It riverbed is made of of glacier crushed basalt. The snow filled lines indicate the course the river has flowed. Each line indicates a different year. Because more and more crushed rock get deposited here every year by the glacier (up and the the right in the video) the water runoff has to cut a different course every year. Liquids always take the "path of least resistance."

Above: This video opens looking at a rusty brown mountainside. This rusty brown for a reason - it IS RUST. Iron ore and other minerals (Gold, Coal, Copper) is what brought the original Caucasian settlers to the Denali area.

Now some pictures we took during the flight. I thought I took a lot - 189. Irene did her usual twice as many - 336. Her's are better, she had the perfect lens - a 50-200 mm. I on the other hand had our monster 200-500 mm lens. We both have Canon EOS Rebel cameras. (The videos above were taken on my iPhone).

Above: The somewhat apprehensive flyers before take off.

Above 3 pictures: The mountains just go on and on for miles and miles.

Above 2 pictures: It looks like virtually nothing as you see it here, but that line across both pictures about 1/3 of the way up is one portion of the Denali Fault Line where the mountains above the line are being pushed under the land below that line by plate tectonics. The Pacific Plate is being pushed under the Alaskan plate. There are hundreds of earthquakes every year along the fault. Most are minor in the 2-3 on the seismic scale.

Above: A picture of the Nenana River and the Alaska Railroad taken just after take off.

Above: A closer look at the "Rusty" Iron Ore that makes up the top of this mountain peak.

Above: A closer look at the face of a Basaltic Mountain

Above: A closer look at the face of a Granite Mountain

Above: Two pictures showing crevices in the front near the face of glaciers.

These are hundreds of feet deep and as much as 100 feet wide.

Above 2 pictures - Water pooling on top of glaciers.

Above 2 Pictures: The front faces of 2 glaciers. Notice the deep green and blue.

Moraine is the crushed rock that is being carried by a glacier. Some of this is at the edges of the glacier. This is called "Lateral (along the side) Moraine."

Above: Lateral moraine at the base along the mountain on the left of the picture.

There is also all the rock that has been sheared off and is at the end of the glacier and gets dumped every year it warms and the glacier retreats some until the next winter's temperatures and snow cause it to advance again. This is called "Terminal (at the end) Moraine"

Above: You see the dark, dark terminal moraine of a glacier and the somewhat lighter runoff stream between it and the mountains on the right side of the picture

Above: When 2 glaciers meet they "combine" their terminal moraine in the middle of the composite glacier. Here it looks like "snakes"in the middle of the glacier. This is called "Medial (in the middle) Moraine"

Below: Are the Mount Denali/Mount McKinley

"money shots" by Irene and I.