Dazzled by Denali: Exploring the high slopes and lowland trails of Alaska’s premier mountain park

The Cessna 185 speeds down the runway, heading for the top of North America. Jok Bondurant pulls up on the stick and the plane soars into the air. We’re heading for Mount McKinley, at 20,320-feet, the highest point on the continent and the crown jewel of Denali National Park, one of the most pristine places on the planet.

Bondurant, a pilot with Sheldon Air Service in Talkeetna, Alaska, and passengers Calle Hedberg , Tom and Jean Coghill, and I cruise above the wide, braided channels of the massive Susitna River. Climbing higher, we near the foothills of the Alaska Range, a jagged array of snow-clad peaks like the mandible of a fierce prehistoric beast.

“Granite erodes slower than other rock,” Bondurant says, pointing toward the granitic peaks of the Alaska Range—Foraker, Hunter and McKinley. “That’s why these peaks are higher.”

High is certainly right. They seem to belong on another planet. I press my face to the window, trying to take it all in. I booked the flight to revisit the mountain, which I wrote about in my novel, The Storms of Denali. I summited the peak back in the 80s and like many others had fallen under its spell. Now I’m hoping that will happen again on a short, three-day exploration of the park.