Alaska
Alaska, USA · Denali & the Interior
The place
Alaska is America on a scale that's hard to take in — a fifth the size of the entire Lower 48, with the continent's highest mountains, biggest glaciers, and most wildlife, and fewer people than a mid-sized city spread across all of it. Purchased from Russia in 1867 for two cents an acre in a deal mocked as "Seward's Folly," it became the 49th state in 1959.
We went in June 2025, in the endless daylight of the Alaskan summer, up into the Interior to Denali — the highest peak in North America — through tundra and taiga full of grizzlies, caribou, and moose. Vast, wild, and quiet in a way almost nowhere else is.
Places I visited
History & facts for each spot — with a “then & now” archival photo where one exists.
1Denali National Park
Six million acres of tundra and taiga around Denali, North America's highest peak at 20,310 ft. A single 92-mile road, grizzlies, caribou, and Dall sheep.
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2Denali (the mountain)
The Koyukon 'the high one' — so massive it makes its own weather and is clouded most days. Officially renamed from Mt. McKinley back to Denali in 2015.
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3Anchorage
Alaska's largest city, ringed by the Chugach Mountains on Cook Inlet — the gateway to the Interior and the Kenai Peninsula.
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4Talkeetna
The funky little climbers' town where Denali expeditions stage, with flightseeing trips onto the glaciers.
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On the map
Numbered pins are the specific spots above — click any one for its story.
My photos
