Plains of Murie and Mount Denali

The 20,310-foot summit of Denali, the highest mountain in North America, rises above a rolling sea of autumn foothills in Denali National Park. Warm late-day light catches the upper snowfields and ice of the south face while the lower ridges, already deep in the shadow of their own folds, show the rusts and reds of fall tundra. A braided river valley threads the mid-ground, part of the enormous outwash system that drains the mountain's glaciers.

Clean views of Denali like this one are famously rare. The mountain generates its own weather and most summer visitors to the park never see it at all. A window of soft evening light with the whole south face unveiled and the autumn tundra turning beneath it is the view every photographer who spends time in this park is hoping to walk into.

Denali (formerly Mt. McKinley), Denali National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Photo © copyright by Carl Donohue.

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