Once, Maybe Twice in a Lifetime Chance.

Ever since I was a kid, pictures of Alaskan mountains just fascinated me. I am not sure why. Perhaps it is how they seem to be sharper and more straight up and down than any other mountains, or because they are always snow capped. But I think the thing that I like about them the most is the sheer size of them. When i got up to Alaska, I hadnt heard much about Denali, all I knew was that there was a national park named Denali, I didnt even have a clue it was named after the mountain. The first time I saw her was on our first time on the train, which happened all the time in May so we thought it was normal, but what is normal, is really that the mountain is covered about 75% of the time. I went out onto the platform to take a look at it and it looked like a pretty large mountain, but then my manager came up behind me and told us that the mountain was roughly about 100 miles away. 

This was a picture I took with no zoom on my phone, and yet the mountain is still nearly 100 miles away. This really puts it in perspective how massive this punk is. ( I progressively got more bitter toward the mountain as the year went on as I will explain) 

I became fascinated with it, I looked up picture after picture and stubbled upon one that was taken by the master, Ansel Adams. 

I loved the lake in the foreground and looked into it and found out that there is a camp ground out at wonderlake and its the closest you can see the mountain from the one park road that Denali has. I instantly got on the phone and made a reservation for the last 4 days we had before our contracts were up. Time and time again I took every chance to take a picture of that mountain. Whether it was from the train or from the car or from an air plane. I couldnt get enough good shots of the mountain. 

But i still wasnt happy. I wanted a simular shot with the water and that beast of a mountain in the back ground. As we got closer and closer to our camping reservations the weather was persistently awful with Alaska's 11th rainiest year on record and nearly a month of consecutive days of rain. I was getting worried. But when the forecast was only a few days out it looked pretty good that we would see her. so off we went to Denali, to get that perfect picture I had hoped for. 

Two days later of solid rain and much colder weather than we had anticipated, I was beginning to be loose my optimism. But then on the third day, in the morning around 9:00 Am, the top half of the mountain peaked out in almost perfect clarity on what we could see of the mountain. I was so struck with how massive and incredibly beautiful this towering site was it was almost surreal. The weather looked good and it appeared to be clearing up everywhere, so all i could think about was to pack up my photo gear to hike the 2.5 miles out the the place over looking Wonder Lake. But it was not meant to be. Sure enough, the clouds came out and blocked that damn mountain for the rest of the time we were there. I was so disappointed. It it weren't for the massive amount of wild life we were able to see in pretty close proximity, I would have felt like it was an utter waste of time.

Kim encouragingly said in response to us being bummed said, "Seeing Mckinley from here is like a once, or twice in a life time opportunity." So hopefully when i return next year, i will be able to see the mountain in all of its glory and take some good pictures of her to capture her beauty and come home a little more satisfied. Thanks for the pick me up Kim.

The last part that kills me and makes me really want to call that mountain a bastard (pardon my language, its really the only thing that could describe my anger toward this dumb mountain when this happened) is when we were driving home in one of the clearest days i have seen in a long time and as we are stopped for construction around Talkeetna, what do i see? That damn mountain out in all of her glory! I literally couldnt believer it. I told Alex it was okay though because that alone for me is a good enough reason for me to come back next year.