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Denali National Park and Preserve is home to 20,320 ft Mt. McKinley, North America's tallest mountain, which was known to the native Athabascan Indians as Denali. The word "Denali" means "the High One". The mountain was named after presidential candidate William McKinley of Ohio in 1897 by local prospector William A. Dickey, even though McKinley had no connection with the region. The park is located 240 miles north of Anchorage and 120 miles south of Fairbanks.
The park was established as Mt. McKinley National Park on Feb. 26, 1917. The original park was designated a wilderness area and incorporated into Denali National Park and Preserve in 1980. The Park was designated an international biosphere reserve in 1976.
An impressive number of large mammals—black and grizzly bears, moose, wolves, caribou, Dall sheep—live here. The subarctic landscape includes taiga and tundra, and temperatures can drop to -95°F (-70°C). Visitors come to Alaska’s most popular national park mostly in the summer, although it is open year-round: In the winter outdoor enthusiasts can cross-country ski or dogsled. To minimize the impact of tourism, only authorized shuttle buses are allowed into the interior, and a limited number of hikers are allowed into the different sections of the park.
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