The weather has not been very cooperative today. The wind and the rain have kept everything wet and made conditions impossible for the point framing that needs to be done. We went out and rotated the chambers on the warming plots and then we measured the depth of the water in the wells. We have done about all we can do until the wind begins to cooperate! I thought that I would take this opportunity to show some more photos from the Climate Change class in Denali and talk a bit about the park and the history.
Standing at over 20,000 feet Mt. McKiinley is the tallest peak in North America. Due to weather, most visitors who come here never see the mountain.
Denali National Park and Preserve was established in 1917 through the efforts of Charles Sheldon. While visiting this area, he took an interest in the Dall Sheep that were here and wanted to find a way to preserve and protect their population and their habitat. However the first people to live and thrive in this area were the natives some 11,000 years ago when the climate was warmer and the mammoths were roaming the land. The original park did not even include the highest mountain in North America. In 1980 the park was expanded to its current size of over 6 million acres.
This is a hand-made tapestry of Denali NP that is hanging in the Eilson visitors center
This is a close up of a section of the tapestry. What a wonderful piece of art this is!
The oldest rocks in the park date back between 400 million and 1 Billion years and originated from ocean sediments. These rocks have been changed through processes such as folding and faulting, so that now there are great deposits of schist, quartzite, phyllite, slate, marble, and limestone. There are even fossils being found in the sedimentary rocks that are exposed in some canyons.
The volcanic rocks near Polychrome Pass are made of basalt, rhyolites, and others that age back 56 million years.
This dinosaur footprint is around 70 million years old and was left by a carnivorous theropod.
This erratic rock was left in this valley by some great force. Do you know what that was? The rock stands almost 40 feet high!
The animals and plants have also changed over time. We have seen some of the larger species, but there are many smaller plants and animals that live in the park.
This ground squirrel is one of many small mammals that make up the food web in the park.
There are many small and beautiful wildflowers in Denali. They are food and they act to break down the rocks.
Denali NP receives about 400,000 visitors yearly and is opened all year round. Although parts of the road are closed during the winter months, you can ride your bike anytime as far on the road as you like.
Enjoy