We took the Alaska Railroad from Anchorage to Denali National Park. It takes about 8 hrs to get to Denali but time goes very fast with so much to see. On our way to the park we passed countless lakes and saw moose, eagles and many lakebirds.

The GoldStar Dome rail car was a great way to travel to Denali. It features very comfortable seats, a bar and it is the only car with an open windowless deck in the rear which facilitates photographing the scenery. *

As we approached the Talkeetna area we witnessed magnificent views of Mt. McKinley. This is the south face of the mountain.

Mt. McKinley is the tallest mountain in North America. Measured from the 2,000-ft lowlands near Wonder Lake to its snowy summit at 20,320-ft, the mountain's vertical relief of some 18,000-ft is greater than that of Mt Everest.

We enjoyed a great view of Otto Lake and its birds from the Denali Lakeview Inn B&B in Healy, where we spent four days. We highly recommend this place but you need a car to get here! We were about 15 minutes North of the park entrance. We enjoyed being away from the big hotels and crowds found near the park's entrance. (If you must know, the skies and mountain tops were darkened with a Singh Ray soft graduated ND filter-2 stops)

Male and female Barrow's Goldeneye ducks in Otto lake.

Green-winged teal.

This could be a lesser yellowlegs.

Sunset view of Otto lake from our bedroom window. Hard to believe it was almost midnight!