On the next NatureScene, we visit Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska.

Sampling the variety of habitats there.

Taking a close look at large mammals along the way and seeing Mount McKinley, the highest point in North America.

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♪ [cardinal chirping] ♪ ♪ [rattlesnake rattling] ♪ ♪ [prairie dog yipping] ♪ ♪ Hello and welcome to NatureScene at Denali National Park and Preserve in the Alaskan wilderness between Anchorage and Fairbanks.

I'm Jim Welch with naturalist Rudy Mancke.

We're beginning our visit on Stony Hill Overlook in one of the last great wildernesses in the world.

It feels good to get away from what man's doing, see what nature is all about... the wilderness is the perfect place!

The road gives you access, so we're going to see a great variety of plant and animal communities, but it's the geology that brings lots of people here.

Young mountains...that's what makes it so spectacular!

The one they want to see-- usually it's not so clear-- is Mount McKinley.

There it is rising in the distance... 20,320 feet above sea level.

The only word that comes to mind is spectacular!

The Athabaskans called it Denali, the "High One . "

That mountain is the mountain in all of North America and one of the greatest in the world!

It's an interesting part of the Alaskan range of mountains that were uplifted beginning, maybe, 60 million years ago because rock was being added to what is now Alaska.

That's been going on for millions of years.

There's a fault zone that allows the rock to be shoved up.

Once it came up, glacial ice began to work with it... not just in Ice Age times but even today.

You can see the snow cover and ice fields and get a feeling for glacial activity carving the mountain away slowly and leaving signs of glacial activity down here where larger glaciers used to be.

We'll look at that later.

20,320 feet above sea level and covered with ice and snow all the year!

It's over a granite base, I guess.

It's basically granite rock that's been shoved up.

It's interesting how plants and animals have come into this situation and made adjustments.

I think this will be a wonderful visit!

♪ Most of the park is very wild, but around headquarters, there are a few interpretive trails.

This is Savage Cabin Trail, close to the beginning of the park road.

You can look at boreal forest, or taiga forest sometimes this is called, dominated in here by spruces.

A white and black spruce mixing and matching in here.

They are the dominant coniferous trees.

Then willows everywhere you look!

There are 28 or more species of willows in Alaska.

When you think of willows, you think of a tree coming up.

There's one with fruit.

Male flowers on one tree... female flowers on another.

That had female flowers earlier in the year.

There are shrubby and small species here that, hopefully, we'll look at.

Another plant... looks like birch leaf.

One of the dwarf birches.

Resin birch is one of the common names.

Doesn't get much larger... always a shrubby plant.

Eventually when the trees die out-- that's the dominant woody species in some of the tundra here.

I also see interesting leaves... compound leaves on lupine.

It flowered earlier in the year.

There's a bit of fruit on there.

Then one flower left on a plant that's widespread... shrubby cinquefoil is the common name.

Interesting leaves... and then yellow flower.

One of them left in place!

How do they make it through just a few months growing and then prepare for winter?

You've got to form fruit very quickly.

Look at this arctic ground squirrel!

You hope the ground squirrel doesn't take fruit that you've laid up for next year.

That's the common ground squirrel.

That's the only one digging burrows and finding food this time of year.

In a hurry because winter is on the way!

There's a bird that fits perfectly into this habitat.

It has to have trees, and people are helpful.

Gray jay is one common name.

Overall gray color, bit of dark on the head.

Camp robber is a good name also.

It comes around people, takes food whenever it can.

I'm sure it's waiting for us to drop something.

♪ This was originally Mount McKinley National Park, opened in 1917.

Then in 1980, they tripled the size to 6 million acres and named it Denali.

This is the first time we've seen something common here...tundra.

Usually this is called moist tundra.

The dwarf birches are also here, but there aren't any trees to speak of.

Few individuals but not many!

Tundra, by definition, is plants growing above tree line.

Tree line here is about 2700 feet.

There are all sorts of interesting things here.

Crowberry is one of them, hugging the ground.

Black fruit on it, and that fruit provides food for lots of animals.

You see it's dominant.

Also blueberry close by!

Those would be tasty right now for humans, as well as other creatures.

One of the decomposers... the mushrooms are coming in.

Most of the body underground-- there's the reproducing body.

Animals take advantage of that too.

Of course, the lichens... combination of an alga and a fungus.

Sometimes that variety is referred to as reindeer lichen because it does serve as food for reindeer or caribou, especially in the winter months.

Look out here... on the hillside!

There's an animal that's going to take the berries and change them into grizzly bear!

Unbelievable animal!!

The hump on the back... it's very easy to identify.

Big, broad face on that thing, and facedown taking fruit and changing it into grizzly bear.

This time of year, that's what it's hitting hard.

It's not taking many animals.

They come in all colors too!

That one blonde and light-colored.

They can weigh 600, 650 pounds...the biggest ones!

You can see the long winter hair coming into the coat.

That'll keep it warm for a bit into the colder months, which are on the way.

You can see him working now.

Interesting side view as he walks.

Look at him moving along!

Plantigrade movement, walking on the heels, the bottoms of the feet, like we do.

One of the omnivores...it does take plant and animal material.

This time of year feasting on blueberries and crowberries.

Magnificent creature!

Where else are you going to see this?

This is a place where you can get close enough, yet we're giving it a good bit of distance.

The other animal you'd expect, though... a moose, a cow, and a calf!

Down in the willows... little lower, wetter area.

Willows...the main food for the moose?

That's one of the things they feed on.

They'll get out in water sometimes and take softer, gooey plant material.

Willow this time of year is fine.

Look on the slope... a couple of male caribou!

The size of the racks... really impressive!

They look like they're out of velvet.

Those racks could weigh as much as 25 pounds.

Those are healthy animals and considered nomads in the animal world because they travel so much in search of food.

They're taking plant material and changing it into caribou.

Those are large individuals!

♪ There are 6 million acres in Denali National Park.

All of it is subarctic region.

This is really interesting!

Dry tundra is a good name for it.

This time of year it's chilly, but really it's chilly any time of the year.

The red is nice!

Arctic bearberry is the common name for that.

A brilliant red this time of the year...scarlet red.

This seems to be one area where it really dominates.

Mountain harebell is so typical of this area.

Hugging the ground!

Doesn't get up very high.

Leaves low to the ground and a big, blue bell-shaped flower, although it's turned up.

Most harebells tilt down but not that one.

What's the plant that has fruit?

Well, fuzzy fruit on it.

The woody plant there is one of the willows.

We've already talked about how diverse willows are in Alaska.

That's one of the dwarf willows.

Those are catkins sticking up that used to be female flowers, now fuzzy fruit.

In a breeze like this, fuzzy fruit gets blown.

That's the way it gets spread.

That's a dominant plant.

Another one with a few fuzz tops... common name, mountain avens.

Dryas is the genus name.

It's in the rose family.

The fuzz on the top here gets blown around by the wind.

One other plant... wormwood is the common name.

If you crush those leaves, very aromatic!

Early humans here must have enjoyed that and used it medicinally.

You can see the old flower, really early fruit on the top.

Look right here!

I can't believe that red fox coming out of the willows as if we're not here!!

I guess fox are used to people going by.

You can see dark booties on it, white on the tail, slender body.

One of the carnivores that seems to do nicely.

Takes arctic ground squirrel and recycles it, even picking up dead ones along the road.

That one looks in good shape...small, though.

Nice animal!

Beautiful red color and getting ready for winter.

I suppose so.

[no audio] Way up on the hill, Rudy, tiny specks of white most visitors see... Dall sheep.

That's the inspiration for this park!

Charles Sheldon came here to study them... only white sheep in the wild.

Isn't that nice?

Used to be called white sheep but now Dall sheep.

Those are ewes and lambs, females and young ones.

Females have horns.

Horns are on both sexes in sheep and goats.

One's rubbing its chest against the green.

Look at that... sort of with her front legs under.

There are groups of them there!

They're probably taking the greenery and making sheep out of it.

A few resting right on the ridgeline.

That must be a nice view!

They're protected...

I guess the habitat is how they live.

Yeah... spectacular animal!

Not bothering the slippery rocks!

Rocks that would easily go under our feet, they have no problems with them... perfectly adjusted to that.

This place is exciting!

Glaciers had a hand in things.

Look at the kettle pond out there!

We're going to see lots of those... a chunk of ice left behind when the glacier retreated, and then it melted, filled the space, and forms ponds.

The views... oh, my goodness!!

Way off in the distance, a bit of everything!

♪ Walking across tumbled rock now at 3,000 feet above sea level.

This valley floor is broad.

It's home to a very young river making its way wherever it wants.

Slowly rearranging the world.

The water right now is very dirty-looking, silty, carrying bits and pieces of rock, eventually, I guess, to the sea.

We're walking on a big, old gravel bar.

What kinds of rock do you figure is in here?

A mix... igneous, metamorphic, sedimentary rock.

Rounded, a lot of it, by water.

That's what has sculpted this part of the world, as it does everywhere... water, either as a liquid, like the water flowing by in the river, or as a solid, the ice, the glacial activity that has gone on in the past and made quite a difference in this place.

I'll bet thousands of tons of crushed gravel and sand go down this river every year.

Nature is never in a hurry.

As Lauren Isley used to say, "There's power in raindrops."

It's fun to watch the cloudy water go by and turn around and see the mountains from whence it came.

♪ Denali has about 350,000 visitors every year, but I doubt many make their way down to the edge of this.

What a scene this is!!

This is so nice!

It gives a change of perspective on that braided river.

You can see the braid look to that.

Look at the caribou!

Half a dozen or so...small herd.

Those are all males.

This time of year males are segregated from females.

The antlers are pretty nice-sized.

One of them, scratching around... maybe trying to clear off a place and lie down where there's more moisture and it'll be cooler.

Once there were herds of 30,000 or so within Denali... now just a few thousand animals.

Those are great ones to see!

Some pretty good-sized animals...older individuals.

Look at the bear!

Mama bear with a baby on the side, looking for food!

Going from clump to clump trying to find fruit, probably, on some of the shrubs.

What might they find on the river bottom?

That would be a good place for soapberry.

Then finding invertebrates and any animal material they can get.

Since they're omnivores, they'll take everything.

How long will the cub stay with the mother?

Well, I guess it varies.

A year or so would probably make sense.

I'm not sure of the specifics, but once they're tough enough, they're on their own.

That's a pretty good-sized cub!

What a scene!

It's always great to see the animals of Denali, and people do when they come here.

The other thing is the geology that's so powerful!

Look at it!

All of the material in the lower valley area are glacial deposits, really, probably, an outwash plain.

Glaciers used to come down and fill this area.

One way we know that is that st uck in some of that material-- look at the glacial erratics!

Big rocks and boulders!

How long ago would they have been dropped?

Probably in the end of the Ice Age times when mountain glaciers were still coming down here, 12,000 or so years ago.

Bigger than a house, that one, and very angular!

Left behind as glaciers went away.

Look in the valleys.

U-shaped valleys up on the mountains...typical of glacial activity!

Glaciers perched up there now, but they're in retreat.

You can see the U-shaped valley clearly, the ice at the top.

Imagine when this whole valley was filled with glaciers coming down, meeting, and going down the river.

New rivers, and they go where they want to!

Braided river... a good common name.

You really see it best from a higher elevation.

Look right there!

Gyrfalcon is the common name for that thing.

Looks almost like a peregrine falcon.

Diving down and zooming up over to the ridge beyond.

Spectacular bird in flight!

It feeds on other birds, mainly ptarmigan.

They nest here, and believe it or not, actually a year-round residence.

Here comes something that will hibernate here.

A hoary marmot... look at that monster!

A rodent?

Oh, yeah, it's a rodent.

Those big incisors are typical of the rodents.

Just moving up.

Hoary because of that whitish look, at least on the front part of the body.

Grizzled look.

That's the marmot, or the ground hog variety, that's doing nicely here.

Vegetarian.

There goes a gyrfalcon-- could be the same one!

There are a number of them on this little outcrop.

Very fast flyers!

There goes the marmot!

He hears talking, doesn't seem to mind moving up.

The back of the animal is a good bit darker than the front and then that bushy tail.

♪ (Jim) We're just off the 90-mile park road that takes visitors up to Wonder Lake and gives you a look at many different habitats.

This area is wetter.

(Rudy) Kind of squishy as we're walking.

Some little kettle ponds with water standing... and look what comes!

Lesser scaup is the duck that's common... purplish-looking head, light-colored eye, a lot of white on the back.

You can figure beavers have rearranged some of these kettle ponds.

There's a beaver lodge on the back side of that one.

Look at them working!

So many migrate through here.

They're only here for the summer?

Yeah, and head away pretty soon.

A duck out there called the oldsquaw... long-tailed duck now is the common name.

In the male, there'd be a long tail.

See how much white is on that bird?

Dark on the head, gray on the throat, and black on the back.

Pretty good divers, using situations like this... kettle ponds that have been modified by the work of beavers.

Kettle ponds came from glaciers originally.

Exactly... we're always getting back to the glacial story.

We saw a moose earlier, but look at the moose there!

Look at the bull moose... and look at the rack!

Look at the antlers!!

That's a 1500- to 1800-pound animal here at Denali!

The largest mammal up here!

An odd-looking antler on the left side.

The antler is a palmate antler.

The one on the right really spreads and has fingerlike projections.

The one on the left is not developing properly.

You can see a hump on the back.

He's taking willow and changing them into moose.

You get a feeling for that long face.

Largest deer in the world!

Then that little bell, that flap-- dewlap sometimes it's called-- hanging down from the throat.

An animal that says North Country!

Oh, yeah!

Really long legs, although you can't notice that.

The willows are thick where it's wetter.

Another month or so, he'll be looking for a mate...rut season.

Here's something you don't normally see in broad daylight...beaver!

You can see the lodge in the middle, and the beaver working around, swimming, doing his thing.

That's the largest rodent in the United States.

They really have had an impact.

Look at the dam... very nicely done!

You figure he keeps working all the time to make sure that dam stays in place.

Modified kettle pond.

We've seen beaver dams, but it's rare to see a beaver midday.

That's a nocturnal animal.

There's that moose again... little different angle.

Gosh, that thing is big!

Imagine all the minerals it takes to make those antlers.

Producing two a year in the males and then shedding them.

The beaver is taking a log and moving across...

I bet figuring he's got to shore up the dam.

Oh, that's interesting!

Folks come to see animals at Denali, and we're looking at beaver, a rare sight, and moose, another rare sight!

And a wonderful Alaskan range!

Six-hundred mile Alaska range!

We're looking at some of the most beautiful scenery, perhaps in all of North America.

Mount McKinley is still obvious, and that's amazing!

Glaciers and signs of glacial activity... you can see the streaking down there, the ice and the glacier curving in the distance.

Not all white now, covered with lots of rock debris!

Physical and chemical weathering going on in the rocks.

The glacier's doing physical weathering, rubbing them away.

Then they collapse down.

One of the larger glaciers... Muldrow Glacier that snakes its way out from beneath Mount McKinley on around.

It's dark on the surface.

The only way you see the ice is when there's an edge shoved up.

See the ice... pretty clear.

That glacier, 30 to 35 miles long, winding through the mountains from the base, 16,000 foot up at McKinley, but coming close to the park road.

It's interesting... all these pretty colors!

This is the time when colors are beginning to come in.

The willows and other things are changing color.

What spectacular scenery here!

Most people visiting the park don't get to see that view of Mount McKinley.

Perhaps the greatest mountain in the world when you consider the vertical rise from a few thousand feet up to 20,000.

That's a 17-, 18,000- foot vertical rise.

It's nice to see it with layers of clouds... see it sticking up above everything else.

Those sharp edges speak of young mountains.

(Jim) This has to be my favorite national park because of the last frontier... the wilderness, the animals.

It's wondrous!

It's a wilderness that allows you access.

That's one of the nicest things!

You can come in safely and look at the world... the plants are interesting, wonderful communities.

Large mammals are close enough to see behaving, and they don't seem to mind.

Literally above and beyond everything else!

The powerful geology is unforgettable!

Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska!

Thanks for watching and join us again on the next NatureScene.

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