It’s a typical morning for a nomadic freelance travel and adventure photography team working in Denali National Park. After a three-hour nap, another long sleepless day begins. We shove energy bars down our throats at 5 a.m. and arrive at the north end of Wonder Lake looking for the “money shot”—a moose feeding below Denali, North America’s highest mountain at 20,310 feet and bathed now in alpenglow. The light is nice; we are the only ones here, but the lake is empty. We wait motionless on a damp, mid-30-degree July dawn for half an hour. No moose. I shoot some landscapes and move on.
This sow and her cubs were chasing and hunting arctic ground squirrels moments before this photo was captured. Park rules do not allow us to pass a bus on a wildlife encounter unless waived on by the bus driver. We are also required to come to a full stop for all passing buses. On a 90-mile road in which I only get anywhere from 7-10 days on a permit, this is a rare sight. Even rarer was being the first vehicle to come upon this tour bus and bears instead of having several buses in front of me. The driver maneuvered the bus to give his passengers a better vantage point, but these kinds of situations change rapidly. As the family gave up on hunting, they crossed right in front of me and I was able to hang out the window much as the bus passengers are doing with a short lens and capture this moment. It was really a matter of being at the right place at the right time. 
From an aerial perspective, 20,310-foot Denali dwarfs other rugged peaks. Shot from a flightseeing trip in a de Havilland Beaver, this view is from above Riley Creek looking at the south side of the Alaska Range toward Savage and Sanctuary Rivers and beyond. Stratus clouds separate and unveil the tawny late summer colors on the tundra.
Denali pros
For over 20 years, I qualified for a professional photographer’s permit, which allowed me to drive my own vehicle with one other passenger, park wide. The criteria for this lottery were strict and permits were highly regulated and competitive. Approval by the park service took place months in advance.
I favored the western part of the park from Eielson Visitor Center to Wonder Lake where the most iconic views of Denali are. Many Denali pros I’ve met over the years prioritized wildlife opportunities, which spanned from near nothing park wide on some days to nothing short of amazing on other days. I was an opportunistic wildlife photographer.
A double rainbow forms after a passing rain shower and reflects in a pond from Camp Denali, an established private lodge west of the 90-mile Park Road. 
Denali has few trails but some of the best hiking of any mountain destination I’ve hiked in. There are endless routes up gravel bars on small drainages and dry ridge routes that lead to many nameless peaks. This route seen here starts directly below Eielson Visitor Center and goes toward the Thorofare River and several tributaries that lead to routes up valleys and peaks, including Mt. Eielson. Though many hikers do what Lauri did—took off her boots to cross this frigid braid on the Thorofare—it’s safer to keep your boots on when crossing fast, cold streams.
Practice pays off
Near 6 a.m., we find a bull moose feeding in one of the many tundra ponds west of Eielson. Standing close to the van’s rear, I shoot with my 400mm lens as the bull feeds, unconcerned with our presence. A cow moose and calf emerge from the alders right behind the bull. They briefly lock stares before bolting in opposite directions. The cow and calf return to the alders. The bull, with antlers in summer velvet, sprints toward me with alarming speed. He’s not after me. I’m just another willow in his path. Still, the road shakes like an earthquake in the aftershock of his stampede.
As with anywhere, the best wildlife viewing and photography is early or late in the day; this bull moose was no exception. Shooting early toward the western end of the park with its countless kettle ponds, we came across him feeding in one. I was standing right behind our van quietly photographing him when a cow and calf emerged nearby. They spooked each other, and the bull took off in a direct line toward the road—and us! He dashed past me, his hooves pounding the dirt road, and disappeared in the alders. Fortunately, I kept the camera and lens on him as he was motoring out of the lake. 
The East Fork Toklat wolf pack has been observed and studied in Denali for decades. While it is rare to see them, some get habituated to human presence, especially since most human activity is contained and predictable. The wolves are accustomed to buses passing close by. Passengers can’t get off the bus closer than 1/4 mile from a roadside wildlife sighting, but if the animals choose to approach the road, you can get some great images. We used our van as a blind to photograph this resting, curious wolf near Highway Pass. 
Foxes are quite common in Denali but easily hidden. I’ve found them to be the most tolerant of the park’s mammals of human approach, but they move fast! This red fox, like many of its kin, hunted roadside. We’d been watching it for several days while working the west end of the park. I happened to spot it through binoculars walking toward us, so we quickly got the vehicle close to a colorful patch of wildflowers. I expected to get a quick action portrait as it passed by the passenger side of our van with these flowers in the background, but instead of racing by like it had several times the previous day, it stopped, and its ears went up, and it cocked its head toward a sound. I anticipated this move and was ready for the pounce.
Staying calm and focused, I capture several nice shots before making a lateral move to get out of his way. Mr. Moose vanishes over the moraine toward the Muldrow Glacier. The whole thing takes a mere 30 seconds. These fast-breaking magical moments of action are when the thousands of hours spent practicing my craft, keeping my skills and vision finely tuned, really pay off.
Denali photography at its best
In spring and fall, the skies are dark enough to see the aurora when it’s active. Although this image was taken east of the park along the Denali Highway near Tangle Lakes, anywhere along the Park Road makes a good vantage point for aurora watching.
Photographing on a Denali “propho” permit is far from a vacation. Great stock images of Denali for commercial markets are abundant. To make sales, you have to shoot in optimal conditions and find fresh perspectives. You exploit any competitive advantage you have. Mine is many years of experience photographing lifestyle and adventure. In addition to landscape and wildlife shooting, I create images of people exploring the Denali wilderness. This has led to assignments in Denali for the park service, Alaska tourism, and for private concessionaires operating in Denali.
To see and photograph Denali at its best, one must adapt to hours of sleep deprivation and waiting days for good light or workable wildlife sightings. Sometimes you stay up all night. In early July, the last light leaves the summit of the mountain after midnight and returns at 3:45 a.m. In between, clouds can glow on the northern horizon for hours as dusk and dawn blend together in a continuous haze of twilight. Late in August when nights lengthen, aurora displays return. Daytime naps are short. Some animals, such as bears and fox are active even in the middle of the day. But all that diligence results in images of a lifetime and a body of work that honors the best of Alaska.
In mid-July, the first rays of the sun strike the summit of Denali at about 3:45 a.m. At this latitude, the sun rises and sets at much shallower angles, meaning it takes over two hours for the sun to reach Wonder Lake after first hitting the summit. This makes for some early morning rises to capture the best light. Our mission was to explore the near shore of the lake for different landscape vantage points, but before we left, I realized something magical was already happening right in front of us and I had a chance to capture something different: what it’s like to canoe here instead of the standard landscape shots from this well-known vantage point. I had my wife and business partner, Lauri, launch our canoe at 5:30 a.m. With the last of the fog lifting off the surface, a northern shoveler passed by the bow. After making some first-light images here, we continued our original mission of exploring the lake shore for new vantage points.
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