If you choose an “Around the Mountain Tour” (circumnavigates the mountain), you’ll ascend over the top of the Kahiltna Glacier and on to the north side of the Alaska Range. Look to the right, and you’ll see the 14-mile-wide Wickersham Wall. From the peak it's 17,000 feet down, one of the greatest unobstructed vertical drops in the world. Considered a death route, the Wickersham has been climbed only a few times. A Romanian ski instructor skied down the wall in the 1990's totally unsupported. His biggest scare? Encountering a bear on the hike out to Wonder Lake… Beneath the left wing is the Muldrow Glacier two vertical miles below. It’s the longest glacier on the north side and the traditional approach for climbers who start at Wonder Lake, which you can see 25 miles distant. The original ascent party used this route to summit the North peak in 1910-carrying a 14-foot spruce pole and 6x12 foot American flag! The views to the North are very different. You’ll see the 90-mile long Denali park road which you’ll travel if you take a tour into the Park. But then the rugged landscape abruptly tapers off into rolling tundra that stretches as far as the eye can see into the Interior of Alaska.
