Like ribbons of gold, fall colors streak across the landscape at Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska. In these forests and across the tundra, animals fill their bellies and caches with enough food to last them through the coming winter. Every cold breeze is a reminder that this autumn beauty is a farewell to light. Each day sees a little less sun. Each night grows longer and darker. Soon, everything will come to a halt, and dream of spring. Photo by Nathaniel Gonzales (www.sharetheexperience.org).

Happy Summer Solstice! The official start of summer, today is the longest day of the year. Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska is so far north that the park will get over 20 hours of sunlight today and only a few hours of twilight. If we were there, we’d spend that extra daylight exploring this amazing landscape of mountains, forests and tundra while keeping our eyes open for fascinating wildlife. Photo by Kathleen Raine, National Park Service.

🐰🐰🐰🐰 Masters of disguise and quick on their feet, snowshoe hares are pretty shy and secretive. Active at twilight or throughout the night, they otherwise spend most of their day in shallow depressions under brush piles or thickets to go undetected. Named for their large feet that work just like snowshoes on snow, they can jump 10 feet in a single hop! It’s safe to say they’re experts at hiding and look mighty dashing in their winter camouflage. Photo of a snowshoe hare in its white winter coat at Denali National Park in Alaska by Mary Lewandowski, National Park Service.

I think he likes you. Fall is the season for romance for moose at Denali National Park in Alaska. In fields the color of flames, bull moose are hunks of burning love, battling other males and aggressively courting females. They can stand more than six feet tall at the shoulder and are crowned by massive antlers, making them especially formidable during rut. Once the season passes, so does their urge to mingle. Moose tend to be solitary creatures most of the year. Photo by Hongxun Gao (www.sharetheexperience.org).

This cute, little ball of fur is a baby snowshoe hare. 🐰 Brown in the summer and white in the winter, these adorable hares live in Alaska and forests in the upper elevations of the Rocky and Appalachian Mountains. Besides being shy, their natural coloring makes them hard to spot. This one was photographed at Denali National Park in Alaska before bounding away on its big, back feet. Photo by Tim Rains, National Park Service.

Regal and majestic, Canada lynx have long tufts of black fur on the tips of their ears, a ruff of long hairs that frames the face, and a short, black-tipped tail (distinguishing it from its smaller relative, the bobcat). Their fur varies from yellowish to rusty to reddish-brown, muted with silver and tipped with white – an ideal coloring for an animal active in the shadow hours of dawn and dusk. These forest-dwelling cats live in northern latitudes with a range extends from Alaska throughout much of Canada and into the boreal forests in the northeastern U.S., the Great Lakes, the Rocky Mountains and the Cascade Mountains. With large paws and long hind legs, lynx are highly adapted to hunting their primary prey (the snowshoe hare) in deep powdery snow. This one was spotted at Denali National Park in Alaska during the summer.

Learn more about the different cats found in the U.S.: on.doi.gov/2LWPXwq.

 Photo by Kent Miller, National Park Service.

Summer green becomes autumn orange in the blink of an eye at Denali National Park in Alaska. Termination dust – what Alaskans call the high altitude snow that signals the end of summer – coats mountains and sprinkles onto valleys. The red leaves of blueberry bushes carpet the landscape and offer bears a last dessert before hibernation. It’s a feast for the eyes. Photo from a previous fall by Tim Rains, National Park Service.

Happy National Dog Day from Denali National Park in Alaska! 

Denali is the only park with a working dog team. Since the 1920s, sled dogs have worked with rangers at Denali National Park and Preserve to keep the grounds of this Alaska park safe. Visitors can see sled dog demonstrations in the summer, view the dogs at work in the winter and visit their kennels year round.

Pictured here are Pinata (the little grey pup), Party (the Golden girl) and Cupcake (the one with sprinkle feet) from the park’s litter in 2016. Photo by National Park Service.

Pictured here are Annie and Party in the perfect pose. Photo by National Park Service.

Standing head and shoulders above the crowd, “the Mountain” dominates the landscape of central Alaska. On clear days, it can be seen from as far away as Anchorage and Fairbanks. Within Denali National Park, it appears and disappears as the Denali Park Road winds its way among the smaller mountains along the north edge of the Alaska Range. If you are lucky enough to catch good weather, the sight of the Mountain will leave you speechless. Photo from Stony Hill by National Park Service.

It’s Flag Day! On June 14, 1777, the Second Continental Congress adopted a resolution, “that the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field representing a new constellation.“ Changes have been made to the original design as our nation grew, but the Stars and Stripes remains a proud symbol of our country. Here it is flying near the highest place in the United States – Denali National Park & Preserve in Alaska. Photo by Jerome Ginsberg (www.sharetheexperience.org).