Denali National Park, Alaska

“The mountain’s out!”

“Hey, Alix, Nick, Yumiko! The mountain’s out!”

All over Wonder Lake Campground, bedtime preparations stopped, and heads popped out of tents. We cheered and clapped as the snowy summit of North America’s tallest mountain—McKinley—peeked out from above the clouds for the first time in more than two weeks.

“That’s so amazing,” I whispered reverently, awestruck, and humbled yet again. How many times did I say those words on this trip? I’ve lost count. Didn’t I say them when we saw three wolves loping along the park road? When grizzlies munched blueberries contentedly while we observed from the safety of a bus? When a short-eared owl landed in a nearby tree and stared at us for a long moment before silently taking wing? When a red fox hunted its prey in the grass? When golden eagles soared overhead? When an enormous bull moose with a huge rack emerged soundlessly from the thick morning fog?

Indeed, a mere six days in Alaska’s Denali National Park and Preserve had offered up a lifetime of magical moments. But it took only minutes to realize that Denali is unique. No other U.S. national park can lay claim to such diverse and visible wildlife. Or, for that matter, to a 20,320-foot-high mountain. At six million acres, the park is larger than Massachusetts—and has only one 90-mile road, most of which is neither paved nor open to private vehicles.

Magical only begins to describe the sense of adventure and discovery that accompanies time spent in Denali. And for those who are willing to step off the bus and blaze their own trails across the tundra or bushwhack through a mountain pass, the rewards are even greater. Perhaps, as we did, they’ll push themselves over that next ridge just to see what’s there and stumble across a den of hoary marmots, spot a grizzly on the ridge, or watch a caribou graze across a kettle lake. Or maybe they’ll come within feet of Dall’s sheep, flush a willow ptarmigan, watch beavers swim in their ponds, or listen to the calls of nesting loons.

As the sky turned pink with the setting of the sun (at 11 p.m.), I offered up a prayer of thanksgiving to the park gods and goddesses for all the miracles they allowed me to witness—and began planning my next trip to “America’s Serengeti.”

—Eden Feuer

Arizona-based Eden Feuer co-owns the College Workshop, an educational consulting firm.