Taken on a peak Autumn day on my trip through Denali National Park which encompasses more than six million acres. Alaska’s Denali features a complete sub-Arctic ecosystem, filled with wildlife, glaciers, mountains, tundra, and taiga forests. . Primarily located along the rivers, they include a variety of trees, such as white spruce, black spruce, aspen, larch, and balsam. The undergrowth of this forest is filled with mosses and lichens while shrubs such as birch, blueberry, and willow provide important food resources. Taiga forest stops growing at about 2,700 feet, where it turns into tundra.
Tundra starts where the taiga forest ends. Tundra consists of windswept dwarfed shrubs and plants that adapt to the short, cold growing season. As you go further up the mountain, these hardy plants start getting shorter, growing closer to the ground; the trees are stunted with short branches – their beauty at this time of year was staggering.