Of the 6 days and 5 nights spent in the park, our visibility of Mt. McKinley — or Denali as most now refer to it and now the official name  —  was more like 95%rather than the 30% that most experience. In mid-Summer first direct light is about 4 AM and seems to last for hours. In the evenings good light starts about 9:30 PM with sunset around 11:45 PM. Mid-day provides the opportunity for stronger compositions and the clouds seem to come and go quickly, or stay in one shape or another for hours on end! After a few days of this uncommon experience, at least that is what the locals told me, I still found myself unable to look away from the mountain. I did not need to photograph continually, but I never stopped looking for the next opportunity!

On the way to the reflection pond, while gaining altitude the tundra became more reflective and needed help from my LB Warming Polarizer which in turn cut down on the cold blue sky shadows. Since contrast was needed and the dividing line straight I used a 3-stop hard-step ND grad which provided a little more clarity of the mountain and darkened the foothills.