The only road through Denali National Park and Preserve is 92 miles long, parallels the Alaskan Range and travels through low valleys and high mountain passes. Beyond Savage River, 15 miles into the park, only bus tours are available for sightseeing. © Photo by Gail Fisher

Polychrome Pass gets it’s name from the colorful volcanic rocks and the colorful vegetation, streams, mountains and glaciers that make this spot unique. © Photo by Gail Fisher

The Toklat River is an 85-mile tributary of the Kantishna River in central Alaska that drains into an area on the north slope of the Alaska Range in Denali National Park and Preserve surrounded by high, rugged peaks and slopes of alpine tundra that come right down to the river. © Photo by Gail Fisher

Denali National Park and Preserve extends 600 miles through the Alaska Range in the central part of the state. In the tundra area at lower elevations, layers of topsoil collect on rotten fragmented rock moved by thousands of years of glacial activity. © Photo by Gail Fisher

Large amounts of rock debris are carried on, in, and beneath the ice as the glaciers move downslope in the Alaska Range. © Photo by Gail Fisher

Ruth Glacier and medial moraines, dark stripes of rock debris flowing down the middle. © Photo by Gail Fisher

Braided meltwater streams heavily loaded with rock debris continually shift and intertwine their channels over valley floors depositing quantities of poorly sorted sediment. © Photo by Gail Fisher

Moraines are created as debris accumulates that ride along the edge of the moving glaciers. © Photo by Gail Fisher

Glacial ice appears turquoise with it’s crystalline structure strongly scattering blue light. © Photo by Gail Fisher

The beautiful blue color associated with glaciers is created by the density of the ice which absorbs off the colors or the spectrum except blue, which is reflected. © Photo by Gail Fisher

Ice chasms in the southwestern portion of the preserve. © Photo by Gail Fisher

Glaciers cover about 16% of the 6 million acres of Denali National Park and Preserve with more extensive glaciers on the southeastern side of the range. © Photo by Gail Fisher

Medial moraine where large amounts of rock debris are carried on, in and beneath the ice as glaciers move down slope. © Photo by Gail Fisher

The Polychrome consists of five glaciers in the Alaska Range of Denali National Park and Preserve which have been affected by the processes of regional metamorphose, folding and faulting to form rocks such as schist, quartzite, phyllite, late, marble and limestone. © Photo by Gail Fisher