30% Club

They say that just 30% of visitors ever see the peak of Denali. As I was driving home today, I looked in my rearview mirror, and there she was. A gloomy rainy sky ahead of me, but Denali tall against a blue sky for the first time since I’ve arrived.

I pulled into the viewpoint and sat, watching and listening as visitors stopped to take pictures, thinking about how less than a year ago I was doing the same with my mom and sister. But now, Denali is my neighbor. I snapped a photo, and drove home.

Something told me to keep driving past my cabin to the deadend I knew was just down the road but hadn’t yet explored yet. And there she was, seemingly even closer — away from the visitors, just around the bend from home.