The Great One

We took a day trip from Anchorage to Talkeetna, stopping in Wasilla to check out the local thrift and go to the Gun show at Governor Palin's alma mater, Wasilla High School, and later making an unexpected "stop" in Willow. This area, bordered by the Chugach Mountains, the Talkeetna Mountains, and the Alaska Range, is called the Mat-Su Valley. Our aim was to get a better look at Mt. McKinley, or Denali ("The Great One"). We had seen small glimpses of it through the clouds from Anchorage, but during our drive in its direction, we kept seeing mountains in the distance and saying, "Is that it?--Oh, maybe that's it?--Do you think it could be that one?" But when we came around a corner, close to Talkeetna, and saw this (pictured), we gasped at its magnificence. In its enormity, Denali could at first be mistaken for a cloud. We were reminded of Sheldon Vanauken's words on "genuine inloveness," written in A Severe Mercy: "One who has never been in love might mistake either infatuation or a mixture of affection and attraction for being in love. But when the 'real thing' happens, there is no doubt. A man in the jungle at night, as someone said, may suppose a hyena's growl to be a lion's; but when he hears the lion's growl, he knows full well it's a lion. So with the genuine inloveness." And so with the breathtaking sight of Denali. Once we'd seen it, there was no wondering whether it was the one.