"Denali" is the name that native Athabaskans gave to Mt. McKinley thousands of years ago. It means "The Great One," a far more descriptive title than the one bestowed on it in 1896 by a gold miner named Dickey, who named it for political and ultimately shortsighted reasons.

The state of Alaska has officially re-named the mountain Denali on state maps and the federal government will probably eventually follow suit.

McKinley (or Denali), at 20,320 feet, is the tallest peak in North America, the highest point of a huge, snow-covered pile of stone‹sedimentary rock from the bottom of an inland sea that was raised 56 million years ago by a molten volcano. It continues to be lifted by the upheaval of opposing tectonic plates. Add glacial creep and occasional small earthquakes and you have The Great One‹absolutely immense and even today still imperceptively moving. The mountain is the centerpiece of Denali National Park and Preserve. Larger than the state of Massachusetts, the park's six million acres are only a small part of Alaska.

I'm a big fan of mountains and I had always wanted to see the park and the mountain, so I flew to Anchorage and took a train‹but not just any train. Owned by the Holland America Cruise Line, The McKinley Explorer takes passengers from the port of Anchorage north to Fairbanks with a stop at Denali. Many Alaska cruisers opt for this land tour into the wilderness. In fact, many of my fellow train passengers had come off a cruise.

We ride in one of the brand new cars that just came on the line this year. With wraparound dome windows and plush, roomy, forward-facing seats, these are the largest passenger rail cars ever built. On the lower level are a lounge, gift shop and comfortable, unhurried dining room, where from what must be a tiny galley comes an astonishingly varied menu selection. I bravely order eggs with reindeer sausages for breakfast and they are a delicious surprise. Back on the dome level, redheaded, personable Seth, our knowledgeable car manager, amuses and informs passengers with stories about Alaskan wildlife and lore. And on each car is an obliging bartender. The 8-1/2 hours to Denali pass quickly.

Gazing out the window at mile after mile of uninterrupted wilderness, I fantasize that I'm a lone hunter, or a prospector looking for gold. (I might have found it in this place.) Here I sit in total comfort, glass in hand and convivial company across the aisle. But the lasting memory I'll take back with me is of the sheer immensity of Alaska‹of seemingly empty tundra, covered in summer with velvety moss and lichen and tiny wildflowers, and of the "taiga," where there's just enough topsoil covering the permafrost for trees to grow. "Black Spruce," skinny, stunted and sparse, struggle up where the soil is thin. Where there's more depth, the spruce are tall and green, and even aspen and birch grow in more dense forest. And at their peak now are bright pink fireweed in colorful clumps. Alaskan natives say that you know winter is only weeks away when the topmost blooms on the fireweed stalks start to fade.

I see a lot of water. "Braided rivers" meander back and forth, changing their streambeds as they come down from distant mountains carrying glacial sediment that makes the water the color of jade. But clear ponds reflect the blue of the sky. On three different ponds, I see a pair of trumpeter swans. The largest and most beautiful waterfowl in North America, these romantic birds mate for life and can live for 20 years. They migrate thousands of miles each year, and each year return together to the same remote pond.

When The McKinley Explorer arrives at Denali, multitudes of passengers disembark and board waiting Gray Line buses that take them to assigned hotels just outside the park. At the McKinley Chalet, registration, selection of park tours and delivery of luggage is fast and seamless.

My room in a chalet at a distance from the main lodge (either a short walk or ride away on a frequent shuttle bus) turned out to be a piece of good fortune. I heard the river as soon as the door closed and I noticed that a couple of spruce trees were all that separated my small, private balcony from the Nenana River that moved swiftly and noisily over the rocks in its path. Later, that insistent liquid tumult lulled me into a sound sleep.

In the morning, there was a disturbing sign in the lobby. "An injured moose has been seen in the hotel area. Please make no attempt to feed or assist her. Remember that Denali is a designated wilderness whose ecosystem can only be preserved by allowing the animals to live and die according to the laws of nature."

Tough love, indeed! But I knew it was right, even when I heard some guests talking about seeing the moose as they came down for breakfast‹and she was limping.

Nevertheless, this place is an animal paradise‹for moose, caribou, Dall sheep, gray wolves, red fox and grizzly bears, not to mention ground squirrels, golden eagles and even tiny chickadees who are actually year round residents. The animals prey upon one another, hibernate, hide berries and seeds for winter and gorge themselves in summer, endlessly accommodating to the harsh climate, They've thrived in this way for thousands of years, for the footprint of man has not made much of an impression here. The federal government has decreed that the park's ecosystem must be kept intact. Man cannot mess with anything. In fact, if you get caught so much as feeding a cracker to a squirrel, you get fined $150.

Private cars are restricted inside the park and not allowed at all past mile 15 of the famous 90-mile Park Road, which only goes about halfway into the Denali Wilderness. For a view of the usually cloud covered Mt. McKinley, it seemed like a good idea to take one of the many bus tours deeper into the park. They say that only 20% of Denali visitors actually get a look at the elusive Great One, but I had hopes and at least I would see some resident wildlife. Thanks to sharp eyes on the bus (one passenger was a 14-year old boy with incredible eyesight who was always the first to spot anything moving) and Eric, a knowledgeable naturalist/bus driver, we saw wildlife. After much adjusting of my binoculars, I did make out something large and blonde lumbering across a distant hillside. (I'd always thought grizzly bears were brown, but apparently not necessarily in Alaska). But the bear was far away and what was really more exciting were the unmistakably fresh paw prints we saw when we stopped at the side of the road. I looked so hard for the mama bear and her two little ones, but Eric said that they were probably quite close but not interested in showing themselves‹a very good thing, actually.

It was hard to spot the bull moose who was only about 50 feet away until he lifted his poor head, weighed down as it was by a full grown set of jagged, disc-shaped antlers. Moose are huge, but they are so ungainly, they almost seem ridiculous.

We stopped again and walked through the woods to a rustic backcountry cabin, a shelter used by rangers on winter park patrols. There, a park staff member played the part of an early settler who did his best to survive in a cabin just like this one a hundred or so years ago.

The bus climbed higher and I began to wonder where the mountain was, but all I saw were gathering clouds. Eric told us that this could be a fine place to view Denali. But as he said, "Here, the mountain makes the weather, but the mountain is shy today." At a place called Primrose Ridge, two moose cows and three calves appeared on the road right in front of us. They seemed unconcerned as tourists poured out of the bus, cameras in hand. They simply turned around and slowly made their awkward way back up the road. I took a picture of the obscuring clouds. I knew Denali was out there behind them, massive, majestic - and hiding.

The wind came up that night and with it a sky-cracking rainstorm. I decided to sleep in, but it was a bad move. The next day, I met a couple who had set their clock for 4:30 a.m. so that they could take the early Tundra Wilderness Tour which takes 8 hours - and still catch their train in the afternoon. They caught a glorious view of Mt. McKinley.

The Arctic Circle is just four hours from Fairbanks and the territory north of Denali is noticeably different from what I'd seen on the train from Anchorage. For the first few miles, the track follows the Nenana River Canyon as the river widens, moving a greater volume of water than it carried past my window at Denali. The canyon it carved in its mad rush northward is spectacular.

The "endless tundra" is not endless of course, even in the far North. But that's the impression you get as you pass through a long stretch of uninterrupted terrain where nothing seems to grow except an occasional scrawny "black spruce." I kept picturing the scene in winter and it reminded me of the perilous plight of Omar Sharif as he trudged through the bleak and snowy Russian tundra in the movie, Dr. Zhivago.

Fairbanks, Alaska's second largest city, is the end of the passenger railroad line. Though the Gold Rush of 1903 is long past, coal mining and mineral exploration are still part of its local economy. Alaska's second big boom was the construction of the Trans Alaska Pipeline in the 1970s. I took another bus tour in Fairbanks, just to see the pipeline, certainly one of the great engineering achievements of the 20th century. Jet turbine engines push the oil from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez where it's loaded on tankers and taken to refineries. The insulated pipe is 48 inches thick and the distance is 800 miles. About half the pipeline is buried but because of the thick permafrost, the rest of the pipe is carried on beams supported high off the ground so that moose and caribou can pass underneath. It's an impressive sight as it snakes through the wilderness.

But I didn't see the mountain. In retrospect, I think the best way to see it would be to take a helicopter tour. It's pricey, but you'd have a better chance. And take sun block and rain gear, binoculars and deet (though I never saw a mosquito when I visited at the beginning of August). And take the train.

For information about The McKinley Explorer and Denali Park: www.alaskarailtours.com or phone 800-628-3843.

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