Thank you! The colors were absolutely unreal in person.

Fair enough, lol. I'm from Minnesota, so I'm a bit more used to it, but that's still the coldest weather I've ever camped in. It definitely wasn't easy leaving my sleeping bag in the morning.

I've only been once, so I'm probably not the best person to ask. That said, visiting in early September worked out really well for me. I got fantastic colors and saw a ton of wildlife, from caribou (see the image in my other comment), to moose, and even a lynx.

The only downside is that the weather can be a bit gross at that time. It was below freezing at night and rained every day of my trip. I was fine with camping in that weather, but it might be an issue for some people. The advantage of the weather is that it keeps the crowds considerably smaller than at peak.

Same here with not seeing the peak. I can't be upset, though. The rain and clouds kept the light nice through the middle of the day, so I had a lot better luck with wildlife, which was the main focus of my visit.

They're absolutely incredible. I could spend years there and never get bored. I'll definitely return once they manage to reopen the road past the landslide, if not sooner.

I shot this panorama when visiting Denali National Park in early September. It had been raining on and off all day, but the light was starting to break through the clouds by late afternoon. I had just had an incredible encounter with a herd of caribou (photo here) when I saw the sunlight hitting the mountains in the distance.

I grabbed my Canon R5, switched to my RF 70-200mm f/4, and fired off this panorama. I zoomed to 200mm, and set my exposure to f/8, 1/100s (props to my image stabilization!), and ISO 100. Each frame was shot vertically.

When I got home, I stitched the images in Lightroom Classic. The resulting panorama is over 20,000 pixels on the long edge, making for a nearly 140 megapixel image.

The US has a lot of problems, but if you genuinely believe that they're of equal standing to Qatar, you're absolutely delusional.