Alaskan Adventure - July 21, 2014 - Talkeetna, AK

Alaskan Adventure - July 21, 2014

On the agenda was to drive to Denali National Park.  Al decided that he needed to get back to the job site so he wanted to go by train from Talkeetna. Since we had spent the night in Wasilla, Talkeetna was not far and he had time to meet the 11:00 train to Fairbanks.  On the way we got a glimpse of The Great One, Mt. McKinley.

     Can you see a shadowy form of the mountain above the peaks of the smaller ones?  That is Mt McKinley.

Of course before getting into the little town, we had to have our picture taken by the sign.

We had breakfast and the plan was to go get the tickets which would allow us gals to shop a little in the unique little town.  While shopping only one store, we got word to come now.  We were going on a flight trip around Mt McKinley and land on a glacier!!

Wow!  What an amazing trip.  I think I took over 300 pictures.  I sure which I had had my Nikon but my little camera would have to do.

Once we landed on the glacier we had another amazing view of The Great One.

We flew through this canyon before landing on the glacier.

    Other planes on the glacier.  They took off shortly after we landed.  This glacier is called the Don 

    Sheldon Amphitheater.

   First steps on to the glacier snow and ice.  We had special boots on that were provided for us.

Here we are with Mt. McKinley.

    We are at about 5000 ft and Mt McKinley is around a little more than 20,000 ft.  15,000 more from this location.

Of course there are little boys in every man and a snow ball fight ensued.  The snow was fresh snow from a couple of days ago and it was a little fluffy.

We thought it was quite funny that there was an outhouse.  It was built before the park became part of the National Park system.  There was also a cabin up there and the man that built it would take people up there on sking expeditions.

Our pilot, Mike

Glaciers

The trip back was also beautiful with lakes and green tundra.

Needless to say, Al and Joyce didn't make the 11:00 train so it was a fast trip to Denali to catch the 4:00 train.  We got to the depot around 4:15.  They were fortunate the train was late leaving and they got on board by the skin of their teeth.  They actually held the train for them. Whew!!  

After we got them off, we got our tickets for the bus ride to hopefully see wildlife in the park.  We are going on the 8 hr trip to Elision in Denali Park.

Our lodging in at Denali Rainbow RV and Motel.  We have a two bedroom suite.

Boy!!  What an eventful day.  Goodnight folks.