Alaska 2012: Day 13 of 22 (Talkeetna to Denali)

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We had an early morning flightseeing tour with K2 aviation

We had parked the RV near a ball field in Talkeetna and weren't exactly sure how to get to K2 and because Verizon blocks outgoing calls from prepaid cell phones in Alaska, we couldn't call. We ended up patiently waiting in a busy diner for the girl behind the register to free up and give us directions. Luckily it was just outside of town, otherwise we would have been late.

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Derek and I went up first. I had booked the tours using the Alaska Tour Savers book and you could only use one coupon per flight.

We were all looking forward to the tour, but a little apprehensive about the small plane

The pilot said that Sarah Palin's family has a cabin on this lake. Most of the people build their own cabins and haul in the supplies with snow mobiles in the winter when the soft ground is more easily traversed.

We were on the lookout for animals, but it was hard to get a feel for what to look for until the pilot pointed out a bear on top of one of these hills. It was so small from up high and gave us a feel for the size to scan for.

Our pilot did a nice job narrating. We wore headphones also and it was neat to hear all the pilots talking to the command center and each other.

The pilot would tilt the plane so you could get a better view

Ruth Glacier

It was an incredible feeling approaching the mountains. The plane was moving about and felt so insignificant. The weather was constantly changing. As the saying goes, Denali is so big that it makes its own weather. It can be clear everywhere else and the mountain will be shrouded in clouds. In the plane, we could feel the mountain's power. The pilots do a great job communicating with each other to find a path they can navigate to get closer to the mountain. The course changes based on the weather and our pilot changed course several times. Just when it looked like things were going to cloud over he would find path through another pass that was clear.

K2 is the main aviation company used by Denali climbers for pick up and drop off at base camp. We saw some climbers but the climbers that are left are high up on the mountain as climbing season was about done due to the warmer weather opening up ice chasms making climbing too dangerous. 

On the way back our pilot took us lower to look for animals and we saw a huge bull moose making its way through a lake. He was out in the middle trudging along with a long wake following. It was beautiful.

Back on the ground

We went back to the RV and Helen and Adam were still asleep. They had to rush to make their 10:30 reservation.

Helen and Adam went up in a little bigger plane

Back on the ground and can't wait to tell us about it

Watching the train go by

Derek's mid-morning nap - why break up the schedule just because you're on vacation?

We drove back into Talkeetna to the Ranger Station, which is headquarters for Denali climbers

Over to the Historical Society Museum where they have a very nice scale model of Denali. A park ranger does a presentation where he treats the guests as if they are climbers wanting to climb Mt McKinley. Our ranger did a great job and the presentation was very thorough and informative. He seemed to know about every group that was currently climbing or had climbed in the past. He told us about the people that had died that year, how much it costs for the gear ($8,000 to $20,000), etc. A great experience.

Talkeetna is a cute little town - supposedly the town that the tv show Northern Exposure was patterned after

Back in the RV and headed to Denali

We usually filled up as soon as the tank got to half empty just to be safe. We filled up a few times on the trip to Denali and back and it was right around $100 each time. At least the major gas station in the area, Tesoro, takes American Express.

Adam mixing up his specialty Kit Kat and ice cream shake

We stopped at this rest area on the way to Denali

Many times we would find ourselves looking for Mt McKinley, not exactly sure which one it was. That was usually because the mountain was not "out" as the natives say. When it was not enshrouded in clouds it was obvious which mountain was McKinley. We eventually realized that if it wasn't obvious then it wasn't McKinley. 

Lots of RV's in the rest area and lots of RV's on the roads

We eventually made it to Denali National Park and checked into our reserved space at the Riley Creek Campground and took a shuttle to the Alaska Cabin Nite dinner theater

The food looks pretty good here, but it was REALLY good. We had fairly low expectations, but we were wrong. The meals are family style where you sit at a big table with other people and pass the food around. The ribs were so flavorful and fall off the bone tender. The salmon was so fresh and cooked just enough that it was still red, however we did scrape off most of the dill sauce.

When we ran out of food the whole table had to holler, "Hey Fannie", and then our waitress who was also one of the performers, would bring us more. We ate so much. We all laughed at all the rib bones left on Helen's plate. I think you would have to measure the amount of ribs and salmon I ate in pounds.

We thought the show would be going on while we were eating, but I guess since the performers were also servers they couldn't do that. When we were done eating, we all kind of wanted to skip the show and just go home, but once the show got rolling we enjoyed it.

Back at the Wilderness Access Center our RV is the only one remaining in the lot

We decided that it was such a pretty night that we would try to drive and see if Mt McKinley was out

We drove for a while before realizing that we would have to go quite a ways further to get a good view of Mt McKinley, so we turned and went back to our campground