Denali remained a dream, owing primarily due to the driving time & distance - 5hrs one way, plus the park shuttle tour is a minimum 6.5hrs, also Mt. McKinley sighting is not guaranteed.
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| Mt. McKinley from a vista point |
Talkeetna
Instead, we choose to take the aerial route to Mt. McKinley and Denali. Our flight-seeing expedition by K2 Aviation @ Talkeetna. There are various providers serving this purpose - Talkeetna Air Taxi, K2 Air and few others. We picked K2 coz we had some gift vouchers. They had various tour options and we picked the "Grand Denali Tour with Glacier Landing"
Since we were early for our tour departure, we explored the tiny town of Talkeetna - since it is a very small, not much to explore. We hiked on the "chase" trail along the railroad tracks until the bridge crossing. Another "river" trail takes to the river park - here one can see the confluence of 3 rivers. Drive a little away (5 miles) to the bed of sister Talkeetna Lakes also called locally as the X-Y lakes (the shape they resemble). Relatively uncrowded and makes for a good picnic spot.
We saw Mt. McKinley from all sides; north, south, east and west; and circled around the mountain.We got a view of the climbers' Kahiltna base camp, Mt. Foraker & Mt Hunter, dozens of glaciers,
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| Hikers |
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| Glacier Landing at Ruth (i think) |
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| Glacier bed |
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| Glacier terrain, each is some 30+ feet deep |
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| Mt. McKinley |
Truly, the glacier landing and McKinley viewing were our "once in a lifetime experience"!
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| Mt. McKinley |
Alaska Experience Theater
A fitting end to our vacation, chill out and watch a movie about Alaska at Alaska Experience Theater in Downtown Anchorage. They had a double feature "Journey to Alaska & Northern Lights Adventure" showing and we picked the last show of the day. The movies were enlightening.
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