The Great One

The Great One

Some reading this may note that we are way behind on posting our journal.  That's part due to lack of internet connections (Verizon may be best in the 48 but marginal, at best, here in the Upper 1), but it's mostly due to the intense schedule we're keeping.  The 20 hours of daylight, virtually no real dark, finds us up and active outside until 11 PM, sometimes later, and so tired at the end of the day, if one can figure out where the end is, that writing is a low priority.  We apologize, but only a bit.  We've written the text for the next few days and hope to have all up to date before Dad heads back south on the return leg.

Another mission pre-planned: a flight seeing trip to Denali and a glacier landing, looked to be beyond reach as the sky brightened to mark our first morning in Talkeetna.  There were high, grey clouds but the wind of the past two days had abated.  To our delight, however, the folks at Talkeetna Air Taxi advised they were flying after all; weather at McKinley Base camp on the Kahiltna glacier was reported to be good.

They had room on an 11:15 flight so we first headed back into town to accomplish mission 3, sourdough pancakes breakfast at the Talkeetna Roadhouse.  The sourdough started there had recently celebrated its centennial birthday and the cakes were big enough to use as a poncho.  Covered with butter and locally made birch syrup, with a side of reindeer sausage, they made the perfect start to the day.

At 10:45 we were back at the airport and ready to fly.  There aren't many words that can describe the grand experience that followed.  We'll let the pictures try that.

In factual terms, we departed Talkeetna in a turbine- engine DeHavilland Otter with six other passengers, flew north over lake-studded tundra, into and among the peaks, snowfields and glaciers of the Alaska Range.  The base of the cloud ceiling was around 8000 feet, obscuring all the peaks above.  The sun broke through occasionally, spotlighting hanging glaciers and lower summits.


The pilot weaved through a myriad of mountain passes until we broke out into clear skies on the north side of the range.  we flew now at 12000 feet along the Wickersham Wall, greatest vertical rise of terrain in the world.  It climbs from near sea level to over 14,000 feet in just four miles.  We caught occasional glimpses of the summit of Mount McKinley, ten thousand feet above us.

Wickersham Wall, greatest vertical terrain rise on earth

Returning south again, the sun disappeared until we approached Kahiltna Glacier.  We're in luck", the pilot "The Ruth Glacier is socked in but weather over the Kahiltna is good. We're going to land at Denali base camp."

Climbers on the way t0 the summit

Through the window we watched as the pilot retracted the wheels until they were resting above the skis in preparation for the landing on snow.  And then we did.

Denali Base Camp-=Kahiltna Glacier