Alaska: Day 5, Mt. McKinley Flightseeing

Day 5 was our drive from Denali NP to Anchorage city. The original plan was to spend some time in Anchorage, exploring the city and native Alaskan culture. But after driving through Anchorage and into Denali NP on Day 1, we had seen it was like any other city. Also we had missed our flightseeing experience in Talkeetna on Day 2 as it was cloudy. Talkeetna is midway from Denali NP to Anchorage, so we had postponed our flightseeing to Day 5 in hopes of better weather, so the revised plan was to stop at Talkeetna today. In Alaska, weather is often unpredictable and the locals are very aware and accomodating because of this, and fairly flexible towards changes in bookings. They are willing to offer a change of date, or even a refund of monies if requested.

We started off Day 5 with Rian a bit cranky at not having his toasted peanut butter jelly sandwich. My experiment of waffles with apple compote (breakfast at Salmon Bake) did not sit very well with Rian. Removing the compote did not make him happy either. He finally ended up eating bread and butter, and after a while we were all happy and adjusted with it.

Amit's camera was very impressed with what we had seen so far, and had happily eaten more than 75% of its CF card capacity. We were hoping to drive into Anchorage and buy a CF card, but we decided to look around here in Denali NP first. Luckily there was a shop offering CF cards for twice the price of amazon.com :-) At least there was a choice. As we guessed, we weren't the only ones underestimating our camera storage in this beautiful place. We were all set with a new 16GB card. Trouble for the photo processor starts when the photo taker has extra memory ;-) With pictures and videos at a high resolution from Amit's Canon 7D, we ended up with a total of 25GB for the 10 days of our Alaska trip. Now you know why I've been super slow processing and uploading the photos and videos! The drive from Denali NP to Talkeetna was smooth and very scenic.

Zoom zoom zoom

When we reached Talkeetna at K2 aviation, we were originally booked to fly at 2pm. Having hard a hearty breakfast, we just grabbed coffee from Nagleys and were all set. This was the first time I gave Rian 'lunchables': turkey, crackers and cheese. He really enjoyed it. With our usually fresh and healthy meals, once in a while 'junk and processed food' is allowed :-) and according to Amit, when we're traveling, anything goes! Throughout the trip, I took good care of Rian's meal schedule. We also bought half a gallon of regular milk - it's easy to carry, fills you up, gives a good, natural protein boost, and goes with even bread to make my favorite snack :D

There was some time for our flight, so we made the best of our time in downtown Talkeetna. There was a broken down train, and Rian spent his time examining it and squealing in joy. I also got some a chance to pick up memorabilia.

Rian's most memorable aspect of Alaska was the Denali Star train

Somehow 2pm became 4pm and we were getting a bit agitated at the slow slippage of time. Lunch for us was screwed up beyond repair - the milk and fruits helped later. Now we had no time for Anchorage, we knew. We played around the little park outside K2 aviation.

More delay in flight, so we make a flight of our own

A little bit about K2 aviation and our tour: we researched most of our tours based on feedback from tripadvisor. We also tried to see the flexibility in schedule offered by the tour operator for starting times. e.g. K2 had flights going out every hour or so. Talkeetna Air Taxi OTOH was very constrained - only 2 flight times in the day. With Rian, and the fact that we were out and about the whole day, I personally wanted to have hearty meals. If the tummy is not full, things get out of hand. So we chose K2 based on the reviews and the flexibility of lots of flying times. We wanted to definitely do a glacier landing, but were unsure how long Rian will last - 2hrs was our guestimate. So we decided to do this McKinley Flyer route. Although Day 2 left us disappointed with weather for flight seeing, Day 5 more than made up for it. It was an excellent sunny day to see the mountain. We weren't even wearing jackets - even after landing on the glacier! This was our flight route. We were outfitted with overboots and that's all we needed.

Our flight route

Our pilot was very cool. People can get very strict about rules and safety and all uptight about it. This man was experienced enough to tell us everything, but did not pain us about anything. Rian got all settled in and was wearing his headset. He was curiously listening to everything the pilot was saying. The set was too heavy though for his head, and then he lost interest.

Mt. McKinley from a distance

Seeing the highest mountain peak (in US country and North America continent) was breathtaking. From far away, we could make out Mt. McKinley. The approach showed us wonderful landscape with snow untouched by humans. Seeing fresh powder less than 24 hrs new brought back memories of ski trips in Tahoe. We approached via the Kahiltna Glacier which is 36 miles long. Rivers of ice... Most epic photo of 3 of us, with the tallest mountain peak in the background is here:

Behind us is the tallest peak of Mt. McKinley

Rian and Daddy had a blast playing in the snow. They made a snow "Mt. McKinley on top of Mt. McKinley". This line really got Rian very excited! Daddy and Rian were soaked in snow from top to bottom, with just regular clothes :-) I stayed far away, dry and warm :D

Amit truly making it fun for Rian

On the way back, Amit volunteered to be in the co-pilot's seat, the view was very different from his perspective.

Amit is in the co-pilot's seat

Lots of teeny glaciers feeding a big one

By the time we were done, all of us were super thrilled and super tired. We had a mini snack - that was our substitute for lunch - with milk, fruits, and some junk from our car and drove straight to Anchorage. Rian caught a good nap on the way. We reached Anchorage just in time for dinner ~9pm at a Sushi restaurant. That night we stayed at a BnB. It was a very good big house, with many rooms. Our host was very welcoming and polite. We slept very well, with Rian having his own small bed in our room.