Flying High!

Wednesday, June 27

After having had two flights cancelled due to bad weather yesterday, all our hopes were pinned on an 8:30 reservation this morning.  Things looked semi-promising when we awoke, and an early morning call to Talkeetna Air Taxi was encouraging, if not completely positive. We arrived at the small airport with hopes high, and this time our expectations were exceeded.  We’d been upgraded to a glacier landing flight, in addition to the air-only tour of Denali and the Alaska Range that we’d originally booked!

We had a fabulous flight over rivers, deep green forests, lakes, isolated backwoods cabins, and gold mining operations before beginning to climb as we followed the Kahiltna Glacier’s path toward the highest peaks, including Mt. Foraker, Mt. Hunter, and Mt. McKinley (Denali).  Our young pilot, Jonathan, was a wonderful tour guide to the area, its history and geography, as he skillfully wove the plane between and around the peaks.  The crevasses and clear aquamarine-blue glacial lakes below were every bit as interesting as the ridges and peaks above and alongside us.

We landed on the Kahiltna Glacier at the site of the base camp where hikers are ferried to begin their three-week treks to the summit.  It was an other-worldly place, and we felt as if we were in the middle of a National Geographic special.  Everywhere we looked – the peaks, the brilliant sun, the planes, the landing strips in the middle of the snow, the hikers with their gear-laden sleds and small tents – had us pinching ourselves, grinning like fools, and snapping hundreds of photos.  When Jonathan herded us all back on board, we attempted to head back to Talkeetna, but our first takeoff was aborted, due to the “sticky” conditions caused by yesterday’s fresh snow on the glacier.  We hiked back to our original landing strip, and Jonathan flew the plane back and attempted to tamp down the runway a bit.  As we were boarding again, another TAT plane was about to return to town empty, so Tom and Mel flew back with another (even younger!) pilot, Will.  Though he looked as if he belonged rollerblading in Venice Beach, he, too, was capable and very experienced; we were in wonderful hands all the way with TAT!

When we returned to Talkeetna Air Taxi’s office, we were rewarded with our choice of hat or t-shirt as reward for our short hike after the initial return takeoff was aborted. (We didn’t tell them that we were just thrilled that our planned hour and a half flight turned into a three and a half hour “peak experience!”)  TAT is a wonderful operation, from their focus on safety to their skilled pilots, and great customer service would be hard to beat.

(Mel admits to having her life-long aversion to [OK, terror of!] small planes debunked, but also to scanning the interiors of both [small and smaller] aircraft for evidence of duct tape repairs!!)  Finding none, she put her life into the hands of two boy-pilots and thoroughly enjoyed the flights; what a trip!

We departed Talkeetna -- in our car, but still flying high after this morning’s experience  -- and headed north on the Parks Highway to yet another great cabin with a view.  Our “base camp” for exploring Denali National Park (on the ground) is the almost-town of Healy, where we’ll spend three nights.  Despite the severe limitations of the local grocery store, Donna (once again) produced a great dinner at home and we settled in to plan tomorrow’s trip to Wonder Lake, at the end of the park road.