You can see Denali from the airport in Anchorage but this was our first close view of the mountain. Denali is actually bigger than Mount Everest since the base of Denali is so low; it rises 18,000’ above the surrounding terrain
From Girdwood we went to a little town called Talkeetna which is a jumping off point for Denali National Park and of course for climbs on the tallest peak in North America, Denali. Talkeetna was more or less a mountain town, despite the fact that is still 100 miles or so from Denali. A beautiful spot all around. We visited in September which seemed like a great time to visit as the tourist level was very low, the mosquito's were gone, the weather was nice and everything was still opened. It seemed like a lot of place planned to close on September 20. The Park it self closed on September 17. Well the park does not actually close but they close the road that gets you into the heart of the park
Our spot on the Susitna River
The view from our deck was amazing – Mount Foraker, 17,400 feet tall
19,470 foot tall Denali towering over the Susitna River. Talkeetna is actually located at the confluence of three rivers; the Susitna, the Talkeetna and the Chulitna
The Alaska Railroad runs through Talkeetna
There are three ways to see Denali, essentially; take a 12 hour bus trip into the park, walk for 20 days or take a bush plane. We opted for the bush plane option, which was a spectacular trip. A view of the three river coming together right outside the town of Talkeetna. You can also see Mt Foraker, Mount Hunter and Denali. Also, if you look close you can see a heli in the photo. The heli is some special heli that can land and take off at high elevation for rescuing people. The history of climbing and aviation on Denali is pretty amazing
Approaching Denali you cross miles and miles of boreal forest, taiga and tundra. The terrain is so rough, full of Alder thickets, sand, massive rocks, rivers, ponds and no trails. Not to too mention 6 million acres of protected grizzly habitat. If you think about it Denali is the only place where grizzlies are essentially allowed to live as they have for the 12,000 years or however long it has been since man first encountered them in North America. It is an awe inspiring and humbling place.
Getting closer to Denali, going over 10 mile long Ruth Glacier, the terrain is extremely rugged, it looked nearly impossible to travel on foot down there
Denali again, from the plane
The Ruth Gorge. It was told to us that the Ruth Gorge is the deepest in the world at 8,000 feet deep, 3,000+ of which is buried and ice and the remaining 5,000' are in the form of vertical cliffs. Glaciers everywhere, coming in from the sides, rockfalls, crevasses . Apparently a lot of the travel around here on foot is done earlier in the year when the glaciers are covered in fresh snow, thus creating snow bridges over the crevasses. The ice down there is supposed to be 3,800 feet thick. The scale is hard to imagine; 5,000 foot cliffs over a glacier that's a mile or two wide and up 3,800 foot thick
The pilot flew very close to a lot of the peaks. You know like flying through the mountain pass so close that you could almost touch the ground then coming through the pass to be thousands of feet above some gorge, it was pretty exhilarating, like a live I max film. In this case the pilot approaches Mooses Tooth too low and you are thinking, this is it
Then he makes a sharp, banked left hand turn
The Ruth Amphitheater lies right below the summit of Denali but the scale is deceiving since “right below” in Alaska terms means 3 vertical miles
Another sketchy fly through a pass in the mountains
A group of people camped on the ice at about elevation 7,000’
Coming in for a landing on Eldridge Glacier
We landed on the shoulder of Explorer Peak which was a bout 8,500 feet tall and had a bunch of fresh snow
The runway on a glacier
he plane was a 60 year old bush plane, it looked like everything was operated manually, down to the skis for landing on the snow; it took the pilot about 10 minutes to pump the skis down for landing on the snow and then pull them back up for landing on the pavement. At one point the engine completely stopped in mid air and there was silence. The pilot had little bit of a surprised look on his face, pulled some lever, flicked a switch and 9 cylinder rotary engine was off again
Airborne again and jonesing for fresh tracks. Makes you think about Tom Burt and Jim Zellers doing a first descent on Denali in 1991 and then again not
Denali and some extremely rugged terrain around Tokositna Glacier
resources
www.susitna-river-lodging.com
www.nps.gov/dena
www.talkeetnaair.com