Sitting in the Airport.  Last electronics.  I told him that no electronics for the trip.  Dash spent the last two vacations complaining about electronic time use, so this time I said "No electronics.  You'll still complain, but you'll be looking out the window while you do."

all pictures on this page are linked to full-size pictures

We landed in Anchorage at about midnight with a hotel reservation a hundred miles away in Talkeetna, gateway to Denali.  I had heard that a flight around Mt. McKinley was pretty cool and that landing on a glacier on McKinley was one of those Lifetime memories.  You betcha!

There was a cloud ceiling of at below 10,000 feet on the south side.  It was really cool.  The pass below to the right was called 747 Pass.  It was really cool.  Looking out the left side you could see a wall of rock and looking out to the right you see another wall, snow below and the clouds right above us.  The pilot is on the radio suggesting paths and passes for the other planes in the air. We were thankful that he had been flying Denali for 13 years.
Two shots of Denali from the north (I could be off a bit in direction).  We're below 10,000 ft, so we're less than halfway up.  This was as high as we could go in an unpressurized plane.  We turned back around to the east and back then to the south to head to our glacier for a jaunt.

Next we landed on Ruth Glacier, your typical big ole mountain valley, just covered in snow. Lots of snow.

No manmade stuff. Just nature. And on a scale so broad it was hard to really fathom.  That wall behind Dash looked like it was 500 yards away, it was actually 5 miles.

		Landing at Talkeetna Airport

If you're in Anchorage, I recommend flying around Denali.  It is memorable for a lifetime.  If you have the time, land on a glacier. You'll be happy you did.

Next we drove down to Seward.