North to Alaska 2016: North to Our Future

I thought this would make a snappy little title for todays post loyal followers.
You see the AK state motto is North to the Future so I thought it appropo to customize it a bit to suit our journey as we are headed north to Denali, the Great One, no - not Wayne Gretzky, but the most massive mountain in the world.
We left the Centennial campground in Anchorage early last Saturday morning (July 9th) and drove a couple of hours north to the funky little town of Talkeetna which explodes with tourists during the summer season. We pull in with the motorhome and towing the Fit (40' plus of Detroit/Yamamoto machinery) looking for a parking space in a jam packed little town. I drop the girls off at the Denali Brewing Company to get a table and I headed off to park. I scored on the parking and while walking over to the brewpub I notice a K2 Aviation shack advertising tour flights around Denali.

Now this is a most spectacular day and we could see the Great One from town so I saunter in to learn more about this K2 Aviation outfit.
Well, after watching their flight video I was convinced we HAD to do this. In fact, I never took my eyes off of the video as I handed her my Amex card and never even knew the price. There are some things in life where you have to just simply lay down the credit card and do it.

Funny as we were all discussing the pros and cons of doing a flight earlier and I said let's just go have lunch and we'll discuss further and make a decision. All this time Debbie and Sue had been worried that I was struggling in finding a parking space and would return in a bad mood. Imagine their happiness when I showed up at the table, laid down the glitzy K2 brochure on the table and said - it's settled, we're booked for three adults at four today. Sue cried and Debbie was shocked - this is not my usual way of doing things.
It was great!
We all fell in love with the pilot Daniel and had an excellent 90 minutes viewing the most spectacular scenery imaginable on a very nice day.

Check out some pics from the flight.......

The Great One, somewhat cloud obscured...

After the flight we secured a perfect boondock spot outside of town, unhooked the Fit and rambled up to the very plush Talkeetna Lodge for cocktails and light appetizers for dinner.

Sunday morning Sue and I rolled into Talkeetna early to view Denali from the Susitna river bank and find some coffee and pastries at the Flying Squirrel Bakery.

Sue LOVED this joint, I liked it pretty well too....I have to get her a proper Virgina TECH sweatshirt though, maybe this Christmas.

We also visited the NPS Talkeetna Ranger Station where every Denali climber must register and get briefed on the rules and regulations concerning the climb. As we were sitting there, it occured to me that EVERY world class mountain climber has been thru these doors. I reasoned that to be considered a world class mountain climber you must climb the largest peaks on each of the continents and Denali is the pinnacle of North America, also considered the toughest by many because of the duration (it takes the best 3 weeks to summit) and the ever changing condidions where it could go from sunny and calm in July to 80 MPH winds, white out snow and freezing air temps. Plus you start at elevation 7000 and summit at nearly 21,000 so you climb more mountain and need time at 2000' vertical intervals to acclimate - very tough climb indeed.

We watched a video on the climb and talked with Michael the ranger on duty and he filled us in on the current climbers and conditions, very interesting.

Click on the photo to check out the climbing stats for this climbing season (May and June only). Climbers were mostly off of the mountain by now and climbing season was closed until next May.
This is Michael, the guy who checks them in and gives them the once over to make sure they can handle it.
Also notice how nearby Mt. Foraker is a MUCH tougher climb and had fewer climbers as a result.

Pulled out of the Talkeetna boondock spot around 10 am and headed north to Byers Lake inside of Denali STATE Park about an hours drive south of the Denali NATIONAL Park entrance. The State Park is actually much closer to Denali Mountain than the National Park. It also served our purposes quite nicely in being a beautiful spot to camp next to a gorgeous alpine lake with handsome views of Denali and a convenient launching point for entering the National Park the next morning.

I am going to close this one out for now because I know you guys have been looking for a blog update and wanted to get this out to let you all know that we are in most fine shape and having a ball. Updates have been slow due to lack of cell coverage and the fact that we were so busy having a grand time in Denali NP.

I will update our last few days in Denali NP later on as there is just too much to cover in this one.

I am posting this Friday nite July 15th and we just had dinner with Mark, Kim and Blake and we are SO happy to have all of these wonderful people here with us.

I just took a quick poll of the LD occupants Sue and Debbie - it was a unanimous "I'm so happy right now"...enough said gentle readers.

Off to Kenai (pronounced Keen-eye) Peninsula tomorrow AM.

Stay tuned for some epic stories from Denali....let's leave it at this - we had 4 incredibly clear days with picture perfect conditions of Denali. All of the guides/rangers we spoke to said they couldn't remember a better stretch of 4 days in a row at Denali. It was unbelievable, I'll leave you with these couple of shots as a teaser for the next update.
Later good folks and thanks for following along.