Day 5 July 8, 2022, Friday, Talkeetna

John and I met our little group of intrepid adventurers outside of the Talkeetna Alaskan Lodge after breakfast as instructed. The shape of the building was more of a hotel than the place we stayed near Denali National Park. Denali Bluff Hotel called itself a hotel, but as far as how the buildings sat, it didn’t feel like a hotel. The many buildings were all one story and variously scattered across the slope of the mountain, while the Talkeetna Alaskan Lodge was a large, white rectangular building with three or four stories like a hotel. We walked around the building and took several pictures of the great view they had of The Mountain. Then we loaded up on the bus with our luggage for our next adventure.

One more mode of transportation: Ski plane

The drive to the airport wasn’t very long and we were deposited in front of a low-slung building where we checked in. We flew with K2 Aviation. Here’s a picture of the airplane with John and me in front.

Before the flight, they got us all outfitted for the walk around on the glacier. Some people had not worn their waterproof, high-top hiking boots, so the plane company offered people some high-top goulashes that went over their shoes. John and I had worn our hiking boots and didn’t need to take them up on those.

Our pilot’s name was Chad. While he checked out the airplane, I took this picture of him.

Co-piloting!

The plane held more than our eight-sized Nat Hab group. We were all in a line waiting to board and Chad asked the group if anyone wanted to sit in the co-pilot seat. Let me tell you, I spoke up immediately. The photo at the top of the blog is a photo John took of me there.

Being in the co-pilot seat reminded me of flying in small airplanes with my dad. He was a pilot from his service in the Navy during WWII. One of his unrealized dreams was to be a commercial airline pilot. Can you believe that they had a height limit for their pilots? I guess they had so many pilots to choose from after WWII, they could institute silly rules like that. My dad was too short by a couple of inches. He would have been flying the same airplanes as he flew in the Navy. I always felt that broke his heart a little bit. He continued to fly and sell small airplanes as long as he could, which is when I rode around in them with him.

Finally at age 80, when he couldn’t pass the FAA’s physical, he had to stop flying. I knew Dad would have thoroughly enjoyed our flight to the glacier and really enjoyed chatting with Chad about flying.

Chad explained we were flying into the Alaska Mountain Range. Here’s a photo out the window of the plane.

The glacier we flew to was called Kahiltna Glacier. It is a base camp for one of the Denali climbs. The hill we landed on is called Heartbreak Hill because once climbers come off the mountain, they still have to climb back up a large number of feet to get to the base camp on the flat area where we landed. We all wore headsets, so we could hear each other and the pilot.

I got a laugh from everyone when we were flying towards a mountain and I said very calmly to our pilot, Chad, “Uh, there’s a mountain there.” Him being a smart ass said, “What? Where?” The entire windshield was filled with mountains. He was getting lined up for landing and banked out. This guy was an amazing pilot. I never felt sick and he landed it like a feather when we got back to the airport. The glacier landing was a bit bumpier, but it was a glacier covered with snow.

Glacier

Once we landed on the glacier, we got out of the plane. He warned us to stay close to the plane so that incoming planes didn’t try to land on us. I think he also was concerned that we didn’t fall into any crevasses. I’m good with not doing that. Several people threw snowballs and wrote their names in the snow. Yep, that’s us next to the ski plane. Cool, huh?

Honestly, I wanted to be awed that we were on a glacier and I think some of our group did feel that way. Mostly, I was on a snowy field with a beautiful blue sky above and mountains all around. I think to get the feel for “glacier,” I needed to be above it to see how huge it was. Once I was on it, it was a field of snow.

The flight back to the airport was a much shorter trip. Chad didn’t give us the scenic tour as he had on the way up to the glacier. He flew straight to the airport. I gave up my co-pilot seat to another person. That seemed only fair. Once, we landed, passengers returned the shoe covers and our little group gathered for whatever was next.

Most important: Lunch

What was next was lunch! We did board the bus, but we didn’t go very far. The airport is in Talkeetna, which is a small Alaskan town. According to the Nat Hab write-up, it has been designated as a National Historic Site. Tom didn’t have any suggestions for where to eat but did suggest we go to the first place we saw before the tour buses got there. We did indeed go to the first place we saw and it turned out to be a wonderful lunch.

As a totally random choice of a restaurant, it was quite the find. We were eating early for lunch, but we were all hungry. After all, we’d just flown to the top of a glacier and tromped around on it. The Kahlitna Bistro was the first building in a row of buildings and it looked nice. The service and food turned out to be excellent and such a nice experience. We sat outside on a patio at two tables. Peter, our waiter, explained to us that he was hard of hearing, so if we would look at him while we talked to him and not wear masks, he’d be able to understand us better. We ordered lunch with no problem at all.

Karen gave him a challenge. She couldn’t decide between fish and chips and something else and asked him to choose. She said she liked to be surprised. He played along with her. She said not all servers were willing to play that game with her because they didn’t want it to be their fault if she wasn’t happy with what she got. Peter brought her the fish and chips and she loved it. I ordered some kind of rice bowl with chicken. He suggested the teriyaki sauce and I said sure. He was right. It was delicious.

Tom said we are going on something like 10 modes of transportation. So far those are what we had done:

• Jet plane
• Small shuttle
• Tourist bus
• Alaska train
• Ski plane

 We walked around the little town of Talkeetna after lunch and went into the Ranger Station there to look at their exhibits. Krista got a stamp. We walked to the Talkeetna River and then back to the bus.

Travel to Alyeska

Back on the bus and an hour or so, then we stopped somewhere to use the facilities and get ice cream. I forgot to take pictures or even write down where it was, but the ice cream was yummy and welcome.

Later, we stopped at Potter’s Marsh and saw and heard loons, such an eerie sound. I’m sure Tom and the rest of the photographers got photos of them but I don’t have one.

I had put my sweater and windbreaker in my bag under the bus and asked the bus driver if I could get to the bags again. The wind was blowing so hard! I was so glad to have on more layers. We continued to travel towards Alyeska and we saw a bald eagle over the Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet.

Our bus stopped at a ritzy ski resort called Hotel Alyeska in a little town called Girdwood. As we got off the bus, someone in our group commented, “Are you sure they’ll let riff-raff like us in?” We had Nat Hab to vouch for us though. For example, the bellhops kept asking if they could take our bags. We were used to roughing it and we said no we’d get them. Once we got to the floor where our rooms were, we discovered that we were in a cluster of rooms on the sixth floor.

We did a short hike after we arrived. On the way back and as we approached the hotel, I saw a black bear and squeaked, “Bear!” It was quite a way off. Tom said it looked like a yearling. We continued on our way to the hotel and didn’t seem to disturb it at all. In front of the gravel pile, you can see the bear.

We had dinner on our own that night. John and I felt too tired to go into town to find some dinner. I had thought there was a bistro in the hotel for winter skiers but that didn’t turn out to be the case. We ended up buying bagged popcorn and having that for dinner. It’s not like we haven’t made popcorn for dinner at home sometimes.

That was the end of Day 5, July 8, 2022. We flew to the top of a glacier, had a great lunch, and even saw some wildlife. The next day we would be going to float on a glacier-fed river in a raft. Stay tuned.

Fitbit data: 16,593 steps, 6.57 miles, 40 floors, 57 active minutes