Welcome To The Smoggy Skies
It dawned without a cloud in the sky, but we couldn't see the mountain this morning. We assumed that it was just morning haze...
After an easy morning, we headed off in Harry & Sally's Roadtrek for Talkeetna and the Talkeetna Air Taxi to Denali. We actually left a bit early since our flight wasn't scheduled until 12:30, but we wanted some time to look around town before the tour buses arrived.
We stopped in a few shops and the The Roadhouse Cafe for cinnamon buns. We had the Nutty Bun, covered in chopped pecans. It was heavy, but good, but not as good as the first one in the Yukon.
There was also a stop at a fishing guide's shop, where Harry chatted with the staff about fishing locally. It turns out that there isn't much now since the state closed the King Salmon season early and the next type of salmon aren't coming in for couple of more weeks. Looks like no salmon fishing until we get down to the Kenai. There certainly isn't any in Denali National Park.
Harry and Nina the dog were staying in town to continue looking around while Ellen, Sally and I took our sightseeing flight. It was a bit early but we walked over to the Talkeetna Air Taxi log cabin at the airport just across the tracks from downtown.
When we checked in we found out that our tour, the Grand Denali, which flew around the mountain, was not going to happen since the air on the north side was too turbulent, so we went with the Mountain Voyager tour which is the next longest and just flies across the south side instead of around. It was about 15 minutes shorter.
We still couldn't see the mountain. It turns out that the haze was from wildfires further north and the winds have brought enough smoke south to make it very hazy and it looks like it might last several days. While we couldn't see it from a distance, there would be no problem in the air.
We were quite early, but the plane and pilot were there and ready to go, so the three of us climbed into our Cessna 185 along with Paul, the pilot, who we later found out was also the owner of Talkeetna Air Taxi and took off for the glaciers and the mountains.
While still a little hazy the flight was spectacular, first flying along the rivers and over the tundra to the foot of the Tokositna Glacier then up the glacier and over a pass to the Kahiltna Glacier, which is an enormously wide and long river of ice. We flew over the now empty climbing base camp and up along much of the climbing route. We did several figure eight loops across the face of Denali so it could be seen from both sides of the plane and then went though several high passes between nearly vertical mile-high granite walls, many of which have never been climbed because they are just too had to get to...and get out of. We then followed the Ruth Glacier out of the mountains and back to Talkeetna.
The Tokositna and Ruth Glaciers had huge moraine fields at their ends. Paul, who has been flying here for 30 years, said that they have been receding the entire time and it seems to have accelerated in the past decade. The ice on the glaciers has been thinning about 20 feet a year. This past winter was not very snowy by the usual standards and much of the snow which would cover and add to the glaciers, even on the upper parts has melted away already exposing earlier years. There were hundreds of surface ponds on the glaciers, a beautiful clear turquoise blue, but probably more than there should be at this time of year.
We got back to Harry quite a bit earlier than he had expected, just after he'd finished his lunch, but this didn't stop us from getting a burrito from the Talkeetna Takos food trailer and having our own lunch. After a short stop for blueberry ice cream, we were off. We stopped at Cubby's Market when we got out to the main highway for a few provisions, then back to the campground
We still can't see the mountain.
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