Alaska – Denali “The Tall One”

The first day of our official trip was jam packed! 

It started with bag pull at 6:30 am (bag pull – put our suitcases outside our door and someone whisks them away to the bus).

Waiting for the bus. 

We were on the bus at 7:30 for the Rail Depot. 

Annie would be our guide for the week.  She was very enthusiastic and knowledgeable.  She lives in Alaska.  A lot of the working people we encountered live in the lower 48 and come up to Alaska to work during the summer. 

The Alaska Railroad runs 470 miles from Seward up to Fairbanks.  This segment of our trip on the Denali Express would take us from Anchorage up to Talkeenta. Our group had the last car on the train. We had the "GoldStar Service", which means that we were in a special double decked observation car with panoramic windows. 

The bottom deck is the dining room.  We enjoyed a very nice breakfast.

Reindeer sausage is very popular. 

It was good.

Since we were in the caboose, we could go out the back of the train.  It was very windy!

There were only a handful of other people in our car that were not in our group, so we had plenty of room to spread out.

 

On some of the curves we could see the front of the train.

We saw 4 moose and got our first look at Denali.  Denali means “The tall one.” We were told that only 30% of visitors get to see Denali, as it is generally shrouded in clouds. So we felt a little lucky!

Our stop was Talkeetna where we got off the train about 11:00.  There were lots of folks waiting to board the train. These folks would be heading north to Denali or Fairbanks. 

We had a couple of hours in Talkeetna for lunch and sightseeing. 

 

The population of Talkeetna is about 2000.  It is known for having a cat for mayor for 20 years.  His name was Stubbs.  The new mayor of Talkeetna is also a cat. His name is Denali.

We had a group lunch at the Denali Brewing Company.

After lunch we were on our own to walk around town.  We walked down to “The River”.

This area is called Lingasdlent which translates to “Where 3 rivers join”.

Talkeetna River is on the right.  Susitna River is straight ahead.  Chulitna River is on the far left.

The rivers are glacier fed.  All 5 species of salmon are in these waters.

We also had more great views of Denali, the tallest mountain in North America at 20,310 feet (right side of photo), along with Mt. Foraker at 17,402 feet (left side of photo) and Mt. Hunter at 14,573 feet (center of photo).

The water was a little cool. 

 

After lunch we were back on the bus to Talkeetna Lake. 

Our group split up for the hike and we only had 6 people with Josh as our guide.

There are thousands of lakes in this area, and we walked by a few on our hike.

This is X Lake (Yes! There are Y and Z lakes also).

Common Loon

We picked a few blueberries to munch on. 

Josh, our guide, was very knowledgeable about the plants and mushrooms in the area. He was eating his way down the trail. He also pointed out a tree fungus called Chaga, which is reputed to have numerous health benefits and it has been harvested for centuries as a traditional medicine. 

 

Chaga

Josh took our picture standing in the exact spot a brown bear was caught on the game cam a couple of days ago. 

One thing worth mentioning is that Alaska was having one of the hottest, driest summers on record, and we were all sweating pretty good. Everyone in the group had packed plenty of warm clothing, but we certainly weren't needing it!

After our hike we got back on the bus for our hotel.  We arrived about 3:30 and had a couple of hours to walk around before dinner.

 

Most lodges in Alaska don't have air conditioning, as it normally isn't needed. Luckily our room had a fan, as it was 80 degrees when we arrived.

Our room:

 

We had a group dinner.  After dinner Josh (our hiking guide) gave a very nice video presentation of Alaska.

Next time: Did you know there is a Denali STATE Park?