Adventures out of Talkeetna, AK

We wanted to do something to make up for not being able to experience the Denali National Park. Our decision was to extend the exploration of the small town of Talkeetna over the course of two days while we camped at the Susitna Landing Campground. On Tuesday, July 9th we drove into Talkeetna and walked around to get an overall feel, eat some lunch and schedule a jet boat tour for the afternoon which travels up one of the three rivers that converge here.

Our 2-hour boat trip began aboard the fifty-two passenger “Talkeetna Queen". We traveled twenty miles up the Susitna River; our captain and the naturalist talked about the history and rivers in the area, as well as information about the greater Denali area. We stopped to take a ¼-mile leisurely nature walk to a Dena’ina Indian Encampment; they were the earliest native settlers in the area. We also visited an authentic trapper’s cabin with its original furnishings and viewed how trappers lived in “Bush” Alaska at the turn of the century. We saw a demonstration about trapping methods and viewed a display of animal furs from the local area.

Before leaving Talkeetna, we contacted one of the aerial tour companies to inquire about the cost and availability of a Denali flight. The group decided to go-for-it and we got booked for a flight on Wednesday, July 10th in the early evening.

During Wednesday afternoon the weather was great, mostly clear skies and warm enough to sit outside to hang out around the campsite. As the afternoon progressed into the early evening, however, we could see the weather beginning to worsen with an approaching front and rain clouds. We were all hopeful that our 6:30 PM flight would not be canceled.

Before our flight we stopped at Kahiltna Birchworks to tour their birch syrup business. Dulce and Michael East tap 10,000 trees near Talkeetna and purchase sap, berries, and chaga from local collectors. The production facility and tasting room is conveniently located one mile off the Parks Highway at mile 1.1 of the Talkeetna Spur Road. They offered a fun and educational tour of the facility revealing the joys and difficulties of a short and intense harvest. FUN FACT: It takes about 120 gallons of birch sap to make one gallon of birch syrup whereas maple syrup only requires 40 gallons of sap to produce a gallon of syrup. We tasted the different birch syrups they produce with sap collected throughout different times of the harvest and noticed the flavor change .

For our aerial tour we selected K2 Aviation, This Denali Flightseeing Company, is family owned and operated by the Rust family who has been flying Alaska’s back country since 1963. Located in this quaint town of Talkeetna, K2 offers spectacular flight-seeing opportunities of Denali, North America’s tallest mountain (20,310 feet). They have experienced pilots who not only fly the aircraft, but provide you with a interesting narration of the towering granite peaks, majestic glaciers, and breathtaking views. We included with our flight a glacier landing hoping for a once in a lifetime experience.

We arrived in Talkeetna early enough to go get some ice cream in town, then it was off to the K2 flight facility at the airport with our fingers crossed. We approached the service counter to check in. We had originally booked the "The Great One" with a glacier landing, a 2 hour flight at $555 per person, but due to the weather's unfavorable changes to the back side of the mountain, we had to modify to the "Denali Flyer" with a glacier landing (at the pilots discretion). This is their most popular tour for $495 per person at 1.75 hours in length. If we didn't land on the glacier they would deduct $125 each off our flight..We all agreed, this was still worth the cost. They weigh all the passengers for the flight; we donned a pair of glacier landing "over boots" and waited. We met our pilot named Josh and proceeded to our aircraft with our group of six plus one other couple, We were flying in a de Havilland Turbo Beaver.

The de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver is a single-engine high-wing propeller-driven short takeoff and landing (STOL) aircraft developed and manufactured by de Havilland Canada. It has been primarily operated as a bush plane and has been used for a wide variety of utility roles, such as cargo and passenger hauling, aerial application (crop dusting and aerial topdressing), and civil aviation duties. This iteration of de Havilland was developed is the improved model with the Mk.III Turbo Beaver, which is equipped with a Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6 turboprop engine.

The view from the air was stunning, more than we could hope for given the weather changing so quickly. The ride was amazingly smooth for the route we took through the passes and over the various glaciers. We did a fly-by over the Denali climbing base camp and could still see the tents and equipment on the snow below. As we approached the "Amphitheater" feature and glacier landing site we got the word from our pilot that there was a strong tail wind that wouldn't allow us the opportunity to safely land. Even though we didn't get to see the top of Mt. Denali, we did get to experience this fabulous part of the Alaska Mountain Range from the air. It was definitely worth the price of admission!