Slept late and had a quick breakfast at McDonalds before starting our day's adventure about 9 am. We drove 114 miles north to the very old town of Talkeetna.
Two hours plus and our first stop
was for a water closet for me at the beautiful local library. Then we stopped by the local tour company to find out if there was a possibilty ofgetting a tour by air of Mt Denali later today... at that time there was nothing but clouds. They were booked solid today but they had an opening on Thursday. Decided to see how today went before committing to a return trip.
Drove on into the small tourist town and finally located what they said was the best views of Mt. Denali, the tallest mountain on the USA . Jim had done his research to find the viewing spots.
Parked and walked a short distance to the shoreline. Here we had an added bonus that there are three separate rivers that all merge here. The view we found was only a tiny peek of the peak.
BUT, we joined the chorus with those around us snapping many photos as we exclaimed: we've finally seen Mt. Denali! We don't have to spend $$$ to see it after all .
We finally walked a bit further along the rivers and found a much better view. Suddenly we
saw the clouds begin to move. Slowly, but surely, God gave us a gift and cleared the entire mountain top. Truly a magnificent view and we've many photos to share.
Hated to leave but finally returned to our car and a short visit to the town and the Historical Museum.
The best part of the museum was the 45 minute talk by the ranger who took us day by day through the 21 day hike that you can do with the park service rangers to summit the 29,700 ft. Peak. I was exhusted by the time we finished our imaginary adventure. FYI ... I showed the ranger one of my photos and he said we truly had an unusually great view today. He said only about 30% of the visitors ever see the mountain during their visit due to the convergence of the Serbian and the Pacific weather systems that create almost continual storm systems
and the saying that Denali creates it's own weather.
We are driving back to Anchorage now ... feeling very good about today's adventure.
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