Talkeetna is a small little village about an hour flight or a hundred miles north of Anchorage. It’s special for several reasons. It’s probably best known for it’s location just to the south of Mt. McKinley, which is also known as Denali, “The Great One,” by the first nations people. This mountain at 20,230’ is the highest in North America and attracts climbers from all over the globe.
Secondly, it’s well known in Alaska for it’s rich aviation heritage. Some of Alaska’s most famous bush pilots hail from Talkeetna where they earned their reputation for courage, piloting skills, and being the mountain climber’s and hunters’s best friends for perilous rescues.
Ever since reading “Wager with the Wind,” the story of the famous bush pilot Don Sheldon, Ken & Dwayne have wanted to come here, get to know the town, get to know it’s history, and what it would feel like to fly around these hallowed places where so much of Alaskan bush pilot history was written.
We experienced everything we expected and more the past two days. Day one we arrived, found our lodge near the airport, and walked downtown which is small, quaint, and charmingly Alaskan. We found the grass strip Don Sheldon flew from, looked it over, and made plans to land there ourselves. Then we went to check out flight seeing tours of Mt. Denali for the next day. These are wildly popular, and we weren’t certain we could secure a reservation, but we did.
We also checked with every weather source we could about the weather for the proposed Denali flight. We knew we had been blessed with excellent, perfect weather in Talkeetna. But Denali and the other giant peaks in it’s neighborhood are so massive and tall they often make their own weather … clouds, winds, and storms. In fact we were told that visitors get to see the summit less than twenty percent of the time due to clouds.
But on this morning, Wow! Oh Wow! We took our Maules to the sky to scout the cloud situation around Denali, and looking over our shoulders as we climbed above the trees, there it was, looming very large, beautiful, and cloud-free fifty miles to the north. :) Our excitement and the anticipation of our afternoon Denali flight with a glacier landing shot through the roofs of our cockpits in our own bush planes.
We made a quick right turn at the departure end of Talkeetna’s state owned airport and lined up with the Susitna River and the small, grass, historic, airstrip right in the middle of town. After accomplishing a deeply satisfying formation landing there, we shut ‘em down, and spent some time musing about the flying that had gone on there and took photos, with a giant grin on our lips and in our hearts.
Then we launched and flew toward Denali a few miles, admiring it and flying back and forth in front of it for photos. :) Time approaching for our turbo Otter Denali flight, we turned back toward the field, landed, fueled, parked, and hustled to K2 Aviation to begin a dream like flight and view of the mountain/s up close, unbelievably close, and personal. :) I really have no words for what I felt standing on the glacier at 5500’ with friends, beautiful red flying machines on skis, and towering mountains surrounding us. A few photos will have to suffice.
Onward today… North in Alaska. :) :) :) :)
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