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September 3, 2007

North to Alaska Day 13-Travel Day to Denali

Filed under: Alaska Adventure — Gary @ 9:57 am

June 6 2007, D-Day (63rd anniversary of the Normany D-Day landings and our trek to Denali) was mostly spent in the SUV. But we saw many sites including mountains, rivers, moose, towns and interesting tidbits along the way.

Karen made us a fantastic pancake breakfast and we were on the road by 10 after 9. The weather is gorgeous for our trip up to Denali National Park. We will actually be staying in a town about 10 miles past the park entrance called Healy. We actually made a couple stops before we hit the road in earnest in wasilla. One to fuel up and the other at Wal-Mart for a few more supplies and Alaska type keepsakes. Our next 4 nights, which are also our last, we have to fend for ourselves as for all meals since the next places we are staying are not bed and breakfast type places.

Our drive north was nice. Very sceanic to say the least. Once we got to the Talkeetna cut off we got off the main road and drove the 16 miles to this tourist town.

Talkeetna is a small town that is a base of operations for climbing and flightseeing of Denali. It was here that I wanted to booka flight seeing tour of the Alaska range withthe highlight being what people in Alaska call Denali. Most everyone else calls it Mount Mckinley.

A little background on Denali. Denali, which means the high one in the native Athabaskan tongue, is commonly known as Mount McKinley. Denali is the recognized name of the mountain in Alaska but the United States Board of Geographic Names maintains the name Mount McKinley, so named in 1896 after the Ohio govener and future US President. The dude never stepped foot in Alaska!. When Denali National Park and Preserve was established in 1980 the Alaska Board of geographic names renamed the mountain back to Denali but the federal board says it is hard for visitors to know the difference between Denali and Denali National Park so the McKinley moniker sticks. The people in Alaska and others in the know use the name Denali rather than McKinley and rely on how the word Denali is used to differentiate between the mountain and the park. Which is what I do as well. Okay, small history lesson over, back to Talkeetna and flight seeing.

So we walked around Talkeetna, got an espresso and I searched for a flight seeing tour that fit our schedule. For about $225 per person you can get in a plane and be flown around the Alaska range for about an 75 minutes flightseeing. The highlight being a glacier landing and wrapping around Denali a few times till to reach the summit.

But Denali creates its own weather and is only visible about 25% of the time. Today was one of those days that the mountain was not “out” and was socked in with clouds. So I didn’t get to do my flightseeing adventure to Denali. There were other flights but they didn’t really fit our schedule and with no Denali in there it just wasn’t worth the wait for me at that time.

So we continued on north towards our final destination, stopping at all the pull outs along the way to get some sceanic views in and oh boy were some of them seanic views. The only disappointment was that I wanted everyone to see Denali but that wasn’t to be today as the clouds were thick and stuck to the mountain. Everywhere else it was sunny blue skies for the most part but not on Denali. Uncle Eric and I have seen Denali many times before but for everyone else to travel so far and not see the mountain would be a disappoint for me. Hope tomorrow Denali is out when we travel back into Denali National Park and we get as close as you can get to the mountain without a plane. But the odds are aginst that but just maybe we’ll get lucky like at the craps table.

I promised Michelle and Nik that I would take them to Honolulu and I kept that promise heading north to Healy as we passed through the town of Honolulu Alaska. Not sure you could call it a town. There is a creek and I am sure somebody has a house in the area but that is about it, at any rate I kept my promise and it was a very cheap trip, take Honolulu off the list!

After finally arriving at the park I went into the ranger station and got our tickets for our tour back into the park set for tomorrow morning bright and early. I reserved the tour nearly 6 months in advance and the fee included park entry, which they refunded thanks to Wayne’s golden passport that gives free entry into all National Parks. After getting the tickets we went to the bookstore and got Nik’s National Park passport stamped and some other Denali trinkets including the collector’s spoon we get every place we visit out of Washington state. We are getting quite a spoon collection.

After a short drive we arrived at Healy Family Cabins near the town of Healy Alaska. I reserved the largest chalet they had which I was assured slept 8 people………..That was a stretch but we made due over the next two nights.

Michelle and I took the hid-a-bed in the living room. After taking a shower, I got my book and crawled into bed. That is when the excitement started. The hide-a-bed started to fold back into it’s self and into the couch. It had Michelle laughing so hard she had cramps in her side as she was doing her Shaggy laugh from Scobby Doo, all the while we were folded up in the bed. Good times that everyone had to come see what all the comotion was about, lol.

Tomorrow is a big day on the trip where we travel back into the park. I am fearful the weather will not great and put a damper on the tour, clouds are starting to stack up o nthe north side of the range and it looks like rain, which doesn’t stop a Mossback but we have flatlanders with us and I don’t think it will be a great for them. Hoping for the best.

There are only a few pictures attched to the photo set for this day which can be viewed by clicking North to Alaska Day 13 to the left on the home page under photo sets.

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North to Alaska Day 12-Palmer

Filed under: Alaska Adventure — Gary @ 7:10 am

June 5 2007 was a Tuesday and spent in and around Palmer Alaska. Palmer is where the Gusinsky’s lived in Alaska while Pop worked on the North Slope untill 1977 when we moved to Washington, Palmer is also where Uncle Eric was born and my Grandma and Grandpa also lived in Palmer. Pictured below is a sign naming a park for my Grandfather with his house in the back ground. The house has new owners as Grandma and Grandpa have past on and are both buried at the Palmer cemetary in the shadow of Pioneer Peak

The weather turned for the better yesterday as we arrived in Palmer yesterday and it has held into today. Sunny blue skies with the normal gusts of wind coming down off of the Knik (Ka-nick) and Matanuska glaciers.

After eating another fine home cooked breakfast from Karen we got under way kinda late, after 10am, to see the sites of the Matanuska valley, and there are many. Palmer is town that you have to drive through to get anywhere in Alaska from Anchorage. All roads or I should say road, leads to Palmer from Anchorage.

Our first destination is up to Hatcher Pass along the Little Susitna river. I was hoping Mother nature would cooperate and have an early snow melt so Hatcher Pass would be open for the driving but it was not meant to be. We could drive up as far as Independence mine which is a state park and the 2nd richest gold mine in Alaska but both the park and mine are still closed. Gorgeous drive anyhow, but the drive through Hatcher Pass is unmatched and I am sorry everyone didn’t get to see it all the beautiful things and sites on this dirt, pot hole filled road has to offer.We climbed up part of a mountain on a trail, stopped next to the river, took loads of pictures and soaked up the sites and sun. It was good to see it all again.

After driving back down into the valley we made our way to the musk ox farm but not before a stop at an over look of the Matanuska river bed. The river is large but it is hard to really tell that. It is what is called a braided river. A braided river has a huge river bed and has many channels of water that interweave with each other. The pictures don’t do this huge river bed and striking massiveness justice but it does a decent job, especially with Pioneer Peak towering in the back ground.

The musk ox farm was very interesting, it is one of the last herds of musk ox left in North America and the hair from these animals is weaved into blankets, scarves, socks and most anything else.

It is 10 times more warm than fleece, extremely light weight and very expensive. The piece that Nik is wearing in the picture would cost more than $500.

The farm has quite a lot of animals but you are not allowed to close because they will trample you, appearantly they are not the friendliest of beasts.

We even got to witness a smalled male challenge a big bull to a contest of head butting. It hurt just to watch and of course the big fella easily won out but what a way to get a girl friend, lol.

After a quick lunch in the parking lot of the musk ox farm under a huge willow tree we went back into town to visit Grandma Wanda. After our Grandmother died in 1982 Grandpa remarried to another widow in town that he met at the senior center. I know Grandpa woulda never made it as long as he did without Wanda after Grandma past away. Grandpa and Wanda were married for 23 years and lived in Palmer the entire time.
It was a nice visit, Wanda lives in the Pioneer home in downtown Palmer, if you wanna say Palmer has a downtown.

After our visit we did some supply shopping at our favorite store in Alaska, Fred Meyer, where we got some boxes for shipping some uneeded stuff home and of course more Fred Meyer brand stew!

I packed my waders and some other fishing stuff into the box but had a ton of room left over so I packed about half a suit case of shoes Michelle brought with us that she never wore. Amazing how you need a full suit case of shoes for a trip…………a full suit case, I am serious!

Next was a trip out to the Butte and to the reigndeer farm. Where the reigndeer farm is is exactly where we lived in Palmer. It sure has changed, mostly for the better. They have a huge herd of reigndeer which are just domesticated caribou. Know what the difference between reigndeer and caribou is? Reigndeer can fly!

The farm house has siding on it now rather than just the chicken wire and mortor it used to be, plus they have added onto the back. One of the big old hay barns has been torn down but it is mostly the same layout.

In addition to the reigndeer they have some bison, a couple moose, a couple pregnet blacktail deer and an elk herd. They have a big bull elk with a fantastic rack which was in full velvet at the time. The main attraction is the reigndeer herd though which are tame so you allowed to mingle with them and hand feed them. Lots of fun and it was good to see the old place.

After the reigndeer farm we went out to Grandpa’s house he had built back in the 70’s. After Grandpa had to be moved into a home the house was sold off. It was a bit run down but it looks good now with fresh paint and a new family living in it. The park in the center of the circle community still has Grandpa’s Marrs’ park sign that was put up in honor of my Grandfather always maintaining the area so the kids of the neighborhood could play there and the families could have gatherings and cook outs. After talking with the neighbors we made our way back to Karen’s.
It was a full day cruising around so we finished it off with a great Alaskan meal of freshly caught Kasilof river king salmon, fried razor clams harvested from the beaches of Ninilchek Alaska, king crab legs from the great Seattle crab boat Northwestern and some Alaskan Amber beer brewed in Juneau. The latter two were left for us by my new German friend Christian. (Nik had milk)

As always, our stay at Karen’s was fantastic. It really is like staying at home when we visit her, she really treats us and all her guests right.

It was another long day but that is what it is all about. Going somewhere and seeing all you can, that is what I try to do.

Tomorrow is a travel day up to Denali National Park which I am very excited about. I have great hopes in seeing loads of wildlife, seeing the mountain and also I hope to charter a plane for a flight seeing trip around the Alaska range with the highlight being a flight around Denali it’s self. (The mountain Denali not the park)

To check out the pictures that go with this day click on North to Alaska Day 12-Palmer to the left on the home page under photo sets.

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