Many years ago while sitting around my favorite drinking hole a buddy and I decided we would climb a mountain and what better mountain to climb than the highest peak in North America, Mt. McKinley or Denali for the locals?  Two months later I moved to Africa and so we changed our goal to climbing the highest peak in Africa, Mt. Kilimanjaro with hopes of eventually working our way to Denali.  Long story cut short, after Kilimanjaro I discovered scuba and my hiking boots discovered the closet.  So when Melanie chose Anchorage for her marathon my vigor for seeing Denali was fully renewed, just this time from the comforts of a plane.  Fortunately there are tours that fly out of Talkeetna, a two-hour drive from Anchorage (more on the drive and Talkeetna in another post) that will fly up and around the peak as well as the two neighboring peaks and then land on the glacier on the south side of the peak.  Along the flight we were able to see tents set up at base camp as well as another camp set further up the mountain.  Aside from the mountain we were mesmerized by the length of the glacier, the depth of the valleys, the heights of the surrounding mountains, and just the overall beauty of the entirety of the flight.  Given that this was the first day of our trip and our first excursion of many to come we were concerned that we may have peaked way too early in our trip.

A lot of people have questioned what type of plane we flew in.  First of all, it really wasn’t all that small as it sits (not necessarily comfortably) 8 including the pilot.  It does have skis on it, naturally in order to land on the ice of the glacier that are raised and lowered using a manual hydraulic pump.  Funny story, in my mind, about the pump is that during the flight to the glacier I noticed the pilot constantly working a handle in between the pilot and copilot seat.  Not being very bright, I could not figure out what it was and started thinking that perhaps it was for pumping fuel from one tank to another or maybe breaking ice on the wings, or who knew.  Sad to say it took me until the return flight to figure it out.  Anyway, below are a few pictures of our plane on the glacier as well as a few of the other planes from the tiny airport.

The flight out to Denali and the glacier was maybe 45 minutes and we learned all types of interesting fun things from the pilot, of which I can remember very little as I was in awe of the scenery and taking pictures.  I do remember that Denali is over 20,000 feet and was first climbed in 1903.  It is surrounded by about 6 other mountain peaks, of which I could tell you only Moose’s Tooth just because I liked the name.  The rest you can check out on Wikipedia or you can be like me and sit in awe of the beauty of the photos below.

Ok, so these photos aren’t so beautiful, just us “summiteers” resting comfortably before takeoff.  Notice Melanie resting comfortably in first class, otherwise known the back of the plane where they put the tiny ones with the survival gear “in case of an accident”.

Here is what I thought was my first view of Denali, only to find out it was just the beginning of a series of a few peaks leading up to Denali.

 

And here is my real first view of Denali.

The rest is just a series of photos where I fell in love with zooming in and out on mountain sides, glaciers, and snow…

After flying around and over several peaks for a bit we dropped down into a deep and beautiful valley hovering over a glacial flow that was recently measured at close to 4000 feet and then suddenly we turned the corner and “softly” put the skis down on the ice for a fairly smooth landing where my friends were more than happy to leave the recently crippled author hobbling close to the plane.  When we landed there was one other plane there, but before we left there must have been seven planes on the tarmac made from glacier.  It was fascinating how one yellow sled stuck in the middle of the glacier marked the “runway”.

Notice the yellow sled on the left hand side of the photo below.

My friends quickly left me behind…

And enjoyed watching me struggle with my injury in the ice…

I finally caught up with them, but I broke a sweat doing it and had to shed the fleece.

But in the end I didn’t harbor any ill feelings…

To give some perspective as to what is like to be on this glacier in the shadows of the tallest peak in North America, Mike and I were standing there just admiring the view and we heard a buzzing sound and started looking around and could not figure out what was causing the noise.  We looked around for at least a minute until all of a sudden it was like a plane had come out of nowhere.  The thing is that the plane had been in plain sight the entire time; it is just that the enormity of the space around us made it nearly impossible to spot it until it was directly upon us.  Can you spot it?

Before we knew it, our time was up and it was back on the plane and heading back to the land of the unfrozen.  Along the way I also fell in love with taking photos of the glacial pools that form along the flow as well as the textures that form on the flows.  I just wish the photos could capture how blue the water looked.

After the landing it was time to celebrate our successful “summit”, at least for the boys, and so it was time to head back into town for a few beers.  But that story will have to wait until the next post and perhaps until I purchase more space after using it up with all of these photos.

EDITORS NOTE: In an effort to save space I have tried to combine photos into “movies”.  Feel free to let me know your thoughts on how well this did or did not work.