Our journey started on July 4 of 2008. We took an early morning flight from Sioux Falls to Minneapolis and then non-stop to Anchorage. As we approached Alaska, more and more clouds came into view, and less and less landscape was visible. Luckily, the clouds broke up a little and I captured a few shots of the glacial landscape below.

Flying west gained a couple of hours for us. We arrived at Anchorage around noon and checked into Ramada Anchorage Downtown. The hotel was nicely renovated, and close to downtown. We toured downtown and found the restaurants a lot pricier than we expected, especially for halibut and salmon.

Train Ride from Anchorage to Denali

 
Early next morning, the hotel gave us a shuttle service to the railroad depot. Some of the carriages of the train have sky windows and open windows at both ends for easy sight-seeing. A tour guide alerted us to wild life as we rumbled along, and the train would slow down when something special was spotted, like a bear or a moose. 

About half way through the ride, Mt McKinley (or Denali as the natives call it) came into view. The view was blocked by hills and trees most of the time, but a long stretch of open water gave us some opportunities to have a clear view of the Big One. On the platforms of the Denali Railroad Station, big greeting signs were set up directing tourists to their pick-up buses. Our hotel Denali Bluff Hotel was up on a hill. The hotel staff delivered our luggage to our room, though the room itself was just average. When we came out to take a walk around, we saw a rainbow on top of the mountains behind the hotel, against the thickening clouds.

Denali National Park

It was drizzling when we boarded the tour bus next morning, but the sky soon cleared up and became sunny. The destination of the ride was the Kantishna Roadhouse in the heart of the park. The peak of Denali came into our view on the left, against a cloudless sky. It was so serene. We had a couple of brief stops on the way and then had a longer stop at the Visitor Center. A caraboo happened to pass by and we all withdrew to clear the way for him. Lots of clouds had developed over the the mountain range and the peak of Denali was capped by the clouds most of the time. We had a good lunch at the Kantishna Roadhouse. Some major rain storms came all the way from the mountain range to where we were. Our guide said we might be able to see some wild life on the way back since the rain would bring a cooler environment for the wild life to come out for food or exercise. Sure enough, we did see some. A highlight was a wolf running along with the bus for quite some time. I was able to capture a few shots. A couple of them turned out pretty good.  

Talkeetna

The itinerary for the next day was to have a bus ride to Talkeetna and take a small plane flight over Mt McKinley, but the weather turned out to be gloomy. After checking into Talkeetna Alaskan Lodge, we took a shuttle to downtown and checked at the K2 Station about the weather prospect for the afternoon. The answer was not very promising, though not absolutely hopeless. So, we hanged around in town waiting.

At about 3:00 p.m., they said all flights had been cancelled and they would give us a refund. We went back to the hotel and spent the rest of the afternoon walking on the trails in the area. I was able to take a number of shots of the flowers and plants around.

Part 2