{"id":599,"date":"2013-09-17T01:21:35","date_gmt":"2013-09-17T07:21:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/panam.whensparksfly.org\/?p=599"},"modified":"2014-08-06T06:10:56","modified_gmt":"2014-08-06T12:10:56","slug":"talkeetna-and-denali-by-air","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/panam.whensparksfly.org\/?p=599","title":{"rendered":"Talkeetna and Denali by Air"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a very welcome change of weather, we\u2019ve had three wonderful days of sunny skies. Our drive south on the Parks Highway afforded more fantastic views of Denali and the surrounding wilderness. <\/p>\n

Talkeetna, Alaska, is home to the National Parks Ranger Station where would-be Denali climbers must register for their climbing permits. Thus it has become the staging area for trips to the mountain with numerous companies offering flights to the base camp. Hoping that the nice weather would hold out for one more day, we decided to book an aerial tour of the mountain for Sunday.<\/p>\n

Talkeetna calls itself, at least according to bumper stickers, \u201cA quaint little drinking village with a climbing problem.\u201d When we arrived on Friday evening we immediately sensed a laid back hippy vibe in the town. We headed for the Denali Brewing Company for dinner, which turned out to be the best restaurant meal we\u2019ve had on the road in a couple of months. The beer was good too, and we left for our camp site full and happy.<\/p>\n

The next morning dawned clear, and we headed for the airport for our flight. Words can\u2019t really do it justice, so we put together a little video<\/a> to give you a glimpse of what we saw. It’s in HD, so be patient while it loads! Our trip included a landing on the glacier in our ski-equipped plane. Landing in the foot of fresh snow felt a lot like powder skiing! We got about 15 minutes to tromp around in the snow before it was time to board the plane for the flight back to Talkeetna.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A cat basks in the morning sun on the tail of a plane<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Quinn<\/a>

Quinn enjoying the plane ride<\/p><\/div>\n

\"On<\/a>

On the glacier<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Two<\/a>

Two ski planes ready to take off<\/p><\/div>\n

We liked the town so much that we decided to spend another night. That afternoon we did a jet boat tour up the Susitna River, and enjoyed another good meal at the brewery. On Monday, before leaving town to head toward Anchorage we stopped at the playground to let Quinn run around. The park was entirely funded by the local community and is one of the best we\u2019ve seen!<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The Talkeetna community playground<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a very welcome change of weather, we\u2019ve had three wonderful days of sunny skies. Our drive south on the Parks Highway afforded more fantastic views of Denali and the surrounding wilderness. Talkeetna, Alaska, is home to the National Parks Ranger Station where would-be Denali climbers must register for their climbing permits. Thus it has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"twitterCardType":"","cardImageID":0,"cardImage":"","cardTitle":"","cardDesc":"","cardImageAlt":"","cardPlayer":"","cardPlayerWidth":0,"cardPlayerHeight":0,"cardPlayerStream":"","cardPlayerCodec":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alaska","category-united-states"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/panam.whensparksfly.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/panam.whensparksfly.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/panam.whensparksfly.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panam.whensparksfly.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panam.whensparksfly.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=599"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/panam.whensparksfly.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":606,"href":"https:\/\/panam.whensparksfly.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599\/revisions\/606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/panam.whensparksfly.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panam.whensparksfly.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panam.whensparksfly.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}