Arrival in Talkeetna. Talkeetna is small – 600-800 people, depending on who you talk to. The ‘downtown’ is about a quarter mile long, maybe half, and is basically just one street. Most of what you need is within walking distance, and most people going through are either part of tour groups, or have a car/rv. The result of that is that there isn’t really any transit that is designed for those of us NOT in one of those groups. We would learn later that Sam and I were IFTs or ITFs or IFVs… some letter combination that meant we would end up in tour/cruise friendly things but were not associated with either. That isn’t relevant, but I thought it was interesting.
Likewise, Uber/Lift/Taxis weren’t really a thing, so getting somewhere beyond the downtown wasn’t the most modern process. In fact, we had asked our airbnb host how we could get to the house without a car and she didn’t know… Through a flurry of searches while at the beer garden, I managed to stumble on to a reddit post from the previous year in which some similar traveler asked my question and was met with a lot of insults for not wanting to walk. In it, one commentor replied with the name of a guy as well as his own number, saying that he did this sort of thing. I texted him to see if he was still around and still driving. Turns out, after a few minutes he was and he was. Charley became our good friend quite quickly. Also, turns out, everyone in Talkeetna knows Charley.
The plan upon arriving was to head to the office for the glacier trip company and leave our luggage, mill about the town, have lunch and then get on a plane. When we got off the train and got our suitcase, we headed into the town under a light rain. It seemed like a good idea to take the ‘quieter’ route to downtown, but my advice to anyone doing the same is to stay on the busy road. It’s not that busy and it’s paved. The quiet route had me hoisting up my rollerbag onto my shoulder and traipsing through muddy streets. Again, it’s a small town so it wasn’t very far, but still, I made it unnecessarily difficult.
We arrived at the little cabin/office for k2 aviation. The woman working there relayed info that it was looking unlikely that we would fly out today due to conditions. But on the plus side, we could store the bag. She said to come back closer to the flight for final confirmation. We went on to part 2 of the plan which was lunch at Denali Brewpub. By the end of the trip, Sam and I would spend quite a bit of time between here and the Fairview Inn beer garden - just good places to hang out and rest. The food at the brewpub was decent - it seemed to get a very high ranking amongst the locals - though I will say, their homemade hummus was actually phenomenal. I would have it multiple times and come to the same result.
After lunch we wandered around through the shops for a bit, though the cold and the light rain made it more of a plan of outdoor avoidance until the weather cleared up a bit and we were optimistic for the afternoon trip. Sam had booked us on a little prop plane that would fly us out over Denali National Park on a route through the peaks to get an up close view of Denali itself and then would land on a glacier where we could walk around a bit and then head back. We headed to the office and were met with some bad news, while it wasn’t raining in talkeetna, 60km away was a different story with minimal visibility. Bummer. We rescheduled for the next day, though the weather was forecasted to be more of the same.
In place of the planned trip, Sam and I went for a mini hike. Most of the real hikes required a car to get to, and since we had the suitcase, it was going to be too complicated to bring it or be able to get back to it. Given that, we took a nice little walk down the train tracks and over the Talkeetna River. Nothing strenuous, but it was still nice. The river itself is interesting. It has a grey, pale color to it, is extremely cold, and is shallow and fast. We learned that these are all typical characteristics of rivers starting from glaciers. In particular, the grey color comes from the rocks that are pulverized by the glacier and basically become rock silt. So thats kind of cool. Another interesting aspect of Alaskan wilderness is that the forests are less varied and not as dominating as those elsewhere. We learned that the permafrost layer underneath doesn’t allow for deep roots plus the obvious need for the trees to be of robust stock to make it through the winters really limit diversity. The result is that there are basically 8 trees that we saw, with at least 70% of them being black spruce and most of the rest being birch. However, since we were there during the summer, there was no shortage of flowers. Flowers everywhere - both in natue and in planters in every place we went. Also pretty cool.
After the walk, we decided to head to our lodging to check it out so we called Charley and he arrived in a big old 90s suburban and brought us to our place in the middle of nowhere. We settled in and then went off to Denali Brewing across the road (which is the real reason Sam chose this particular location (in hindsight, staying in the town is probably the right move if you don’t have a car, though I’m not sure it really made much of a difference overall.
One fun note on Denali Brewing. Known for their beers, they also have spirts and ciders. When you first order a drink, they give you a piece of paper and they mark off circles based on what you get. For whatever reason, they limit you to three beers, three glasses of cider, and three ounces of spirit. Not OR, but AND. So if you have three beers, you can’t have another. But you CAN have three glasses of cider. Then after that, no more whiskey or cider, but sure, why not three shots of whiskey… I wasn’t planning on anything more than 3, but still, interesting rules.
July 10th – Lazy river and the real flight
The next day we had the operator of ###### the river rafting tour show up outside our apt in a beat up old car. The weather was still grey as we piled in and drove to there office in ###### at the entrance point to our trip down the river. Given that Sam did 95% of the planning for the activities in Alaska, I hadn’t really looked into any of the details of each thing. As we headed over to get into the raft it became clear that this would not be a wild white water adventure, but a chill nature cruise. They had a full on, metal framed white water raft, but our seats were padded swivel seat that you might see in a fishing boat and only 2 oars that would be in the hands of the guide (which he mostly used to steer and slow us down). By the time we piled in, the sun had broken through and we were in for a great morning. The trip would be an informative and pretty float down with various plants, flowers, fish, and birds called out, including a nice stop and viewing of a bald eagle sunning itself while keeping an eye on its young offspring hanging out in the nest. While on the trip, ##### mentioned that they were thinking about starting a nighttime run with wine and a charcuterie board and it made me really want to do that given the relaxation of this one. While it wasn’t an adrenaline rush of a rafting trip, it was very pleasant with a lot of beauty to see.
At the end of the ride, we got a ride into downtown, had a moose burger (or I did at least) and then chilled out at the Fairview Inn beer garden and played games until heading over to the airstrip (stopping at the Talkeetna cemetery along the way). Once we arrived we got the good news, we would be heading up.
The plane had 8 people plus the pilot, so we were put into a group and got onto a little red plane from the 1950s, a de Havilland Turbine Otter - the pilot stressed its ship of Theseus like nature and how great of a plane it was. We took off and headed for Denali. The sky had some clouds, but was mostly clear and blue with a lot of sun. We had near perfect weather, our pilot would later say we had an 8 out of 10 day, maybe a 9 - can’t ask for more than that.
The whole trip is maybe one of my favorite things I’ve done while traveling. We got to see the landscape change from the forests to the mountains, soar past the lower peaks and over glaciers and make a couple of passes with a perfect view of Denali. Then we came down on a glacier, making a smooth landing and then piled out into the crisp air where we had perfect views of Denali (the whole area really) and took pictures and threw snowballs before heading taking off by sliding down the glacier and lifting into the air. After more glacier flyovers and keeping even lower than before, we went back over the forests, seeing black bears and moose along the way. Honestly, just an absolutely fantastic afternoon. I can’t recommend this enough, especially if you get lucky on the weather. The pictures and videos don’t really do it justice.
The rest of the evening was more chilling out and eating (more hummus of course). As an interesting side note. This town was supported by part time residents, children, and foreign workers on seasonal visas. Given how short the summer is, there isn’t really any other way to get the appropriate amount of workers in to support all of the tourism. Waitstaff from eastern Europe and Asia, mother’s putting their kids to use clearing plates and as hosts at restaurants, heck, even Charley was a part timer with plans for just being here a few summers. Very fascinating.
July 11th – 2027!
On the train over, a family sitting near us started asking us questions about what we were planning on in Talkeetna and started asking whether we knew of any areas to see dogsleds in Denali. I don’t know why they thought we knew, especially since we weren’t going to Denali. However, it seemed like it could be fun so we looked into it and it turns out that in Talkeetna (still no idea about Denali), you can go to a dogsled kennel and play with the dogs. Even better, one of the kennels - the kennel of 6 time winning iditarod champion Dallas Seavey - not only let you meet the dogs, but would also let you ride a custom summer sled through the woods (it had wheels on it). We signed up for a morning time slot and today was the day. Unfortunately, they didn’t want to pick us up at the airbnb so we had to have Charlie bring us to ‘downtown’ where we could wait at the offices (which were never open while we were around - I asked about it later and Chloe told us that they are generally short on staffing, so most times it sits empty unless they have extra time). A big van pulled up and we met the driver - sadly I’ve forgotten her name - a college student who lovd alaska and planned to move out here after graduating. She picked us up along with a family(?) of 6, might have been 2 families - it wasn’t clear and I didn’t need to know. Side note, many of our tours and groupings involved Indian families - perhaps a coincidence of timing, perhaps a bucket list item for Indians - but it was notable how consistently we encountered them throughout this trip. We drove off to the kennels and got to see the trophies and then we met our guides.
We were broken into 2 groups, and by that I mean Sam and I were separated from the family(?) and got to hang out with Chloe Beatty. Chloe was awesome. Originally from Lakeville MN and had grown up around dog sledding and now studying to be a vet. She gave us all the info on the Seavey kennel and some of the stories of the the various dogs there. She actually had some of her own dogs alongside the official Seavey dogs at the kennel and was preparing to race in 2027 (I marked my calendar). She was an absolute pleasure to have as a guide and told stories about the most decorated dog of the kennel, ######. And how even after being retired from racing and training, whereby they are brought into the house as a full pet, he just wanted to go back out and be with the pack outside with the rest of the dogs so they let him. Side note: my favorite dog was one of the house dogs who apparently just never wanted to run, even as a pup he just didn’t participate and just wanted to chill with the people, so they let him. Loved it. Another side note: sled dogs are not the huskies of my (your?) imagination. These are not the big, beautiful, purebred Siberian huskies of the movies. These are smaller, skinny, marathon running mutts. More of a coyote than a wolf. Chloe joked that Siberians are known as slow-berians to mushers - its a fun pun.
We also heard the stories of a rare female sled dog that was knocked out of the last race when attacked by a moose, and we got to see the sled from the last winning run. Interesting to me, the sleds are made from hockey sticks. Cheap, strong, easy to replace. I would not have guessed that, but it makes sense given how little money is in racing. Winning the Iditarod nets you between $50k and $75k, depending on the sponsors that year - so just enough to feed your dogs for the year.
And then we got to meet the puppies, and it was every bit as great as you’d expect. Chloe told us what they look for in the puppies from a sledding perspective, how they are named, and what their training procedures are like. All legit interesting.
After meeting all the dogs, it was time to drive the sled. We were going second, as the other group went sledding first and then were getting to meet the dogs. This is relevant because one of the most hilarious parts of the whole tour was when they were outfitting the sleds. The helpers/guides (all women, for whatever reason), brought out the summer sleds, and once they did the dogs ALL went NUTS. Barking, running, jumping - the kennel turned to total mayhem. As the guides grabbed the various dogs and brought them over to the sleds, they were pulling the guides every which way and being absolute bonkers - it was hillarious. The dogs were hooked up the family got into place and then as soon as the sleds took off and it was clear to the other dogs they they weren’t picked, the excitement instantly turned to sorrow as they all started howling in unison. It was wild. I couldn’t stop laughing. Those dogs wanted nothing more than to run with the sled.
When it was our turn, I started as the driver and Sam was the passenger - we would switch places a couple of times for water breaks for the dogs (summer is quite hot for them). Chloe ran in an atv ahead of us to help us pace at 8 mph to help train the dogs on speed - otherwise they would push way faster out of excitement. Part of their training was learning a consistent pace. (Chloe came from shorter course racing where the dogs pushed more towards 20 mph paces). Driving the sled was surprisingly easy. honestly , the dogs knew what they were doing and most of the drivers role was to sit on the brake to slow them down. We went off through the woods and back and it was a blast. Highly recommended event. However, at the restaurant the night before, we did hear about another option - Chloe mentioned it as well. You can take a helicopter out to a glacier and be dropped off to drive a real sled in the snow. Chloe would be heading out to the camp on the glacier the next week to run those tours. That would probably be fun as well, though I have no regrets for our choice.
After the ride, we headed back to ‘downtown’ where we grabbed a last bite and beer before heading back to the train. The ride back was on a similar, though technically different train back to Anchorage. This guide lacked Ari’s charisma, but overall it was still a pleasant ride with better weather throughout.