Jun 25, 2007 - Talkeetna, AK

Talkeetna, 113 miles N of Anchorage on a spur road off the Parks Hwy is known as "A small drinking village with a climbing problem". Climbers from all over the world come to Talkeetna in the spring to climb 20,320 ft Mt McKinley. Flight services ferry the climbers to various base camps. Three weeks earlier the town was packed with would be climbers. Now is full of tourists but still there are lots of locals who are more than willing to talk about there town's history as a trading post, gold rush town, and a major construction town when the...

Jun 15, 2007 - Talkeetna

Friday June 15th - Day 44 - Mile 8030 Today was pretty much a laid back day because it had to be. Our Wasilla experience was the pits. Not long after we hooked up at the campground, about 5:00 pm, we were blasted with high volume hard rock music. The campground was located next to a neighborhood which is largely state assisted - the Alaskan version of a project. According to the campground owners some of these folks took it upon themselves to bulldoze out a sizeable section of woods behind the campground. The resulting clearing was serving...

Jun 5, 2007 - Goodbye Denali

We say goodbye to Denali National Park today. We have had such a wonderful time visiting there and viewing all of the mountains and animals. Thanks for letting us visit your home. We drove on south towards Anchorage, but are going to stop for a couple of days in Talkeetna. Joe had thought about heading on down to Anchorage and just setting up a base for a couple of weeks instead of moving around, but I really wanted to go to Talkeetna. I was a huge fan of the show "Northern Exposure" and it was based on this town, so I just had to see it....

Nov 10, 2006 - Alaska

I didn't want to leave this journal, with us stuck at the airport. We finally boarded a plane back home to florida, where we were greated by Tai's family. We stayed only long enoungh to gather our things, and say our goodbyes before we started the drive to Alaska. We had a few stops along the way. We stayed in Ohio to visit Tai's grandparents, then drove to Washington to visit mine. It was really good to see everyone, since we don't know when the next time we'll be back south again. The whole trip up to Ak only took us 7 days, since we...

Jul 24, 2006 - Trapper Creek

Norm fished in the am caught 8 to 9 pound silver salmon that took 20 minutes to land. Release it but didn't get anymore. Took drive down Petersville Road first 15 miles ok but then it was good we were in the jeep with 4 wheel drive. We got to the Fork's Roadhouse. It was established in 1900 to serve thousand of miners living in the areas tent cites. It is still the original construction. It is noted as the 9th most traveled to place with snowmobiles in the US but is open year round. The current owner purchased it in 2005. They have live...

Jul 4, 2006 - Talkeetna and the Drive to Denali

The next morning, we were up and ready for the last adventure: Denali National Park, the mother of all parks, home to the mother of all mountains in North America. Some know it as Mount McKinley, but the Alaskans call it by its original name: Denali. It was a LONG drive to Denali, so to break up the drive we stopped and had lunch in Talkeetna, which we just loved. We even got to watch their 4th of July parade, which in a town that small only lasted about 5 minutes!!

Aug 2, 2005 - Talkeetna

Talkeetna is known as the collection point for all the climbers that tackle Mt. McKinley each year. The train from Anchorage stops here and there is a small airport where they transport the climbers to a glacier at the 7200 foot level. This year about 1300 climbers attempted the mountain and more than half of them maid it to the summit at 20,230 feet. The town is about 60 miles south of the mountain and you get a great view on good days. We got lucky and could see the mountain both the evening we arrived and the next day. It is an eclectic...