Lowes Travels

Northern Exposure – Talkeetna, Alaska

While  roaming around Denali National Park, we hoped that we would not be one of the 30% of visitors who won’t see Denali. It turns out all we had to do was move on to the next destination, and viola! Her magnificent beauty appeared behind the clouds.

Mt Mckinley or Denali
Mt Mckinley or Denali a rare appearance

Denali showed its awesome beauty with just a few cloud cover. We were on the Parks highway when it revealed to us and we saw lots of it when we arrived in Talkeetna.

Mt Mckinley or Denali
Mt Mckinley or Denali

We arrived in Talkeetna, the town which Cicely was modeled after. Cicely is the  the town in the tv series “Northern Exposure” and Janine Turner was my favorite actress on this series.  Talkeetna is the mountain town of Mt Mckinley where all its climbers begin as a jumping off point.This little town is bustling with climbers and tourists alike wanting to climb Mt Mckinley or just do active stuff such as boat rides, hiking, fishing,  biking or glacier landing. With our glacier landing out of the way we ventured around town and checked it out.

Nagleys, one of the original/oldest store in Talkeetna
All About the Moose store
Local micro-brewery, Denali Brewery
At the tasting bar inside the Denali Brewery
Gift Shop
Kiss the Moose

On our third day here the sun came out beautifully. Since the highlight of our stay here has been satisfied we followed the town’s biking trail. On this bike ride we met a very nice couple from North Carolina, Joe and Judy. We first met them during our long Arctic Circle tour. Then we encountered them again along the Alpine trail in Denali park, then we crossed paths again on the main street of Talkeetna. Then on this bright sunny morning as we were admiring Denali without any cloud cover, we heard someone calling Steve’s name. And there were the Grubbs’ again, Joe and Judy. We hung out for a while and exchanged stories about the awesome views that we have been experiencing.

We met initially at the Arctic circle tour, Joe and Judy
Hanging out with Joe and Judy with Mt. McKinley as our backdrop.
Then we moved on with our biking and hit the road. We stopped by a coffee shop and a Salmon Smoke House.
At the Salmon Smoke House, they were removing bones and salmon skin.  This is the tedious part of creating high-quality smoked salmon.
Bakery where we stopped for coffee and a scone
In the coffee shop
The biking trail provided us with excellent clear views of Denali, beautiful daisies and of the river.
Biking along beautiful daises
Hey look, over there! Is that a………oh, never mind – that’s not a moose!
Pose with Mckinley in the background
Denali
River view of Mt. McKinley
Denali
Another beautiful day to admire Denali.
Oh, that hill is too steep, time to walk the bike.

We thought we had enough of the mountain views but when we got back to the viewpoint later in the afternoon, we saw another perspective of the mountain with the sun shining on it creating shadows. Obviously when you are here you can never get enough of Mt Mckinley or Denali when the clouds are not hiding it.

Mt Mckinley
Another perspective of the mountain except that she is behind the clouds

We stayed at Talkeetna RV Camper  Park, a small but nice campground walking distance to town and near a train station.  One interesting note  is that they advertise as Full Service RV park yet there was no sewer on any site, just power and water. Our site was wide and we were able to park our CRV next to Betsy.

 

 

3 comments

  1. On your way to Anchorage stop in at Wasilla. You can say hi to Sarah Palin…and you can Almost See Russia from there!

    • We craned our necks to see where Russia is. But as you guessed it the rain and clouds are in the way again! By the way the headlines on the Anchorage news >>>”Coldest July on Record”

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