After leaving our stop at Cooper Landing in Kenai we took a short diversion to Seward via Moose Pass and onto Exit Glacier. This huge Glacier is part of the massive Harding Icefield that covers a large part of this area. It was named Exit Glacier as it was one of the easier ways to "exit" the Harding Icefield for the early explorers.
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| Exit Glacier |
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| Looking up from the outwash to Exit Glacier |
Moose Pass on the way to and from Seward area is a quaint little town and so named due to a stand off between a Moose and the early explorers and Gold Miners back in the 1800s.. It made a fun stop looking at a historic watermill. As you can see from one of the photos the salmon have one thing in mind and that is to get as give up the rivers as possible to spawn. They even use tiny little streams but the waterwheel must be the end of this groups try.
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| End of the road for the Salmon |
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| Moose Pass |
Now it really was back on the road and we were now about as far from Calgary as we would get, some 2800 miles to drive but first to navigate back along Turnagain Arm, past Anchorage, Wasilla and onto Denali and sights of Mount McKinley.
A stop for the night was made at Girdwood, one of the only ski resorts in Alaksa. Some nice bars and restaurants but our site for the night was parking up in the Parking Lot at the bottom of the slopes.
Girdwood was busy as they had the annual "Blueberry festival" on at the same time.
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| Girdwood Ski Resort |
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| Bar in Girdwood |
Not everyone drives around and we occasionally cmd across the "Glacier Express" Sightseeing train on our travels
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| Glacier Train on Turnagain Arm |
We did seem to come across funny sights on the route and this part was the same. For some reason Fireworks are banned in Anchorage and the surrounding area so as soon as we were out of the "City Limits we came across a huge site with lots of stalls selling them and lots of advertising gimmicks. It seems it is not just the Brits that cannot forget past wars and delight in mentioning them when they can
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| Dont mention the War |
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| Fireworks |
"Antique" ha ha Shops abound selling, well anything
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| Antique shop |
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| Used Car lot |
But like lots of places we have seen many places in Alaska seem to be closed and going derelict such as the is "Igloo" hotel between Wasilla and Denali
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| Pity it is closed |
Our final stop, before Denali, at Talkeetna, was recommended to us and it was great. The sun was shining and we had reasonably clear views of Mount McKinley, the highest mountain in North America and the highest outside of Asia and South America. At over 20,000 feet it is normally covered in cloud. At Talkeetna they do flights to view and land on the mountain on a Glacier if the weather is OK. We booked one and had an hour or so to wait so a walk into the village first and try out the tourist things
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| Playing tourists |
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| Well you have to don't you |
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| Ol' Ma Atkins on the Porch. Just the Gun was missing |
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| Historic Roadhouse in Talkeetna |
The flight was fantastic, I was allowed to attach a camera to the wing for some diffrerent video that will be sorted once we get some time. The views were stunning with rain showers and rainbows in the valleys and bright sunshine high up when we landed on the skis. The Glacier we landed on was the Ruth Glacier and it was huge and when flying back down the lower areas had massive crevices some 100s feet deep so very dangerous
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| Rainbows over the Alaska Range |
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| Ruth Glacier |
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| Mount McKinley ahead |
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| On the Ruth Glacier |
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| Ruth Glacier International Airport Arrivals |
1 comment:
Really suprised there is only 1 ski resort in Alaska... I guessed there would be less than say Canada but thought there would be a more than just the one! Great pictures and some amazing places though!
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