A bit off the beaten track in the wilds of Alaska !
We left Fairbanks just after 9.00am after waking to some wonderful news from another lot of our family travellers – in Iceland – Simon & Tracey. Simon announced he “had done a thing” – proposed to Tracey under the stars. So happy for them both on their engagement ! We called to wish them well and they both looked very happy !
The weather was also providing us good news with only some high cloud and quite a bit of blue sky as we left. This would hopefully give us the opportunity to see some of the sights which had been behind cloud on the way up to Fairbanks. The mountains create their own climate so you can still have bright sunshine and a nearby tall mountain will be shrouded in mist or cloud or rain. But no matter where you looked, the views are just vast and awesome.
We came to the north Denali viewpont and had enough sun to see quite a lot of the mountain range. Denali itself was still behind clouds but you could really make out where it was supposed to be and with its own little “dome cloud” covering its peak. We were pretty happy to see this much !
Next stop was south viewpoint and with the aid of the poster outlining the make up of the range, it was pretty clear that we were getting a remarkable view of Denali, with such a generally low percentage of people that actually get to see it ! We weren’t letting a little domed “hat” of cloud spoil the moment.
We drove on and also decided to detour and re-visit Talkeetna which had also been rainy on the way up. This little town is very much like, say, Berrima in the Southern Highlands of NSW. Lots of old little shops, cafes, craft stores etc and there is a train station where the Alaska Railway stops and dumps Holland America and Princess tourists doing their land tour versions.
Both on the way in to town and at the end of the town on the Susitna River which passes the town there are further spots where Denali can be visible and these were the standouts. If we weren’t seeing all 20,310 feet of it, it was pretty darn close !
We wandered the town a bit and had a snack for lunch in the park then got under way again – we still had a way to go for the day on our drive to get to our accommodation. Adrienne had found a cute cottage in a town called Glacier View, about 2 hours east of Anchorage. It’s claim to fame is that nearby – and visible from the cottage – there is Matanuska Glacier, a river glacier that is the source of the Matanuska River. Weather permitting – which wasn’t looking good by the time we arrived in the rain – we were proposing to do a walk on the glacier the next morning.
As I said, by the time we reached the town of Palmer to collect provisions for dinner – as the cabin was self-catering, as we started east the clouds were heavy and the rain started to fall. The drive through the mountains and the deep river gorges were still eye catching despite the weather and even when we got near the glacier we were able to get some photos of it.
We arrived at our cute little cabin around 5.30pm and even with the little bit of rain we could sit on the deck with a drink briefly looking at the glacier until it got too cold and we retreated inside to the warm fire and had some dinner.
So it was another great day – with some special news to top it off – and tomorrow is our last travelling day in Alaska as we return to Anchorage to fly to Seattle the following day for the next stage of our tour.