WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 21

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 21:

     Saw large patches of blue sky when we awoke!  Were so buoyed by this sight, that we called a flight-seeing vendor in nearby Healy (of the 4 vendors authorized to land in the Nat’l Park, all but this one are based in Talkeetna, 3 hours away).  We booked an afternoon flight for their Glacier Landing tour. 

     Then went into the Park.  Perused both the Wilderness Access Center, where they have info on the various bus tours which take you deep into Denali (no private vehicles allowed past the 15 mile marker), and the Visitors Center.  Both had lots of helpful info, and excellent films.  The one at the Visitors Center, especially, was superb – hardly any narration, just sublime footage of the Park in the changing seasons.   

     We couldn’t help but notice that if we turned in one direction, the skies were completely grey and clouded over; in the other direction, like our morning view, large pieces of beautiful  blue sky.  We’d heard multiple times by now that the weather can- and does – change almost hourly in Denali, and that one area might be rainy, while 50 miles down the Park Road, it might be sunny.  The vast mountain peaks and valleys create their own weather systems.  Knowing all that, we wondered what it would mean for our scheduled flightseeing trip.  It was pricey, and we certainly didn’t want it to be a second-rate experience.  So we drove up to the Healy airfield (by now it was 1:30 or so), where our vendor was located.  We just honestly asked what the visibility etc. looked like for this afternoon’s flight and if we should re-schedule.  One of the pilots had just returned from a tour and said that we’d be touring the North Face, because that was where the skies were clear.  He showed us on a relief map how the “bad” weather often gets trapped on the Southern face, and that’s what we were seeing today.  He enthusiastically said that the North face trip should be beautiful. He showed us how we’d get really close to Mt. McKinley’s north face (as well as its sister peaks).   However, there are no landings permitted on the North face – it’s the protected wilderness area of the Park; all of the permissible glacier landings are on the South face, and that’s where the bad weather was.   So no glacier landing.  We talked it over, and decided to go with it.  Who knows if there’d be another opportunity as good as this one?  And they adjusted the price.

     So we drove the 10-15 minutes home, got a PB&J, and waited for the tour van to pick us up.  There were several other parties in the van – about a dozen or so people besides us.  When we got to the airfield, they explained that we’d be taking 2 separate planes – one with 10 passengers, and the other with 8.  We ended up going with Clay, the pilot who had talked with us earlier. 

 

     What another wonderful mountain-top experience (pun intended)!  The first third or so of the flight took us over tundra, glacier-fed rivers,

                         Our RV Park way down on right hand side (towards back) of the Parks Hwy:                                           

 

                                          
                                                      

 

              and some granite and basalt peaks, including an area called Polychrome, named for its varied colored minerals. Visibility wasn’t great, but good. We’ll see more of this from the ground when we take our bus tour.                                         

                                                       

 

 

     As we got deeper and climbed higher, we approached the snow- and ice-covered mountain peaks.   Some of the lower peaks had fresh new powder, which was so picturesque against the colors of the vegetation.                                                          

 

  I was a little discouraged when I started to see raindrops on the windshield (I was seated in the c o-pilot’s seat!).  But just at that moment, Clay told us, “We’ll go through this rainstorm, and then . . . the beauty will begin to unfold . . .”   He wasn’t being over-dramatic.  It did!  Just magnificent.  View after spectacular view.  Partial pictures taken out of the window just can’t hold a candle to the real thing.

 

                                                          

      And then, rising up out of the clouds, with the afternoon sun shining on her, was majestic Mt. McKinley, all 20,000 feet of her.  We circled around her for a few minutes. Just awed,  jaw-dropping silence, except for the droning of the engine. 

 

 As we made a turn toward the west, the sun was almost blinding as it sparkled on the snow-drenched peaks. 

 

 

 

        Reluctantly, we headed back.  At least I was reluctant – I wanted to plead like a little kid, “More, more!”  Not that there wasn’t more spectacular scenery on the way back – including the massive Muldrow Glacier. 

 

                                                                             

But still, after you’ve been up close to the highest peak on the continent . . . what can compare??  Another foretaste of heaven.

 

 

      When we got home, we compared our impressions of this tour vs. our one at Wrangell-St. Elias.  It was hard to compare – they both had spectacular scenery.  The one at Wrangell seemed more intimate – only 4 passengers on a smaller plane, and sky was fantastically clear.  And it was out first air tour.  So made a big impression.  The one today had more variety in the scenery.  And, as I said before, how do you make any comparisons with seeing The Great One, especially when she seemed to just mystically appear out of the clouds, as if to pronounce, “Here I Am!”