Christmas Card Photo

I have been trying for several years now to get a decent Christmas card photo. For awhile there I sent out photos every year. Then, it got difficult to find someone to take our picture. One year I even sent out a photo of our cabin. But that was actually appropriate because it was fairly recently that we had embarked on our pioneering adventure of building our own home and living off the grid. Everyone knew what we looked like but the real curiosity was the end product of what seemed crazy to some: our quitting our jobs, selling our home in the big city and moving to our undeveloped property in the woods.

After several years without a photo, I tried to get our picture taken every summer in Alaska with no luck. Either no one was around to take it or, say when we asked total strangers, the pictures didn't come out well enough.

FINALLY, we got one this past summer. Here's the story.

From the quaint and tiny town of Talkeetna, we took a flight-seeing trip around Mt. McKinley, or Denali as is its original and locally popular name. We flew all around the many mountains surrounding Denali. It was the most spectacular thing I've ever done or seen.





I took a lot of pictures that intentionally included part of the aircraft in order to show the amazing view with perspective to how these huge and gorgeous mountains were so close out our windows.


The flight is supposed to land on Ruth Glacier but the folks at K2 Aviation asked us if we'd mind forgoing that landing in order to transport three Denali climbers to Base Camp where we would land on Kahiltna Glacier. We were told this was a rare treat and so it was.

As we came in for a landing, Base Camp came into view:





I was surprised at how many tents and people there were. Notice all the foot trails all over the place.

Once on the (I want to say "ground" but that's not right)...once on the glacier, it felt like we were on the ground. We were about 10,000 feet up but the mountains rose much higher. McKinley is 20,320 feet.




It was while we walked on a glacier that we had our pilot take our photo. We were pleased that it made the cut to become this year's Christmas card photo.

Base Camp was a little tent village. There was an HQ area complete with solar panels and communications antennae. The National Park office makes sure it keeps close tabs on every climber. They have to register with their names, departure date, chosen climbing route, and expected return date. Base Camp is communications HQ. Weather reports and climber status are conveyed over radios between mountain, air and ground.




Climbers build snow walls, igloo style, to shield their tents from the strong winds. The snow walls shown in this photo (at the back) must have been made by recently departed climbers.

Here are our climbers . I haven't a clue who they are or what their names are. But it was pretty impressive to get to see "real" Mt. McKinley climbers in the flesh. I prayed for their safety.

This is how much they carry on their backs. I waited with poised camera to take this photo; I wanted to document them with packs on.

When we took off to continue our flight, we could see Base Camp waaaaaaayyyy down there on the glacier. Click on the photo to enlarge it and look for the plane tracks that loop around at the top of the "runway".

And here it is again from even higher up. Pretty amazing. The runway loop is harder to see but it's there.




We took a right from the glacier and followed in the same direction toward McKinley that climbers do. Click on these photos and you'll see a tiny line running through the snow. This is evidence of climbers having passed through.

And here is another camp spot along the way. It's quite an awe-some thing, seeing the tiny-ness of man, his tracks and his shelters in the midst of all that vastness: miles of snow, the glacier, the mountains, the clouds and altitude.

Our pilot tried two or three times to get us close to Denali and to fly us around the summit as planned on our particular trip. But weather prevented him at every attempt. I sure didn't care; the whole trip was so spectacular. So we headed back "down" by way of a bunch of other mountains he knowledgeably described to us but which I didn't comprehend a word of. I was too awestruck to remember or understand what he was talking about.

We flew over this glacier and I managed to catch this photo behind us.

How's this for flying right past a mountain?

I admired this scene for miles as we approached it. I loved the craggy mountains with the glacier "road' curving right past them. I probably took a dozen photos of it as we flew closer and closer. You just have to shoot and shoot because you never know if the pilot's going to turn away from the scene or fly you right past it. I was thrilled when he flew us right on by this one.

So, that was our awesome, spectacular, amazing, gorgeous, stunning flight-seeing trip around Mt. McKinley. AND the excursion that finally brought us a Christmas card photo, thanks to our pilot who looked quite comfortable standing there on a glacier wearing a short sleeved Hawaiian shirt taking our picture.

Alaska Photos 3 - Denali Flight Seeing

Mt. McKinley - or as it's locally called, Denali (The High One) - is the tallest peak in North America at 20,320 feet. It actually appears taller than Mt. Everest because of a thing called vertical relief. Since the base elevation around Denali is nearly at sea level, you see far more of it than you do of Everest. I think it may hold the world record as the tallest peak for vertical relief.

We took a flight-seeing trip up into the mountains around McKinley. It was gorgeous! Stunning! Absolutely spectacular!



The tour we took included a landing on Ruth Glacier. However, our plane was transporting three McKinley climbers that day so they asked us if it was OK to not land on Ruth, but instead to land on the Kahiltna Glacier at a climbers' base camp. Oh...alright. It was so cool. What another world! There was even a sort of HQ tent that had small solar panels and antennae. I presume it provides the means of communication from camp to "earth" below, finding out who is coming up to climb and also relaying weather info to pilots. Climbers are required to register with the Park Service. At all times, the Park Service knows who is on the mountain, when they were dropped off and when they are expected back. It's life and death up there so it's important to keep close counts of all who go up. In fact, there was a terrible tragedy just last week where two climbers fell and died. (Ugh! What their families must be going through right now! Lord, please help them.) This is a photo of the Kahiltna Base Camp as we approached for a landing.

I loved this scene of a lone tent against the gigantic mountains. You have to remember that we're already several thousand feet in elevation.

Notice the snow walls at the previous camp sites of climbers who have already left Base Camp. The walls shield their tents from the strong winds.

We went with K2 Aviation out of Talkeetna.

We were supposed to fly right around the summit of Denali on our trip. Our pilot tried a few different tacks but was thwarted each time by wind and weather conditions. Here's a photo of Denali/Mckinley from the highway.

11pm Sunset at Denali

Working late on the computer tonight and, just for kicks, I refreshed the Denali Cam. I was certain it would be pitch dark like the Seward Cam was. But look what I found at 11:50pm Arizona time, 10:50pm Alaska time. The farther north, the longer the light. (The opposite is true in winter.)