Denali

I had an incredible luck yesterday. We didn’t have scheduled any tours that day so I just took care of puppies and dogs as usual and was done at 11:30. I was thinking about having a special lunch, since I usually don’t have time for that during days with tours, so I am even celebrating when I can actually have one now. I was also thinking about taking care of myself that day, clean my cabin, wipe out the floor, do groceries and laundry. Long story short it was supposed to be a boring day. 

The weather last few days was incredible. It’s truly a summer in Alaska, with 25°C in shade, clear blue sky with no clouds and nearly 20 hours per day of sun light. As I was finishing my dogs duty I was wondering that it is such a pity that I haven’t scheduled that flight seeing trip to Mt Mckinley for this day.

That was when I realized that I might give it a shot and call to the company Talkeetna Air Taxi and see. When I told the lady on the phone that I am looking for one seat for the afternoon she simply answered that she will have a look. The phone went absolute silent for maybe one and half minute and I was already wondering if the connection wasn’t lost. The answer was that they really does have one empty spot for me right at 1:15pm so I should hurry up, because travelling there would take me at least an hour and I should be there at least 30 minutes ahead to check-in. I put the lunch back to the fridge, grabbed an apple instead and run to the car hoping that there is not much of traffic on the road as I had to go fast. Once I got to the highway going north the song All I need is a miracle started to play on a radio and I simply new that everything is gonna be alright.

I got to Talkeetna airport at 12:50 and run to check in. The lady I spoke to over a phone was already waiting for me to tell me, that it is good that I got there that quickly because the flight has been rescheduled so now it’s departure is at 1pm. The time between me getting out of car to me being in the air was exactly 10 minutes. In addition to my incredible luck I was also sitting right next to Richard, the pilot, in the pilot’s cabin because that was the last empty seat in the plane!

There were total eight people in the plane and we all headed north to see the south face of Mt Mckinley, 6168 m above sea level, or as Alaskan call it Denali which means the Great One. The weather condition were still awesome so the view was simply magnificent. The pictures can hardly store the beauty of those moments.

After more than an hour of flying we landed on a glacier and get out of the plane. It was incredible and I just had to smile all the time, I still couldn’t believe it that only 2,5 hours ago I was thinking about cleaning my floor… The pilot was wearing a hawaii shirt and glasses from Top Gun movie and everything was just unreal.