We began the day with another walk to town to check out the outdoor market. I’ve come to think that every little town in Alaska holds an outdoor market several days a week. While I would expect some produce, what we’ve usually found is homemade jewelry and baskets, some jams, a few pictures or paintings. Other than some vegetables in Palmer, we’ve rarely seen anything we were interested in buying. I guess what I’m most surprised about is how small these markets are: usually only a few booths. Perhaps that actually makes sense when you consider the size of these towns.
We walked through town again. This time I checked out a few of gift shops. I did see some wool sweaters that caught my attention. Perhaps I’ll make it back there tomorrow to seriously consider one.
Late yesterday we made plans to take a flight seeing trip around Mt McKinley. McKinley is highest peak in North America. Robert has always wanted to see the mountain but that’s a difficult challenge. Due to the height (over 20,000 ft.) and the weather patterns, the mountain is most often obscured by clouds. When we had talked with one of the flight seeing operators yesterday, he told us that here in town we’re 60 miles from the mountain and that the weather here is little indication of whether the mountain will be visible from the air. Flight seeing trips are quite pricey so we only wanted to go if we would actually see the mountain. The deal with the air transport companies is that you can cancel without penalty if the reports are that the mountain isn’t visible. When we walked to the plane we were told that returning pilots reported that there was a good chance we’d see the mountain, so we decided to take the chance.
This is the small, single engine plane we rode.
The single engine plane could carry the pilot plus 5 passenger but we were the only passengers. I graciously suggested that Robert take the front seat. :-) This turned out to be useful for photography because I could slide from side to side in the second row whereas his view was sometimes obscured by the plane parts. (I was also extremely glad to not be in the front seat when we flew through a rain storm on the way to the mountain.) The young pilot was very knowledgeable. He told us that he’s been flying for 6 years, mostly in Montana.
We crossed vast amounts of tundra.
The small airplane in the picture is flying at 2,200 feet. We were at 4,200 feet. As Robert noted in his blog, the pilots announce their present location over the radio every few minutes.
After the rain storm we were lucky to see McKinley come in to view.
We flew around one side of the mountain but due to heavy cloud cover we couldn’t fly all the way around the mountain. The pilot explained that although he is certified for instrument flying, it isn’t very safe in such a small plane – mostly it would give you a few seconds warning before you smash into a mountain. No thanks!
We flew over many glaciers and could gain from the air a better understanding of how the glaciers move. In the next few pictures you see several glaciers joining together. The dark line in the middle is a central moraine. The moraine is created by the glaciers grinding rocks over the centuries. As the glaciers come together the edges comprised of ground rocks form a line between the two glaciers.
One last look at Mt McKinley as we started back.
As we flew over the tundra, you can see the colors starting to change.
Here we are having survived the flight.
Afterward we walked back in to town for dinner at the West Rim Café. Because the weather was threatening to rain, we decided to each indoors. The food was surprisingly good and the prices the most reasonable we’ve seen in Alaska. As we left the café, it started to rain. I had Robert put the camera in my backpack. By the time we were half way back, it was pouring. At least I had a fleece jacket. We walked as quickly as possible, but got soaked nonetheless. I had on nylon pants which were soaked through. The temperature was in the low 50s. It is easy to understand how hyperthermia can occur when someone gets wet at moderate temperatures. We got inside and quickly changed into warm, dry clothes.
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