Our trip south from Denali to Talkeetna was quite interesting, and very beautiful. Here is a picture of us in the large domed Princess rail car: 
The trains were all very comfortable, and each car had it's own dining room where you could go buy some breakfast, lunch, or dinner, depending on what time of the day it happened to be. The view from all directions was breathtaking -- and we took plenty of pictures to prove it. Here are just a few of my favorites: 
About halfway through our trip, the train slowed to a crawl and continued at that pace for over an hour. It seemed that the warmer weather had caused the tracks to expand faster than they should, and portions of the track were becoming unstable. So, the train finally came to a complete stop for about an hour while a team came out onto the tracks to repair the damage. Here is a photo of the front of our train (on the left) and the yellow repair vehicles that helped us on our way. We got a wierd rainbow effect in the sky for this picture, Mike thinks it had something to do with the filter on his lens and the coating on the windows:
Before we arrived at the Mckinley Lodge in Talkeetna (4 hours late), the weather had been clear, as you can see by the pictures above. I was excited to stay at the Princess McKinley Lodge, because it sits at the foot of Mt. McKinley. As you can see from the picture below, the lodge has a huge window that looks out onto the mountain. 
Unfortunately, during our delay, the weather closed in, as did the mountain. So instead of seeing Mt. McKinley, this is what we saw! 
It rained for the short amount of time we had there, but we found things to do. Mike's dad and his wife went hiking in the rain, and Mike and I went to a ranger talk about climbing McKinley It was really interesting to hear about the process. The ranger said it costs about $20,000 for an individual to spend 3 weeks climbing the mountain. You have to pay for fees, plane or helicopter rides to and from base camp, guides, equipment, food for 28 days, and numerous miscellaneous expenses. Then you get to endure 21 days of hard hiking carrying heavy packs in temperatures hovering around 40 below, sleeping in ice trenches covered with a tarp,and incredible snow and wind storms. Plus, all this is done within an oxygen deprived environment. Oh, did I forget to mention you pack out your **waste**?? After all that...those that make it (about 40%) are only on the summit for about 10 minutes! I think I'll pass on the mountain climbing.
The trains were all very comfortable, and each car had it's own dining room where you could go buy some breakfast, lunch, or dinner, depending on what time of the day it happened to be. The view from all directions was breathtaking -- and we took plenty of pictures to prove it. Here are just a few of my favorites: About halfway through our trip, the train slowed to a crawl and continued at that pace for over an hour. It seemed that the warmer weather had caused the tracks to expand faster than they should, and portions of the track were becoming unstable. So, the train finally came to a complete stop for about an hour while a team came out onto the tracks to repair the damage. Here is a photo of the front of our train (on the left) and the yellow repair vehicles that helped us on our way. We got a wierd rainbow effect in the sky for this picture, Mike thinks it had something to do with the filter on his lens and the coating on the windows:Before we arrived at the Mckinley Lodge in Talkeetna (4 hours late), the weather had been clear, as you can see by the pictures above. I was excited to stay at the Princess McKinley Lodge, because it sits at the foot of Mt. McKinley. As you can see from the picture below, the lodge has a huge window that looks out onto the mountain. Unfortunately, during our delay, the weather closed in, as did the mountain. So instead of seeing Mt. McKinley, this is what we saw! It rained for the short amount of time we had there, but we found things to do. Mike's dad and his wife went hiking in the rain, and Mike and I went to a ranger talk about climbing McKinley It was really interesting to hear about the process. The ranger said it costs about $20,000 for an individual to spend 3 weeks climbing the mountain. You have to pay for fees, plane or helicopter rides to and from base camp, guides, equipment, food for 28 days, and numerous miscellaneous expenses. Then you get to endure 21 days of hard hiking carrying heavy packs in temperatures hovering around 40 below, sleeping in ice trenches covered with a tarp,and incredible snow and wind storms. Plus, all this is done within an oxygen deprived environment. Oh, did I forget to mention you pack out your **waste**?? After all that...those that make it (about 40%) are only on the summit for about 10 minutes! I think I'll pass on the mountain climbing.The next morning, we woke up to sunshine, and were excited to be going to Anchorage. Mike's brother Greg and his wife Debbie were meeting us for the next portion of our trip -- our cruise! We spent the night in Anchorage, and enjoyed a delicious dinner at Club Paris, a restaurant with REALLY good steaks! My friend had recommended it, so we were happy to give it a try. Here is a cute picture of Mike and his brother at dinner, and a pic of all of us outside the restaurant. If you are ever in Anchorage, you must go there! Don't know how it got it's name, there is certainly no French food! But, there are some REALLY yummy beer battered onion rings!
The next morning we boarded yet another train for the 2 hour trip to Whittier, a teeny tiny port town that Princess uses to dock its ships. 
On the way, we taught Greg something the rest of us had learned on our land tour -- how to give a moose wave. Looks like Greg's moose has lost a few antlers! 
As we pulled into Whittier, we got our first view of the ship, the Diamond Princess: 
On my next post, I'll take you on a tour of the ship!
The next morning we boarded yet another train for the 2 hour trip to Whittier, a teeny tiny port town that Princess uses to dock its ships. On the way, we taught Greg something the rest of us had learned on our land tour -- how to give a moose wave. Looks like Greg's moose has lost a few antlers! As we pulled into Whittier, we got our first view of the ship, the Diamond Princess: On my next post, I'll take you on a tour of the ship!
This next picture is one I took as we came into the park, looking down on a rafting party in the 
Mike talked me into doing a whitewater trip down this gorge, you'll see a picture of that trip later in this post.
If anyone saw Sean Penn's movie "Into the Wild", you'll know that the 
Scattered here across the Plains of 
We saw lots of wildlife on our tour, including a parade of 
We were also thrilled to see 5 grizzly bears, including this 
We got a good shot of a caribou lounging on the tundra, 
and of this pretty red fox loping across the gravel road in front of our bus. 
On the way back to our hotel, the clouds that were hanging over us suddenly parted to the west, and we got a fairly good view of the elusive Mt. McKinley. There were still clouds clinging to its summit, but you can sort of get an idea of its size. Even with the clouds covering the top, it still dwarfs the large mountains in front of it.
At 20,320 feet, it is the highest peak in North America. In actual vertical rise, it is even higher than Everest. McKinley starts it's rise at only 2000 feet, rising 18, 320 feet more in actual vertical height. Everest is measured taller though, because it starts it's rise at 17,000 feet, to which you add it's mere 12,000 foot vertical height. There were over 100 climbers on the mountain the day we were there -- and a search party looking for 2 missing mountaineers. 
We walked down to beautiful Horseshoe Lake, which was just a few miles from our lodge.
We hiked for a few hours here, and got some good pictures of a beaver dam: 
Mike and his dad did this hike again at a later time, and came upon this mother moose and her baby grazing on the plants at the bottom of the lake: 
That evening, we donned our "dry suits" to begin our adventure in white water rafting. The water was only 38 degrees, so I was really grateful that we didn't get very wet! I had never rafted before, and these were designated class 3-4 rapids. I was a bit nervous. After it was over though, I decided that it was a lot of fun, and I would probably go again! This trip was nice, because we didn't have to paddle. All I had to do was hold on, and try and stay inside the boat! Here is a picture of us beginning one of the rapids on the 
From there we watched a demonstration on how to pan for gold, and were given a bag of pay dirt of our own. Something tells me it was probably rigged, but hey -- it was still fun. 
We didn't come away millionaires, but we did manage to pan out about $12 worth of gold between the two of us! This was Mikes...I had about the same amount.
We stopped here at Susan Butcher's dog camp, Trail Breaker Kennels, and visited with Susan's husband, David Monson.
He taught us all about the selection and training of a good sled dog team, and about his wife, Susan. Susan was the first woman to win the 1000 mile long 
We also made a stop at an 
We also watched a native 
We also enjoyed seeing the frozen Arctic Ocean below us. Can you see the large cracks in the surface at the bottom half of the picture?
Barrow is a very small town, and the buildings there are short, squat and simple. It reminded me a bit of Tijuana, with trash littering the ground and junk laying all over. This picture below shows just a bit of the main street. Our hotel is on the right, and the frozen Arctic Ocean is just beyond the buildings. 
Most of the people were 
Then we were offered a serving of 
Mike's dad and I passed on the 
We took a short tour of the town, which included a visit to the Barrow "forest". Since the environment is so harsh there, no trees will grow. Some industrious 
Here is our group standing in between jaw bones of a 
and of me standing inside a 
These are some BIG whales! 
Milk was $9.69 a gallon, and Bing cherries were selling for $12.99 a pound. I guess that's what happens when everything you eat (except whale) has to be flown or barged in.
Barrow has 82 days of continuous sunlight - the sun never sets below the horizon. It is an odd sight to see the sun circling completely around the horizon instead of coming up and then slipping below and out of sight. I enjoyed it.
The pack ice was beginning to break up while we were there, but was still solid in most places. It was easy to hop from one ice floe to another. It was very interesting to see the ocean all frozen over and not moving. 
