We left Anchorage not too late and headed towards Denali. We stopped at Talkeetna for a super scenic flight around Denali with glacier landing. We were super lucky to be first plane to land on the glacier after 3 weeks where it was not possible. Even the flights that came back before we left that day were not able to land due to too much fog. Our pilot did 4 different landings to "pave" the runway on the snow for a few more planes to land behind us:

this was the same plane than our float plane, but it had skis instead

got the copilot seat again

lots of taildraggers

several glaciers

which don't always look good when you zoom

I wouldn't snowboard down this :)

beautiful field

Then, it was time for our glacier landing. This is normally the base that people who climb denali, start from. It's still a 3 week climb:

t is a big plane

Then it was time to get back in the air:

hard to tell that all that dirt is a glacier, until you see this

back to Talkeetna

After the flight, we had a quick tour of downtown Talkeetna:

cheap gas

We got back on the road toward denali, and did a stop at a nice viewpoint:

Then back on the road, and got to the visitor center by 17:15 before they closed at 18:00

and after a total of 5.5H most of which Jennifer drove (thanks), we arrived at Denali

It was then time for dinner, some food grocery shopping for our next day, and some sleep in preparation for a 05:45 wakeup. We got to see a bit of wildlife: