Swiss-Alaska Inn Talkeetna

... My guess is that these are the parents - given the eaglet some room, but still watching over him to keep him safee. An eagle pair typically has two or three eggs, but usually only one eaglet survives.

There wasn't really much in Talkeetna - I would have rather stayed an extra day in Denali and gone out on one of the trails. Live and learn.

... was nowhere for him to go, as the trail was narrow and chocked with the other horses. The wrangler could not see what had happened and I later learned she’d feared my horse had seen a bear and thrown me off. I give her incredible kudos for being able to secure her horse and run back and grab Ghost quickly. If she had not, I fear many of the other horses would have bolted. I was able to get back on and continue, but it had really spooked Anna, who at ...

... are that cute. That said, aside from the dog demonstrations, we particularly enjoyed Jeff’s speech, during which he recounted some of his experiences – he’s run the race every year for more than 20 years, and is going again in 2010 – and what it was like to raise his family up there. K bought his autobiography later, and raced through it, saying it was a great read.

After lunch, we boarded a coach and had ...

... t know how many places can claim this glory - I counted over 13 rainbows while I was driving, some of which are the fabulous double rainbows. It's so cool! The clouds make the most interesting patterns in the sky as they float down the sides of the mountains. The river shine unbelievably. I stopped and took several pictures but believe me, nothing, no picture, can ever ...

... bag (not the official term), we boarded the six seater and took off. From a bird's eye view, we witnessed the blue ice of multiple glaciers, ice falls and "The Great One" (20,320 feet ). We flew through canyons and around mountains and landed on the surface of a glacier bed. The party of climbers were the first for the season. It consisted of a group of park rangers, special forces arctic soldiers, and ...

... These will be auctioned off on Saturday as a fund raiser. We also went through the museum in town. After dinner we wandered back into town to get an ice cream cone and then walked down to sit by the river for a while. The Talkeetna River is a swift flowing glacier fed river. Tomorrow may be a day to do some housekeeping.

... need to preserve it as a wilderness and yet people were able to access it for hiking and recreation. You would have to know what you were doing out there alone as bears, wolves and moose frequent the area. We saw a snowshoe hare which was changing colour to white for winter beginning at the ears, with feet as big as its body. We saw a moose in the distance. We saw two lots of grizzly ...

The next day we take a ride to the town of Talkeetna, which I think is
maybe the length of 1 mile, it is so small. There we take a 1 hour
flight, over high mountain peaks and glacier-filled valleys. From the
small 6 passenger plane, we see many ...

This was a truly beautiful weekend and a fabulous fireworks show that went off without a hitch. The pyro crew included Jerry Mignano as Lead Pyro assisted by Jackie Whedbee ...

Woke up to take the float trip. The whole ride was smooth and towards the end, a guitarist played songs while we parked on the side of the river. While I looked around during the music, I saw an eagle swoop down along the river at a distance. We were able to float by while it perched on a split ...