A Few Random Pictures

Our daughters loaded up the hatchback and drove to Denali National Park over the weekend. Since Alaska has few, if any, tourists this year (mandatory 14-day quarantine periods, airline and cruise ship shutdowns ... it all did the trick), the locals are swarming the summertime-only attractions. We normally can't get near them because of the hordes of tourists. 

This year, not so much, to the point that many of the roadside businesses have yet to reopen. And the campgrounds, usually awash with RVs, are busy only on the weekends.

So off they went, and had a great time. 

the Savage River

Click to enlarge - there are a couple of caribou
under the bridge, center frame

Home sweet home

Denali in the distance

Denali, one more time - all 20,320+ feet of it

Sight-seeing Plane Crashed at 11,000 Feet (Thunder Mtn, near Denali)

Rescue ongoing for 5 people in downed plane

Crews are trying to rescue five people in a downed plane on the side of a mountain at 11,000 ft.

'This could be the worst aviation disaster on Denali in history,' says veteran pilot

But all on board are believed to have survived the crash; it could have been much worse.

Officials treating downed plane as if everyone's alive after search suspended overnight

ANCHORAGE (KTUU) - Officials searching for survivors of a downed plane in Denali National Park are suspending operations until Monday morning as darkness falls and clouds refuse to budge.

Rescuers are treating the crash as if everyone is alive, said David Lee, the owner of Sheldon Air Service, who attended a multi-agency debriefing Sunday evening.

Lee described an ongoing full-scale effort with members of the Alaska State Troopers, the U.S. Army, the Alaska Air National Guard and the National Park Service, who were all in attendance at the meeting.

A Quick Word About Denali

Four miles tall, straight up - 20,322 feet of God's creation

The mountain which Congress decided to name "Mt. McKinley" already had a name. The local Native tribes have called it Denali for thousands of years. It means "the high one".

The President from Ohio after whom Congress renamed it was never here, and never did anything of significance for Alaska.

Alaskans have (for the most part) stubbornly refused to call it anything but Denali all along, and have been petitioning for the original name to be restored. For decades. And we've never understood why Ohioans thought that their local-politician-made-good needed a monument thousands of miles away.

No one disputes that President McKinley was worthy of remembrance, but let them make his monument in his home state, rather than a place most of them will never visit.

The timing of the official acknowledgement of its original name may be suspect, but that's another story.

And with that, I'm done. All y'all can go back to your normal, everyday lives.

Re-Naming Mt. McKinley

Henceforth, the State of Alaska will be the Republic of Ala ... oh, wait. That's not it.
Heh.

Denali - 20,322 ft

WASHINGTON - The National Park Service says it won't get in the middle of the decades-long, Ohio-versus-Alaska fight over changing the name of North America's tallest mountain to Denali.

They mean "changing the name back to Denali", which is what the Natives have been calling it for thousands of years. But I digress.

On Wednesday, the park service was asked to weigh in on Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s bill that would change Mount McKinley’s official name to Denali, as it is referred to by many residents of the state.

“The National Park Service appreciates the long history and public interest for both the name Mount McKinley and the traditional Athabaskan name Denali,” Victor Knox, a director with the park service, said at the Senate hearing.

That's big of them. While we understand and sympathize with the Ohioans' desire to memorialize President McKinley, who hailed from that state, he never visited Alaska. And it's not clear why they thought that particular peak was the right one. There are literally thousands of unnamed mountains in Alaska. But Denali was and is well-known, a landmark visible for hundreds of miles.

And Alaskans still call it Denali, by the way. If one hears it referred to as "Mt. McKinley", one can be sure that it's a tourist - or a recent immigrant - speaking that name.

Inspirational Story of the Day

From KTUU in Anchorage comes this great story:

Courtesy Lonnie Dupre

ANCHORAGE - Lonnie Dupre, fresh from a first-ever solo ascent of Mount McKinley in winter, has returned to Talkeetna on a flight Thursday.

Talkeetna Air Taxi officials said Dupre had landed in Talkeetna at about 1 p.m.

In a photo from the flight posted on Dupre’s Facebook page at about 12:45 p.m., he cracks a grin at the camera, with a beer in his hand.

“In air (en) route back to Talkeetna!” Dupre wrote.  

Dupre realized his dream of a winter solo ascent on North America’s highest peak Sunday afternoon, during his fourth annual attempt to summit the 20,320-foot peak. The 53-year-old Minnesotan was delayed on his descent by poor weather, however, with Talkeetna Air Taxi flights beginning attempts to reach him when he came down to an altitude of 11,000 feet.

Ice Ice Baby

Freezing Rain Advisory

Statement as of 4:33 AM AKST on January 08, 2015

 ...Freezing Rain Advisory remains in effect until noon akst today...

* ice accumulation...less than one tenth of an inch.

* Timing...light freezing rain will begin early this morning and continue through the morning hours then taper off around noon.

* Impacts...travel may be difficult. Be prepared for slippery roads.

The nice cold air was here for a few days, but now temps are heading north again (if you'll pardon the expression) and we're back in the icy/melty/wintry mix.

Dang it.

For those of you who admonished me, last fall, to keep the winter weather up here: you'll have to be meaner to the weatherman than I was. He's ignoring us.

* * * * *

And speaking of cold weather:

For the fourth time, to diminishing fanfare, Lonnie Dupre is trying to do what has never been done: Reach the summit of Mount McKinley, alone, in the supremely inhospitable month of January.

Three previous attempts --  which started in December of 2010, 2011 and 2012  -- ended with the adventurer retreating from the mountain after being pinned down for days in snow trenches, nearly suffocated by blizzards and half-frozen by temperatures of 35 below.

Lonnie Dupre leaves base camp on the Kahiltna Glacier December 18, 2014. He is attempting to climb Denali solo.        John Walter Whittier

How High is Up? Dept.

Mount McKinley's perch as the tallest mountain in North America just got a little less comfortable.

New data collected by a government mapping project has sliced 83 feet from the summit of the continent's tallest peak, taking it from 20,320 feet to 20,237, Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell announced Wednesday.

(BECKY BOHRER — AP)

Climbers can relax -- that's still 686 feet taller than Canada's Mount Logan, the second-tallest peak in North America.

"It's still high, it's still hard, it's still cold," said Nick Parker, a climber and employee at Alaska Mountaineering and Hiking who said he has summitted Denali several times. "As long as it's higher than Texas, I don't care."

Four miles high? We can do better than that...

Morning Update

You're Never Too Old Dept:  A 78-year-old man - Alaskan mountain-climbing pioneer Tom Choate - has scaled Denali (Mt. McKinley to you Lower 49 folks).

In fact, he'll turn 79 in three months. So what's your excuse?  (insert grin here)

* * * * *

Painstaking Word Dept: The air taxi crash in Soldotna over the weekend, which killed all 10 on board, will be a bit harder for the NTSB folks: there are no witnesses, voice recorder, or black box. Looks like this one will be one of those "put it all back together one piece at a time, and then try to find something wrong" cases.

Another complication: the fire was extensive, and there's not much of the plane left to reconstruct. This could take a while.

* * * * *

You Never Know Dept:  U.S. News & World Report, among others, is reporting that former Gov. Sarah Palin is "mulling over" running for Mark Begich's (D-AK) Senate seat.

That could be interesting, as the leftist press here has gone out of its way to smear her reputation, every chance it gets. Hardly a day goes by when they don't say something snarky about "Our Sarah".

On the other hand, by refusing to talk about her, they've kept her in the public eye. Could it backfire on them? Anything's possible.

* * * * *

Every Picture Tells a Story While Smoke Gets in Your Eyes Dept:  The Daily News has a photo essay on the efforts dealing with Alaska's wildfires, here.

Air Taxi Stranded at 7,000 Feet

on the Ruth Glacier, on the flanks of Denali (which y'all probably call Mt. McKinley).

ANCHORAGE, Alaska—

Seven people remain stranded on a glacier near Talkeetna, nearly 48 hours after their flightseeing plane landed Tuesday night due to poor weather and has been grounded ever since.

According to a statement from Denali National Park and Preserve spokesperson Maureen McLaughlin, Talkeetna Air Taxi owner John Roderick alerted park officials Wednesday morning that pilot John Nealon had been forced to set down his de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver with six passengers on board. Company officials told Channel 2 Wednesday that the flight had taken off from Talkeetna at about 4:45 p.m. Tuesday and landed after about 15 minutes of flight.

“Into the night, snowfall and cloud cover continued to build, so the seven of them slept in the (plane), which was supplied with basic emergency gear including sleeping bags, food, a stove, and a satellite phone,” McLaughlin wrote.

Continuing poor conditions, including clouds and intermittent snowfall, prevented both a Talkeetna Air Taxi plane and a Park Service helicopter from reaching the site Wednesday, causing the plane and its occupants to spend a second night on the glacier.

Complete story here.

Long Day Behind the Wheel

But a really good one.

My mom and I headed out early this morning for the Matanuska Glacier, some 130 miles ENE from the house. Once there, I suggested that we head west to Talkeetna. It was sunny so there was a chance that we might be able to see Denali (Mt. McKinley, to you Lower 48 folks who never knew it had a name for several thousand years before Congress got involved).

The glacier was right where I remembered it - go figure, huh?

We doubled back through Palmer and into Wasilla, where we topped off the gas tank & picked up some more food for the road. Off we went, northwest up the Glenn Parks Highway.

Just as you reach the village of Talkeetna, there's a small parking area from which you can see Denali if the weather is clear. The mountain is so big (20,322 feet) that it makes its own weather system, and it's most often shrouded in clouds.

We didn't think we could see anything, until I finally realized a portion of what looked like a cloud bank wasn't moving with the rest of the clouds. Lo and behold, it was part of The Great One (that's what "Denali" mean, in the original language). Here I've zoomed in on the portion of the north shoulder, so you can see what we finally realized we were seeing. It's not even the summit, just a shoulder that's about 2/3 of the way up. It's a BIG mountain.

Talkeetna was wall-to-wall people, as Princess cruise lines had just dropped off a few hundred passengers to get on bush planes, trains, jet boats, or buses, heading out to the great interior of Alaska. There was barely enough room on Main Street to maneuver my truck between the weary passengers, trudging with heads down while texting in traffic.

Talkeetna is really built up since the last time I was there, some five or six years ago. Lots of new construction, new shops ... new everything, as "the town that Princess re-designed" continues its quest to become the Branson of the North.

Pah.

Anyway, we saw the glacier, part of Mt. McKinley, the village of Talkeetna and Mom was happy to have been in world-famous Wasilla (the place former Governor Sarah calls home).

It was a really good day.

The Deadliest Season?

Another horrific fall on the icy flanks of Mount McKinley is threatening to turn this Alaska Range climbing season into one of the deadliest. 

Nineteen years ago, a record 13 climbers perished in the Alaska Range, including 11 on Mount McKinley.

Wednesday's fall of a four-member team in Denali Pass killed two climbers and brought this year's toll to seven deaths in the Alaska Range since the season began last month. Both survivors of the latest disaster have critical injuries and are fighting for their lives in hospital beds.

Read more at the link.

A Glorious Morning

It's one of those mornings that makes you glad you got out of bed. The sun was up at 6 a.m., and shining in the corner of my eye all the way to work.

The snow-covered mountains gleam in the sunlight, and Denali (Mt. McKinley to you flat-landers) is clearly visible - that's rare.

It's gonna be a nice day.

A Sunny Day in Anchorage

Here's a shot from about 5 minutes ago, taken in midtown & facing northwest. Click to enlarge, and notice the three mountain peaks in the center of the horizon.

Those are, from left to right, Mt. Foraker (17,400 ft.), Mt. Hunter (14,573 ft), and Denali - you may know it as Mt. McKinley - at 20,322 ft. They are about 125 miles away, but easily visible when weather is clear in that direction ... which isn't often.