Talkeetna

July 14 and 15th. In the morning we had about 40 miles to drive to get to the Talkeetna Spur Road. One mile down the spur we stopped at the Kahiltna Birchworks. They make Birch Syrup products. It was Interesting to compare the process of making Maple Syrup in New England. The Birch tapping season only lasts an average of 3 weeks. This year was only 17 days due to early warm weather in the area. Usually they average 1200 gallons of syrup. This year they only made 1100. Each day of the flow the syrup gets darker. Top quality sap only runs for one week. It takes 110 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. They take sap from over 16,000 trees. It is a lot of effort for the syrup they get. The bottles of syrup they sell were 10 to 12 ounces and cost about $22. We bought a jar of birch caramel ice cream sauce, 9 oz for $12.50. Expensive but very good. Before we left I got a dish of high bush cranberry cheesecake ice cream with the birch caramel sauce and Bob got a dish of their Kahiltna Birch ice cream. He didn't add any toppings. He was doing a comparison taste test against the Hager's Maple flavored creemee. Hager's wins by a nose!

We drove the final 12 miles into Talkeetna and found a place to park. This is a very small town with lots of rustic/historic sites most converted into gift shops (touristy) and restaurants. Many artisans selling their works. We walked around town and enjoyed looking at all of the wares. One thing we hadn't realized was that this town is the original home of the Denali Brewing Co. They are now located in the town just outside the main entrance to Denali NP. We had missed visiting them when we were in Denali. They still have a restaurant and bar room (and Beer Garden in nice weather) featuring tastings of all their beers in Talkeetna. Perfect! That was our choice for dinner too. After dinner we headed about 1/4 mile back out of town to a large lot that offered overnight camping for $15. That is where we stayed.

The next morning we'd enjoyed our stay in this town so much we also paid for a 2nd night. They also rent bicycles here. We decided to try the bikes. Their seats looked comfortable and the handle bars were high enough so Bob could sit straight. It was only $5 per hour. We rode around town for two hours and enjoyed that very much.

After turning in the bikes we walked back to town and I checked out a few bead/jewelry shops. Next we went to the Talkeetna Ranger Station for their displays and a 17 min. video on the process of climbing Mt. McKinley. Talkeetna is the jumping off point for climbers going to the mountain. They fly to Anchorage first then hop up here to Talkeetna. Once a team and all their gear is set and they have been given the go-ahead to proceed, a local air taxi brings them to the base camp at 7,200 feet elevation. Many aviation companies work out of Talkeetna. They offer flights-seeing trips around the mountain and will even land on a glacier. A 1 1/2 hour tour with glacier landing costs $450 pp too rich for our blood but a glacier landing must be a rush. Tonight we had dinner at West Rib Pub and Restaurant. I had the King Crab legs and Bob the "Homer Split", pan seared red salmon and halibut dinner. We both enjoyed our meals. We kept our eyes towards the horizon looking for clearing of the clouds to the north . We are hoping for one more view of Mt. McKinley! There is a breeze now and it is clearer to the south and west, but those darn clouds are sticking to the mountain range.