Talkeetna

Plans to get up early to exercise were thwarted. We had a bit of a lie-in instead.

Talkeetna is a small town about 80 miles north of Anchorage. If you’re planning to climb the highest mountain in north America, Denali, this is where you’ll come to prepare.

Jyoti was kind enough to drive us to Talkeetna for a couple of days. She has a Mazda. Liesel and I have a Mazda at home too. But Jyoti’s is twice the size.

In fact, most cars in Alaska are twice the size of what we’re used to seeing on the roads in England. They’re small trucks, really. But at least the spaces marked in car parks reflect this, you don’t usually feel you’re going to hit the next car if you open your door too wide.

On the way to Talkeetna and on the way back, we stopped for a coffee in Wasilla, at yet another branch of Kaladi Bros. Here’s a top tip. If you visit, beware their toilet, it’s booby-trapped. Not only does the door lock not work properly, but when you flush, the lever springs up and hits your fingers. Once bitten, twice bitten.

This isn’t going to become a regular feature, don’t worry, but here is a picture of my lunch today. We stopped at the Denali Brewing Company and tasted some very tasty beer, ale and mead.

A good friend of Jyoti’s, Diane, has a lovely log cabin in the woods a few miles outside the town and this is where we were spending the night.

So we dropped our stuff off and then Liesel and I drove into town.

We’d had our wedding reception at the Roadhouse in Talkeetna all those years ago. We’d nailed the bottle top from our celebratory champagne to the doorframe and we were delighted to see that it’s still there.

We walked around town, even though it was drizzling slightly. The potholes are something to write home about: Talkeetna’s very own little lake district.

The museum was interesting too: again, more artefacts from the early days, especailly describing the building of the Alaska railroad.

We wandered down to the river, also named Talkeetna, which flows into the. Susitna. Because of all the rain recently, it was very high, hiding the beach, and flowing very fast. There are plans to dam the Susitna and of course there is a big campaign against the dam.

The mountain climbing season is very short, April to June and numbers are limited to a mere 1500 a year. It must be like Piccadilly Circus up there sometimes! It would have been great to hire a small plane and fly round Denali National Park, or even to get on the train. But as subtlely hinted at elsewhere, the weather wasn’t really conducive to good seeing conditions.

We had our evening meal with Diane, her husband Jim, a pilot, and their son Luke. It was only a 5-minute walk between the cabin and their house, but we drove and probably just as well, because over there, through the trees, we caught sight of a moose with her twin calves.

After a good night’s sleep disturbed only by the usual calls of nature, we went to Diane’s again for breakfast. During the night, in the gloom, I thought I’d seen a moose right outside the cabin. It wasn’t moving much. But in the cold light of day, I walked round and discovered it was just a fallen tree pretending to be a small moose.

Jyoti, Liesel and I went for a walk along the trails that had been prepared by Jyoti, her husband Mike and others, years ago. We were close to Z Lake, walked around X Lake and passed close to Y Lake. No, I haven’t forgotten their names: those are the names.

It was an undulating trail and again I was grateful to be walking it rather than failing to ski it.

We picked and ate cranberries (very tart), rosehips (pithy and seedy) and blueberries (quite sweet) on the way round, but we left the mushrooms and toadstools for someone else. The grasses were fascinating too and I know Sarah would have been interested. Not as much poop on the ground as there’d been at Hope last week.

The views of the lake were stunning, it was quite calm and would have been inviting were it not for the leeches that live there.

We were joined on our walk by a couple of other visitors to the state. Hannah is from Germany, here with her daughter Viktoria (not sure about the spellings). Viktoria is also on a gap year so Liesel gave her our details, and who knows, maybe we’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when.

It was mostly dry as we hiked the trail, but it did begin to spit slightly when we drove back to a bakery/café called Flying Squirrel. We had a good lunch of soup and bread (Mick) and grilled cheese sandwich (Liesel). Diane appeared too as did our new German friends.

The drive back to Anchorage was uneventful, apart from the stop at Wasilla and the rain becoming more and more torrential. Over the Knik Bridge, it was pure white outside, we couldn’t see anything: this must be what it’s like driving through a cloud.

Early plans to see a movie were dealt a severe blow: tickets had sold out. So while Liesel and her girlfriends went to The Beartooth for a meal, I went to the gym for a quick go on the treadmill. I decided that rather than just plodding along on it for a long period of time, I’d walk/run a mile as quickly as possible. 13 minutes, 52 seconds.

I had a look at the other medieval torture machines available for use, each designed to cause pain to different groups of muscles. The only ones I’d be interested in using are the stationary bikes, although the saddles tend to be too wide, and the rowing machines because at least I can see what I’m supposed to be doing!

I had a coffee at Kaladi while listening to the conclusion of The Scarlet Pimpernel, I browsed the books again at Title Wave, and met up with Liesel and Jyoti later.