Our pre cruise so far has been fantastic. We are the only two people who signed up so we have a private tour. I’m pretty surprised that they didn’t cancel it due to lack of participation, but we are thrilled. Our guide is driving us around in a roomy Suburban and we have total flexibility.

I managed to get a couple of pix uploaded. One from Talkeetna and one from the train.







Yesterday we drove to Talkeetna - we had a little bit of time to wander around and walked down to the river for some pix of Denali off in the distance. Then we boarded the train to Denali, seated in one of the dome cars. The car was maybe 1/3 full, which surprised me. I just assumed everything would be packed this time of year. It couldn’t have been a more gorgeous day. Sun and scenery the whole way. Our guide took our luggage and drove on to the park where she picked us up when we arrived.


we spent some time at the visitor center, checked in to the hotel and then had a wine & cheese reception with a 90 minute talk by a local adventurer mountain climber who told us about his ascent of Denali and other local stories. He is now an organic farmer during the short summer season, supplying local hotels and restaurants with fresh produce. In the winter he spends time sailing in the Caribbean. He was fascinating. It was a bit surreal to be the only people attending. Felt like royalty.

Today we spend the day in the park and if the weather holds we take an afternoon flight seeing excursion. Hopefully I can remember how to shrink my photos down so I can upload some later.