ALASKA - McKINLEY AND TRAIN RIDE

At McKinley Princess Lodge, we saw a large number of pine trees that appeared to be dead, especially on our trip into the little town of Talkeetna.  The bus driver told us that a beetle which is native to Alaska re-emerged over the last few years because the winters were not cold enough to kill them off.  The beetle burrows into the base of the pine and starts sucking the nutrients out resulting in the pine tree dying.

This is what the pine tree looks like.  There are thousands of dead ones around.

Tuesday (26th) was one of the nice days.  After we returned from Talkeetna, we were fortunate and excited to see a teensy bit of Denali mountain which later became fantastic.

That frothy little sliver in the middle of the picture is Denali teasing us.

That frothy little sliver turned into this majestic creature making all the rain we endured worthwhile.  We are now among the 30% to see Denali mountain.  Whoo Hoo!

Picture taken at 10:30 p.m.  I had to hide behind the tree because the sun was so bright.

This is Denali mountain at 10:30 at night.  I took this to show how bright the sun was.

Look who greeted us the next morning before we left to board the train!

We couldn't believe our good fortune!

We were driven to Talkeetna to board the train for our trip to Whittier.  The trip is about 175 miles but  it took us over five hours to get there.

This is the train which took us to Whittier.

The weather turned very gray and rainy while we were on the train.

Mountains and ocean (or it may be Turnagain Arm...yes, that's the name of the body of water).

That small bluish bit just below the snow is part of a glacier.

Water streaming down from the melting snow and glaciers.

Mountains, Turnagain Arm and silt.  It's incredible how much silt comes down from the mountains.

We came to the end of our very long train ride and finally boarded the ship around 7:15 p.m.  We will cruise for the next two days before getting to our first port of Skagway.