Talkeetna

Swiss Alaska is a small family owned place in the small town of Talkeetna, on the southern edge of Denali. The rooms were clean and neat, but very basic. Don't go expecting plush and elegant, it's the perfect place to stay on your Talkeetna Adventure. Staff was wonderful and everything was within a short walk (Talkeetna is VERY small, but wonderful!).

Our river raft tour along the Chultna River was amazing (not white water). We had a view of Denali, Hunter, and Foracker behind us most of the way - spectacular (much better than the pictures show). We saw quite a few pairs of nesting eagles, but no other wildlife. On the way to our put in place we did have a young moose walk across the road in front of us - which was great. The company van hauling the rafts broke down on the way to the river, but the staff handled it wonderfully and we were able to get going very quickly after that.

While in Talkeetna we had some spare time so we decided to take a flightseeing tour - one where a glacier landing was included. The weather was perfect at that time, so we tried to get a tour with the bigger tour operator K2. Unfortunately they were booked so we stumbled upon Hudson Air Services, which is a smaller family owned business. Ended up that we believe we got a better deal. Our pilot was one of the Hudson family members and was able to tell us a lot of history and fun facts of the area. We landed on Ruth Glacier which was awesome - Denali in the background but not visible because of the mist surrounding it. On the return trip, we saw a black bear, a golden eagle in flight, a couple of moose and there was even a young bull moose on the side of the runway when we landed. It was a great tour and I highly recommend Hudson.