Woke up to a clear day and Denali was visible from Eagle River (that's a rarity for those not local). Grabbed Bandit and we headed north to Denali State Park and did some hiking.

Denali is so big that it literally makes its own weather. It was about a 2 hour drive from the house to where I took this shot. The mountain was crystal clear when we left, but the top was already starting to cloud over by the time we got there.

But still, beautiful late fall day and we made the most of it.

Beautiful! Between this and your Aurora photos from the other night I'm getting some real location envy!

My son and I are still scheming how to make it back up there sometime in the next year. I've got a line on plane tickets, and have considered doing a backpacking trip into DNP or Kachemak Bay State Park (or maybe somewhere else I haven't considered yet), so lodging would be either a tent or a rustic cabin, but I'm still trying to figure out transportation. Do you know if there is any kind of bus or shuttle service available from Anchorage airport to Homer or DNP? From what I'm seeing rental car rates are obscene, especially to just drive it for a few hours and then park it somewhere for four or five days.

There's a only a couple of ways to get to Homer. There are shuttle bus services, your Googling skills would probably be as good as any recommendation I could give you on that. Ravn Air is the local airline and they fly from Anchorage to Homer, expensive but quick and flying down the Cook Inlet would be cool.

Denali there are shuttles, tours and the train. The train station is in the airport in Anchorage. The Northern Lights coupon book has coupons for stuff all over Alaska. They usually have a buy one get one free coupon for train tickets which makes it almost affordable. Plus there's a ton of other stuff in it, well worth the $55.

https://northernlightscoupons.com

Good Morning. What a beautiful photo! Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for that link...most helpful thing I've found so far!

I liked it too!

Beautiful!

My dad took a VERY similar pic as that one, and it is framed on his wall.

A very impressive shot! I spent some time in Alaska, sailing in and out of Valdez and Dutch Harbor and the natural vastness never ceases to amaze me!

That’s amazing! Alaska is on the list once the kids are off too college.