The Alaska I Had Dreamt Of

Where Nature Took My Breath Away

                                                                                           -Anupama S Mani

Don Sheldon Amphitheatre on Ruth Glacier, Denali, Alaska

Last week I wrote about my visit to Anchorage in Alaska.

From Anchorage we undertook a three-hour train journey to reach Talkeetna, a small town with a population of barely 1,000 people (shockingly low for Indians).

There are full-service rustic lodges to cozy wood cabins and historic downtown inns as tourists flock here for glacier flights, rafting, mountain biking, hiking, camping and fishing all of which also feed the town economy.

Air taxi companies ferry visitors for flightseeing trips to Denali by ski planes. Talkeetna is chosen because it offers the most effortless access to the mountain's breathtaking southern slopes.

Our afternoon flight was cancelled due to incessant rain. We booked our flights for the next morning, though absolutely clueless about what we were going to see.

Dressed in warm clothes, one by one we stood on the weighing machine, so the air taxi company officials could assign passengers for the several single-engine 10-seater ski planes waiting to fly us.

We were given special boots to wear over our shoes. Nobody was allowed to carry big bags.

As I got into the plane, my memory went on a vacation. What was left was just a selective filter, so overloaded with pure awe that if you ask me to recount the names the pilot rattled off through our headsets as the plane buzzed out of Talkeetna, I would fail miserably.

Our ninety-minute journey began over a landscape that felt deceptively gentle. The world below was a lush, vibrant green tapestry. Massive valleys stretched outward, crisscrossed by silty rivers that ribboned through the lowlands. I leaned my head against the window of the plane, thinking I understood the terrain- much like the peaceful, fertile valleys of Kashmir, where winding rivers cut through dense greenery and the mountains make a beautiful, distant backdrop framing human life.

I was entirely wrong.

Top left: Snow-covered peaks of the Alaska Range in Denali National Park peeping through a thick blanket of clouds Top right: Massive glaciers flowing down from the mountain valleys Bottom left: Jagged, snow-dusted ridges cutting through the skyline Bottom right: A glacial stream winding through the lush green tundra

The sound of geographic trivia faded into a blur the moment the earth opened up below us. Only one name stuck, stubbornly burned into my mind by the sheer, terrifying geometry of its vertical rock face: Mount Hunter.

Within ten minutes, the green completely evaporated. The plane began a steep, roaring climb, and the gentle valleys surrendered to the jagged, merciless granite teeth of the Alaska Range. We flew over a succession of massive ridges, entering an entirely different kingdom. Here, the rivers were not flowing waterways, but colossal highways of ice, frozen solid for centuries. These glaciers were so immense that they flattened the mountains around them, carving deep, staggering amphitheaters into the rock.

It was here that the pilot pointed out the North Buttress of Mount Hunter, a terrifying vertical wall of granite and solid ice that seemed close enough to touch. The mountains did not just frame the world, they were the world. They felt aggressively massive, a dizzying, scary vertical maze of rock that made our small aircraft feel like a solitary dragonfly caught between skyscrapers.

Going past several of these giants, the ski plane dipped toward a vast, featureless expanse of blinding white: the Ruth Glacier. The transition from flying to landing was almost imperceptible. The plane glided on a gentle slope of snow, the skis touched down softly, and the propeller slowed to a silent, metallic click on what is called the Don Sheldon Amphitheatre.

The American Alpine Club and Alaska.Org say the monolithic sheer granite cliffs on either side of the narrow, one-mile-wide gorge, soar 4,000 to 5,000 feet straight up into the sky, and the ice in the amphitheatre is 950 metres thick.

Stepping out onto the snow, the silence was an immediate shock to the nervous system. I had never heard such absolute, heavy quiet. There was no sign of life. Just the raw, uninterrupted pulse of a world made of ice.

The expanse was visually disorienting. On this Alaskan icefield, all sense of distance vanished entirely. The peaks enclosing the plateau were miles away and thousands of feet high, yet in the crisp, ultra-clear air, they looked like I could walk to them. The rainwater of the day before had frozen into diamond dust under the morning sun, every single crystal under my boots casting a sharp, blinding reflection against which I dared not take off my sunglasses.

Standing in the center of this shining white expanse, I breathed in the clear air. Suddenly, feeling completely alone and incredibly small, I thanked God from the depths of my soul for this experience.

I tried to listen to the glacier breathe, for I was told this frozen highway was actively moving, reshaping the earth. But no, I felt as if everything was standing still for me.

For twenty minutes, we existed in this glorious realm. I didn't walk far, there was no need to. Somewhere far-away, I could see small patches of clear blue water beneath the ice. My heart urged me to walk closer, but the pilot’s warning came, a stark reminder to remain sensible. 

Our de Havilland Turbo Otter plane
parked on the snow-covered glacier.

The pilot’s “tis time, guys”  abruptly pulled us back to  reality. We strapped back in,  the engine roared to life, and  within moments, we were  leaving the vast white plateau  behind. Those blue dots of  glacial water look  otherworldly  from above.

 As we slowly left behind the  whipped cream-like mounds of   snow and the frozen silver   ribbons of rivers to fly back  toward the green lowlands of Talkeetna, I realized I had no sense of geography any more. I didn't care about the names I had forgotten. I only cared about the feeling of that vast, glittering quiet, a memory that now sits permanently in the quietest corners of my mind.

Perhaps you cannot enter my experience because my words cannot describe that encounter with nature and these photos here cannot compete with the images that my mind recalls.

Early next morning, we took the train northwards to Fairbanks. Undertaking this eight-hour train journey seemed like a bad decision because there was no power or internet connectivity throughout. One positive factor, though was intermittent live commentary by on-board specialists familiarizing us with what was outside the train.

Interestingly, cruise companies have their own separate glass dome coaches fixed on the trains to take their passengers on journeys on land.

For more on Alaska Railroad, please see Mani’s post:
https://anindecisiveindian.blogspot.com/2026/09/riding-rails-where-grizzlies-roam-rail.html

Nature outside had still something else to offer: tiny streams and gurgling Talkeetna, Chulitna, Susitna, Nenana and Tanana rivers with their grey waters bringing silt from glaciers or clear blue waters, meeting at places or flowing alone, minding their own business.

At several places gravel mining was going on. It is a major activity in Alaska as gravel is used for construction. On the way, the hostess pointed out a flag showing the way to the house of children’s writer Shannon Cartwright. Ms Cartwright has spent most of her life living in the bush, without a TV or computer and communicating by satellite phone and US mail. For her books and other works, she rides horses, skis, snowmobiles, or takes a train. Ah, wasn’t I envious of her! 

The hostess also told us about permafrost, types of spruce trees etc., not much of what my mind has retained. She pointed out Veterans of the World War II commemoration bridge, a power plant, (Alaska has abundant coal) tiny towns dotting the landscape. We saw miles of black stumps of trees burnt during summer wildfires.

Top left: A rushing, silt-filled glacial river framed by towering mountain peaks Top right: Spooky stands of black spruce trees rising from a swampy bog along the tracks Bottom left: The iconic blue-and-gold train curving beneath a massive steel railway bridge on a rainy day Bottom right: Dense clusters of towering evergreen spruce trees reaching toward a breaking blue sky

Very late in the evening, we reached Fairbanks, the second- most populous town of the state with less than 33,000 people who have to suffer wildfire smoke during summers and heavy ice fogs during winter.

Fairbanks is famous because during World War II and the 1950s, the city saw the construction of military depots. The University of Alaska, Fairbanks has done extensive research about Indigenous tribes.

But we had gone to Fairbanks to see Aurora Borealis, or the Northern Lights. August-end is the time when the lights start appearing though October to March is the best time.
No, we did not get lucky. Two of us who were supposed to wake us up if they saw the lights between 3.00 to 4.00 a.m., were sitting with long faces nursing their coffees when we woke up.

We were there neither at the time of midnight sun nor for the Northern Lights and I had a feeling that nature had felt we had had enough party so far.

Yes, Alaska gets 10/10.  But now, if you want my first-hand thoughts on whether igloos have good Wi-Fi, I’ll need a miracle and a serious influx of cash for tickets to Greenland or the Alaskan Arctic. Siberia is also an option, assuming you think a freezing wasteland with a side of geopolitical tension counts as a 'safe choice' for a holiday.(Concluded)

                An impressive vintage rotary snowplow car sitting on the rails.

                                                                             (All photos by Anupama S Mani)

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