Summer in Talkeetna revolves around tourism. Whether you embrace it or avoid it, the town is usually full of visitors. It’s becoming clear, however, that this summer will look a little bit different, and the absence will be felt for some, as early as next month.
Last week, the National Park Service announced that the 2020 climbing season was suspended due to concerns related to the illness, COVID-19. According to the National Park Service website, 1,226 climbers registered to climb Denali in 2019. Most of these climbers funneled through Talkeetna. They slept at local lodging, ate a few meals in town, purchased gear from the Alaska Mountaineering School, and booked a flight to the Kahiltna Glacier Base Camp. Lisa Roderick has been the Kahiltna Base Camp manager since 2001.
“Things travel really fast if you think about it. You’re in small tents with people, you’re talking to people, you’re going into their cook tent, you’re sharing spoons, so it would be really easy on this mountain, where everybody on the West Buttress, where everybody’s packed together like that, to spread things around. So I kinda had that in the back of my head. Here are people getting on airplanes, going to Anchorage, getting in a small shuttle, driving, getting in a small airplane and then coming to me and shaking my hand. So I think that they made a good decision in keeping everybody safe, because we don’t know where this is going to go obviously. So they had to make a decision now because climbing season really starts getting ramped up in May.”
While shutting down the climbing season might be a good choice for public health, the financial impact to Talkeetna is difficult to fathom. According to Maureen Gaultieri of the National Park Service, the local ranger station employs approximately ten climbing rangers during the season and four additional seasonal employees. Talkeetna is home to a handful of air taxis that fly climbers to the Kahiltna Glacier to begin their expedition. Lisa’s brother, Paul Roderick, is the owner of Talkeetna Air Taxi. Before the National Park Service Announcement, Paul made the decision to cancel flights through the end of the month. Lisa talks about the impact of cancelling the climbing season.
“Paul just assumed that they were going to be shutting down soon. He shut down a week or so ago. Actually he did just get his last people out of the Alaska Range. There were some skiers three days ago I think and he texted me and said “I’m done. I just did my last flight.” They were out there for weeks so they probably didn’t even know what’s going on.”
“Boy, it’s going to be really hard on everybody that relies on tourism. I work, when I’m not at basecamp, I work for Princess doing slideshows for them at their lodge in Trapper Creek, so I’m getting hit with basecamp and with Princess. Everybody is just going to get hit hard. I don’t know how everybody is going to make it because, if you think about it, we’re not operating twelve months a year. We’re only operating in a six month window where everybody makes their money in the six months. You know, you can lay off your workers, but still, but when you’re staring at those airplanes sitting out there, those Otters that are almost a million dollars, and you’re sitting there looking at a fleet of them and nothing’s happening… Hopefully we can weather the storm and everybody’s going to need financial help.”
While it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and despondent, it’s still early in the pandemic and there is no precedent for how the world will handle a global economic shutdown. For now, Lisa is choosing to look on the bright side.
“Me personally, I was thinking, Oh, I gotta just take this opportunity to take a break, since I’ve been going up there for the last twenty summers, and have a garden. I’ll figure out something else to do and have a summer re-inventing myself. I’m kinda the person, that oh, things will present themselves to me and I’ll figure it out, but right now I have no idea what I’m going to do this summer.”
