Talkeetna Mountains

The valley is enormous.

It stretches from the Alaska Range in the north to the Talkeetna Mountains in the east and the rolling hills of the western interior, an area roughly the size of West Virginia, with a population that could fit in a mid-sized high school gymnasium.

To the southeast, the Chugach Mountains form another wall of ice and rock, younger and more compressed than the Alaska Range, pushed up by the same tectonic forces, but closer to the coast, so they catch the moisture-laden air coming off the Gulf of Alaska and convert it into staggering amounts of snow.

The Thompson Pass area near Valdez holds the Alaska record for snowfall in a single season, eighty-one feet in the winter of 1952 to 1953.

The valley is enormous.

It stretches from the Alaska Range in the north to the Talkeetna Mountains in the east and the rolling hills of the western interior, an area roughly the size of West Virginia, with a population that could fit in a mid-sized high school gymnasium.

To the southeast, the Chugach Mountains form another wall of ice and rock.

Younger and more compressed than the Alaska Range, pushed up by the same tectonic forces but closer to the coast, so they catch the moisture-laden air coming off the Gulf of Alaska and convert it into staggering amounts of snow.

April 10th of 2010, though, would be the day that the lives of the Palmers would be turned upside down yet again.

On April 10th, Chucky, Chris, their stepfather and two friends headed out to the Talkeetna Mountains.

The group of fellows had planned to ride their snowmobiles through the thick blankets of snow that had fallen and also do some camping and hunting.

The boys' trip was the perfect break for Chucky and he was looking forward to being out in nature once more.

The valley is enormous.

It stretches from the Alaska Range in the north to the Talkeetna Mountains in the east, and the rolling hills of the western interior, an area roughly the size of West Virginia with a population that could fit in a mid-sized high school gymnasium.

To the southeast, the Chugach Mountains form another wall of ice and rock, younger and more compressed than the Alaska Range, pushed up by the same tectonic forces, but closer to the coast, so they catch the moisture-laden air coming off the Gulf of Alaska and convert it into staggering amounts of snow.

The Thompson Pass area near Valdez holds the Alaska record for snowfall in a single season, eighty-one feet in the winter of 1952 to 1953.