An Alaskan Summer Road Trip
- Lucy and the lens
- Sep 19, 2018
- 4 min read
Updated: Sep 22, 2018
Spending the summer in sweatshirts and raincoats? For some, it sounds like hell - for others, it's the ideal escape from the heat! Patrick and I spent ten days road-tripping around a sometimes rainy, sometimes cold, but always stunning Alaska with Trek America, visiting glaciers, ghost towns, fishing villages and national parks! Here's what our itinerary looked like:
Day 1: Homer
Day 2-3: Kenai Fjords National Park and Seward
Day 4-5: Denali National Park
Day 6: Tangle Lakes
Day 7-8: Wrangell St Elias National Park
Day 9: Anchorage
Day 1: Homer
Homer is a fishing town famous for its halibut. The Homer Spit is a narrow line of land extending way out into the sea, and if you walk along it you can see fishermen tossing enormous halibut back and forth, and harbour seals and sea otters bobbing around in the water below, hoping to get their share. An absolute must is, of course, a plate of battered fish!
Our campground that night looked over the bay, with mountain peaks rising in the distance, and a short walk led us down to the empty beach. It was our first experience of the midnight sun, too: as the sun began to set, we assumed it was about 9pm...in fact, it was 11:30pm!
Day 2-3: Kenai Fjords and Seward
Seward is the perfect starting point for a tour of the Kenai fjords. It has sea, it has mountains, it has glaciers. What more could you want?
Well, apparently, Patrick wanted somewhere to swim - so he did...in the glacial waters of the Pacific. I told him he was crazy before he went in; he admitted it afterwards!
Our Kenai fjord boat tour was a whole-day affair, as getting to the prime spots for wildlife and glacier viewing takes some time. But it was time well spent, as we managed to see a pod of orca wales in the wild!
We also got up close and personal with the Aialak Glacier, which was dropping chunks of ice into the sea with a resounding crash, even as we watched. One of the tour's unique selling points is that they go 'fishing' for large chunks of floating glacier ice, which they pass around for passengers to hold - really, really heavy! - before taking them into the kitchens and serving small chunks of them in margaritas!
Day 4-5: Denali
Denali is the big draw in Alaska, thanks to Mount Denali, formerly named Mount McKinley, a mountain so tall that its peak can only be seen in clear weather!
Climbing Mount Denali wasn't on the cards for us, but we had plenty of other things to do in Denali National Park regardless.
One of my favourites was a dog-sled demonstration. Alaskan huskies look nothing like their white, fluffy, pet counterparts: instead, they look more like hardy, grey wolves. They're not bred to be cuddly, either: they're bred to really, really want to pull sleds! We got a chance to meet the dogs one at a time before the demonstration: some were tame enough to be out in the open, and tolerated petting...the more rowdy ones had their own enclosures, but still weren't averse to a belly rub or two.
The funniest part was how, when the hour for the demonstration rolled around, the dogs all instinctively started howling, begging to be chosen for that day's show. The ones who were chosen bounded their way to the sled before sitting impatiently while being tethered to it. Then, they were off! Three laps around the course and they were loving it! Pulling a sled isn't a chore for these dogs...it's what they were born for, and they love every second! As a dog owner, seeing their joy made me so happy!
Elsewhere in Denali, we hiked a trail that let us experience the immense weight of a moose antler along the way...I don't know how they carry one of them atop their heads, let alone two!
We were also treated to many, many spectacular views.
Another must when visiting Denali is to spend the evening at the 49th State Brewing Company. Here, you can find the replica of the famous 'magic bus' used in the filming of 'Into the Wild'. The real bus in which Chris McCandless survived and died is still out in the wilderness, several days' hike away, so seeing the bus at this bar is the next best thing! When we visited, there was also an awesome local blues band playing, which helped!
Day 6: Tangle Lakes
Today was a day of scenery and epic drives. We stopped a few times to take in the views, and made it to our campsite at Tangle Lakes in the afternoon. With torrential rain due that night, Patrick and I upgraded from a tent to a cabin - no regrets!
Day 7-8: Wrangell St Elias
And so began the 'wild camping' leg of our trip. The facilities in Wrangell St Elias are basic - no washing facilities, no running water, one outhouse a twenty minute walk away...but once you accept the fact that you're going to smell, it's actually kind of fun!
The highlight of our time in Wrangell was our visit to the ghost town of Kennecott, which was so fascinating it deserved its own blog post and photo story, found here.
We also visited the village of McCarthy, a place so remote that it gets completely abandoned in the winter, for fear of being snowed in. I loved the ramshackle buildings and how everybody knew everybody.
There was the option to go glacier-climbing here - complete with crampons and pickaxes - on the glacier that we could see from our campsite, but we opted for the Kennecott ghost town tour instead. We made the right decision, I think, because those who did the glacier climb said it was the coldest experience of their lives!
We returned to Anchorage the next day, and the hot shower we had in our B&B was the most glorious shower I have ever had, after three days of wild camping!
Alaska was like nothing we'd seen before - rugged landscapes both unforgiving and intensely beautiful, more wilderness than anyone could explore in a lifetime, and a tight, welcoming community wherever we went. If only the food wasn't so expensive, we could have stayed for weeks! Instead, we headed for Hawaii...where the food is just as expensive, but the weather was much, much better!
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