Our passage from Whittier to Yakutat across Prince William Sound and the Gulf of Alaska was a scheduled distance of 346 statute miles; from Yakutat to Juneau is another 269 miles. Of the ten ships currently in the Alaska Marine Highway fleet, only the Kennicott is certified to operate in open water; consequently, only its … Continue reading
It took less than two hours to drive from Palmer to Bird Creek Campground in Chugach State Park on Turnagain Arm, our final campsite before boarding the Alaska Marine Highway ferry at Whittier Monday evening, September 10th. It was a nice drive, starting with a scenic view of the Chugach Mountains on the left and … Continue reading
Thursday, September 6th, found us back for a few nights at Alaska Paradise RV Park in Palmer to prepare for our upcoming ferry ride back to the Lower 48: cleaning the RV and Jeep, doing laundry, packing carry-ons for the boat, clearing out the refrigerator, getting everything stowed and going out for a bon voyage … Continue reading
Leaving Denali, we drove north on the Parks Highway into Alaska’s interior on our way to North Pole. No, not THAT North Pole. We were headed to a small town just east of Fairbanks that some marketing genius in the 1950s named North Pole, Alaska. Another opportunist immediately cashed in on the name, opening a … Continue reading
The morning after our Disco Hike at Stoney Creek we drove the RV into Denali on the Park Road, stopping briefly at the ranger checkpoint just past the bridge over Savage River. That green bus to the right in the photo, below, is one of the park buses that run the length of Park Road … Continue reading
Our day started relatively early Saturday, leaving the Denali National Park “Wilderness Access Center” (the politically correct way to say “bus depot”) on one of the green park buses at 8:00 a.m. We were going on a ranger-guided “Disco Hike” (short for “Discovery Hike”) and our bus driver introduced himself as “Disco Dale,” a 25-year … Continue reading
Known as Mt. McKinley until it was renamed by the Obama administration in 2015, “Denali” is the highest peak in North America with a summit elevation of 20,310 feet. The mountain is so tall that we were easily able to see it through our windshield more than 100 miles distant, even before we reached Willow … Continue reading
We stayed in Palmer for four nights, not as tourists, just taking time to be stationary for awhile. Palmer reminds me of our later-in-life home town, Bellingham, Washington – on the water, surrounded on three sides by mountains, with a functional, historic downtown and nearby farmsteads and micro-breweries. Though the Fair continued the entire time … Continue reading
Palmer is the borough seat of Matanuska-Susitna, the third largest borough in Alaska by population count, after Anchorage and Fairbanks (Alaska has 20 boroughs, called counties in most states). We arrived in Palmer early Saturday morning, August 25, after calling ahead to the Alaska Paradise RV Park, a brand new campground in Palmer’s farm country, … Continue reading
Locals joke that the best thing about Anchorage is that it’s only 30 minutes from Alaska. My source: Tip of the Iceberg, by Mark Adams, a recently published Alaska travelogue I highly recommend, especially if you’re a fan of Bill Bryson, as I am. Given that Chugach State Park is an easy half hour drive … Continue reading
As hoped, the weather improved for our day of hiking in Kachemak Bay State Park, calm, clear and sunny. We stuffed our day-packs and drove down to the marina at the end of the Spit to catch Mako’s Water Taxi for the 1/2 hour ride across Kachemak Bay to the park, departure, 11:00 a.m. Kachemak … Continue reading
Leaving Seward, we retraced our steps northward on the Seward Highway to its junction with the Sterling Highway which we took west, passing Cooper Landing and Skilak Lake again before crossing the Border Ranges Fault and descending into the Kenai Flats at Sterling. The Sterling Highway continues south along the shoreline of Cook Inlet to … Continue reading
The picturesque town of Seward is, of course, named in honor of William Seward, U.S. Secretary of State during the administrations of Abraham Lincoln and his successor, Andrew Johnson. Contrary to popular belief, the purchase of Alaska from Russia, which Seward negotiated in 1867 for $7.2 million (a price of less than 2¢ per acre; … Continue reading
Early Friday morning, we drove south from Seward to Lowell Point along the western shore of Resurrection Bay, named by Alexander Baranov, manager of the Russian-American Company (effectively the first governor of Russian America), after having been driven by a storm into this safe harbor and surviving to see Easter Sunday, 1792. I suspect that … Continue reading
We spent part of our time in Cooper Landing reading and writing in the RV (Dale, knitting) as a typhoon from the Pacific blew itself out over Alaska, raining more like it does in South Florida than what we have become accustomed to in the Pacific Northwest. We took a break from sitting around waiting … Continue reading
The 1.5 hour drive through the Chugach National Forest from Whittier to our next destination, Kenai Princess RV park at Cooper Landing, was uneventful. With the exception of its western shore, most of the Kenai Peninsula is owned by the federal government and incorporated into one of the following: Chugach National Forest; Kenai National Wildlife … Continue reading
Good Friday is a good day to avoid Valdez, Alaska. In fact, Good Friday is probably a good day to avoid Prince William Sound entirely, judging by history. On Good Friday, 1964, the most powerful earthquake in U.S history – and the second most powerful earthquake in recorded world history – ripped right through Valdez, … Continue reading
We left Kennecott on Saturday morning, August 4, and returned to the motorhome in Glennallen, hooked up the Jeep, and headed south on the Richardson Highway to Valdez (pronounced “Valdeez”). The Richardson Highway is said to be Alaska’s first road, originally built by the Army to facilitate the migration of prospectors into the interior at … Continue reading
Simultaneously with the construction of the Copper River & Northwestern Railroad, mines were being dug high up on Bonanza Ridge, together with a tramway to bring the excavated ore down from the mine openings at 6,600 feet to a more accessible 2,200 foot elevation where a bunkhouse, sawmill, blacksmith shop, storehouse and office had been … Continue reading
The morning of our second day in Kennecott, we went down to McCarthy to be fitted for drysuits we would wear kayaking in the meltwater lake at the toe of the Kennicott Glacier. Suited up, we climbed into the company van, then were shuttled to the launch site upstream of the pedestrian bridge over the … Continue reading
After lunch, we grabbed our daypacks and headed down to the ranger’s station to meet our guide for a hike out onto the Root Glacier, some 2.5 miles distant. The trail to the toe of the glacier proceeds first through the old Kennecott Mill, then makes its way along the lower slope of Bonanza Ridge, … Continue reading
We departed Glennallen in the Jeep early Thursday morning, August 2, leaving the RV behind for a few days while we went on an excursion to the remote Kennecott copper mill company town and its sister sin-city, McCarthy. The 65-mile drive from Glennallen to Chitina, where we stopped for gas at a 24-hour automated station, … Continue reading
The road from Tok to Glennallen is the worst we’ve traveled so far and I suspect it may prove to be the most damaged pavement we will encounter on this trip. Most of the length of this segment of highway is one frost heave or subsidence after another, making the ride more of a rollercoaster … Continue reading
The day after our last hike in Kluane NP, July 29, we drove northwest on the Alaska Highway to the U.S./Canada border, then on to Tok (“Toke”) where we turned southwest onto the Tok Cut-Off, Alaska Route 1. Not long after leaving Tok we saw a cow moose and her calf grazing on the edge … Continue reading
Our internet access in northern Canada and in Alaska has been mainly limited to the towns, primarily via cellular, occasionally connecting through public wifi. In the campgrounds, wifi network signals are typically either too weak or of limited bandwidth or both. My last post was uploaded at Juneau Airport while waiting for our connecting flight … Continue reading
The Road Less Traveled 