I finally had a chance to get to Alaska during its spectacular summer! My good friends David and Ricardo welcomed me with open arms, big smiles, and lovely accommodations. I was there for 10 days, and got to enjoy many places that I had on my list… including being treated to an all day Alaska Railroad Coastal Classic excursion that took us from a train to a boat and back to a train (what a gift!), some lovely local hikes in Eagle River, and finally, an awesome three days in Denali.
*Disclaimer: There will be a plethora of photos of mountains and trees and nature here, so you may experience some Landscape Fatigue. I get it. I just couldn’t not share all this beauty!
The Welcome and Flattop Mountain
The first place we went to was Flattop Mountain, which has a steep and super sketchy hike to the top. I was fine until the path became wicked steep and before I knew it, I was navigating railroad ties that weren’t anywhere near 90º and loose. I was watching people going both up and down nervously, losing their footing and then sliding down onto their butt. Even the dogs were having a rough time with it. I knew that with my trick knee, it would be a bad idea to try to get all the way up to the top. Not to mention, I do not like heights, and so I wasn’t really enjoying the hike once we got up to the steep side of the mountain. So we stopped short of the very top, had a beer, and went back down. My reward for just trying was to see my first moose of the trip!
The Alaska Railroad to Seward and Kenai Fjords National Park
The next day, we got up stupid early and headed to the train station in downtown Anchorage to embark upon our full day excursion on the Alaska Railroad train to Seward, meandering through the gorgeous mountains for 3 hours, to meet a boat that would take us out to the fjords where we could possibly see a whale or two. A whale or two? We were treated to breathtaking shows from all three species of whales that can be found in the bay! The entire boat was so excited to see these whale pods breaching and putting on their display for us. We all ran from one side of the boat to the other as we were alerted to their presence, chasing the shows with our cameras. It was amazing! I was so stoked to see so much wildlife. I had never seen whales with my own eyes before, and this was the best I could have possibly hoped for.
The we took the train back to Anchorage, with many Bald Eagles along our path. The best part was, when we got home after the 3 hour train ride to the fjord, then a 6 hour boat excursion, and a 3 hour train ride back… it was still hella light out! The long Alaskan days are pretty awesome. It is the Land of the Midnight Sun, after all.
Eagle River Nature Center and Thunder Bird Falls
Then we had a few days to explore stuff nearby, so we took a day to check out the Eagle River Nature Center, Thunder Bird Falls, and the town of Palmer. We walked through the flowers along the Eagle River and looked out from various platforms where you might see salmon swimming below (we didn’t see any). And as we were driving away from the park, I saw my very first bear, eating greens along the side of the road. Heeey booboo :)
After the nature center, we checked out Thunder Bird Falls in Chugach State Park, where the short but steep path took us to a beautiful waterfall that fed an ice cold creek. I found a hollowed out tree and tried to get all the way inside, but I would have had to shrink myself. Then off to Palmer for some ice cream, followed by a coffee for the trip home. I ate a lot of ice cream on this trip. Isn’t that what you do when you’re on holiday?
Denali National Park
Then we headed up to Denali. I had seen the mountain once before, when I visited in the winter of 2016, as we drove past it from Fairbanks to Anchorage. The mountain is a monster and really takes your breath away when you first see it. What I didn’t know is that Denali is often hidden in the clouds, and you can’t always see the peaks. That was what the bus driver told us as we went further and further into the park, and did not see any outstanding, bigger-than-the-rest mountains.
I was more thrilled with all the wildlife we saw from the road than I was with the mountain. The bus is the only way to access the interior of the the park and see any critters… unless you are one of the lucky few that win a lottery that allows maybe 30 cars into the park each year, to go as far as they want to. I didn’t mind being on that bus, because even though it was just the transit bus, and not the tour bus, we still got a solid narration from the Park Service bus driver, complete with alerts to look in certain directions if he saw anything of interest or if anyone else shouted that they saw something. He asked all of us to yell to him if we saw any animals, or even thought we may be seeing an animal. I shouted out a few times myself, once for a bear and again for a caribou. It was a group effort, and we saw soooo many animals! By the end of the trip, we had counted 10 bears, 2 bull caribou, about 5-7 female and juvenile caribou, and a few Dahl sheep. It t was so fun to try to locate them, like we were treasure hunting.
The last day we were there, we spent the morning hiking two good hikes that started right from the Visitor’s Center. The first one was the Rock Creek Trail that took us to the Sled Dog Kennels, where we got to meet the park’s Sled Dogs and learn about them from Ranger McDreamy. We took the Roadside trail back. They were harder than we expected, so by the time we were done with the loop, we were ready to pack it in. That was plenty for one day. After a quick bite in Healy, we headed back nome to Eagle River.
Our last stop on our way home was in Talkeetna, where we got coffee and looked for one last stamp to put in our NPS Passport books. The Ranger Station was closed, but we were able to find some good coffee and BS with some cool tourists who were looking for some famous mac and cheese that they read about in a book. Alas, the coffee shop did not have the mac and cheese they were looking for.
Farewell
The last day in Anchorage was nice, Ricardo and I took a long walk along the bay going south of downtown. Everyone was out riding their bikes and going for runs and it just felt so comfortable. After wearing ourselves out, we got ice cream (yep, again) on our way to Glalcier Brewhouse, where I thanked them for being so awesome with a lovely dinner.
See you later, Alaska. I’ll be back. You got under my skin, I think I’m going to spend more time here.
Maps
Maps of the places mentioned above: Seward (the Alaska Railroad trip), Eagle River, Denali and Talkeetna.