Mountains and Glaciers, Part 2

Sometime in March or April of this year, when we all expected the pandemic to be over... but it wasn't, TJ and I made a summer plan. We assumed the border to Canada would not be open before the heat and humidity took over our city so we put together our escape.  I started thinking, "where do we want to go, in the U.S., that we have never been?".  A few minutes later I exclaimed, "Let's go to Alaska!".  We have always been curious about Alaska.  Summer is the only time we would consider going, which previously...BC (Before Covid), made it a tough choice since we usually spend our summers in Canada.  Turns out, we had a lot of time this summer to fit in a trip to Alaska.

I wondered if we had made a huge mistake when I started looking for accommodations, way back in the spring, and found out many places were already fully booked.  I also had this suspicion when we boarded our very full flight from Salt Lake City to Anchorage.  We were obviously not the only travelers desperate to get out and see Alaska this summer.  However, we may have been the only travelers on our flight not going to Alaska to fish.  It was high fishing season in Alaska when we visited!  I am sure many people were shocked to find out fishing was not on our agenda.  Maybe next time.  We did bring frozen fish home with us because it would have looked very weird to be the only people leaving Alaska without fish! 😂

The view from the window on the plane made my
heart go pitter patter!

Our first stop, after an overnight in Anchorage, was Denali National Park.  There was high anticipation.  As we drove along we saw mountains in the distance.  Actually, there are mountains EVERYWHERE!  We had heard only 30% of people who visit Denali ever see "the" mountain.  We pulled over at the first "lookout" we came to because we were just so excited to be there and wanted to see everything.  Together we had been discussing the "cloud" over the set of mountains ahead of us.  Imagine our surprise and delight when we discovered those clouds were actually Mt. Denali aka Mt. McKinley!  We were now part of the 30%!  We might as well have turned around and gone home after this moment because we never saw it again after that day.  But...we saw it!  And I took lots of photos!

What a nice lookout point!
Denali makes those other mountains look so small.

That is not a cloud over those dark mountains,
that is Mt. Denali!

Counting ourselves among the 30%

There is one road into Denali NP.  Cars are only allowed to drive to mile 15.  A special pass is required to drive from mile 15 to mile 30.  Beyond mile 30, the only way in or out is by bus, plane or helicopter.  We rode no planes or helicopters but we did do it all!  Day 1, we drove to mile 15.  Hiked along the river at the end.  Day 2, we acquired one of the 25 daily driving passes, well before we got to Alaska, to mile 30.  Day 3, we took the 60 mile, 6 hour, bus ride in and out of the park.  I feel fairly certain, short of free hiking and camping, we did Denali.  I would have to say my favorite day was the day we drove to mile 30.  Having the ability to pull over whenever the urge hits to walk, see, explore, take tons of photos and just soak it all in was a real luxury.  Considering there are only 25 passes given out, and aside from buses, they are the only car traffic on the road.  We really enjoyed seeing as much of the park as we could, again...without going too far into the wilderness, which seems endless!  If we were younger people, we might have ventured a lot farther off the beaten path.  

The bus ride to mile 60 stands out because of the wildlife sightings.  The road is a dirt road with steep climbs, no guard rails, and very narrow with the occasional turnout for bus passing. We rode the bus all 60 miles and I still sometimes wonder how they do it!  TJ chose to look out at the mountain side of the bus and was the wildlife spotter for our bus.  We saw grizzly bears, caribou, moose, eagles, hares, ptarmigan (the national bird), and more caribou on our drive.  For TJ, it sure beat looking over sheer drop offs!  I kinda liked the cliff views!

Denali definitely did not disappoint!  We loved the lodge we stayed in and probably every mile we rode on that one and only road in the park.  I, for one, loved the fact that the sun set after 11:30 p.m.  I hate to admit it, but it took almost a week before I was able to stay up late enough, and have the perfect conditions for a worthy sunset.  I am not sure I ever saw a dark sky.  I loved it...and I did not have any trouble falling asleep at night or staying asleep because I was very tired at the end of every well spent day.  I am ready for Iceland now!

You just have to love it when it looks like this at 9 p.m.!

I could go on and post about 20 more pictures of Denali but...the blog must go on.  From Denali we drove down to the Kenai Peninsula and Seward.  Seward (population 2,800) is now famous for being the hometown of Lydia Jacoby, the women's 100 meter breast stroke gold medal winner.  There were signs all over the town when we visited, cheering her to victory...guess they worked!

It seemed on our trip that every time we drove to a new location the drive in was scenic with perfect weather only to be followed by a couple of not perfect weather days.  At least we knew what was behind all of those clouds while we were there!

The road between Anchorage and Seward is lovely!  We stopped in the small town of Girdwood for lunch on our way.  We also rode the tram to the top of a mountain while in Girdwood.  I think this would be an awesome place to spend more time!  It was so lovely!

The road to Seward....exactly what I expected Alaska to look like!

Our main events in Seward were hiking to Exit Glacier and going on a 100 mile round trip Kenai Fjords National Park Wildlife Cruise.  The hike to Exit Glacier was a miracle.  We left our lodge in a cloudy fog not sure if we would be able to see anything.  We drove a few miles and the clouds parted and there it was!  Apparently we had climbed above the clouds and it was nice and clear up there.  We hiked to the lookout, which was very nice.  BUT...we could see a path that went higher and closer.  TJ was our scout.  He went ahead and we followed to a second viewing point, definitely better.  We kept going until we were going to have to forge our own path.  It was so much fun!  We are such amateurs when it comes to hiking in National Parks!  As much research as I did, still we did not know the ins and outs of the many hikes.  We could have seen and done so much more!  I think part of me is afraid of biting off more than I can chew only to find out I am pretty sure we could have done so much more.  Next time... bite off more!

Just follow the path...

I love being above the clouds!

Glacier and a bonus waterfall.

Once again, we awoke to gray skies on the morning of a big day.  The weather for the cruise required several layers of clothing.  I was so glad I used valuable luggage space for my jacket and purchased a souvenir knit hat before the cruise.  This is one more day I would like a do-over on a clear sunny day.  As it was, the water was still an amazing color and the whales did not care what the weather was!  We saw three different kinds of whales, stellar seals, puffins, a million seagulls, glaciers and lots of fishing boats.  For a person who does not love boats, I really liked this trip.  I was particularly amazed at how green/blue the water was on such a cloudy day, imagine how beautiful it would be on a sunny day.  Just use your imaginations when looking at the photos!

 

This is just a small part of a very huge glacier!

I want to call him Simba, the king of the stellar seals.

It was surreal.

I did not expect to see water this color when we departed!

I thought 6 hours on a boat would crawl by...but it flew!  I could not get enough of the whales.  We saw a pod of orcas, a fin whale and a couple of humpbacks.  Turns out, whales are pretty cool!  When we booked the cruise I was more excited about glaciers than whales because I thought the chances of seeing whales was small but glaciers move much more slowly so the possibility of seeing them was guaranteed while seeing whales is dependent on the whales, who are undependable.  Two for two! 

After our boat tour there was one more truly Alaskan box to check.  I was not leaving until we ate Alaskan King crab and salmon.  There was a unique place across the street from our Lodge.  When I asked the owner of our lodge about restaurants his quote was, "Food is a nightmare here.".  Seems a town of 2,800 had many restaurants BC (when it was a popular cruise ship port) but some have closed and the ones that are open are running on a skeleton staff.  Help Wanted signs are everywhere.  There were wait times over an hour at many places.  The grocery store looked like one of ours before a hurricane....empty shelves and low inventory.  

We committed to having dinner at The Salmon Bake, no matter how long we had to wait.  With our names on the list and drinks in hand, we joined the rest of the hungry patrons in the "waiting room".  We had more fun waiting to be called for dinner that night than we did almost any other night of our trip.  What a fun communal experience!  The food was definitely worth waiting for and TJ ate one of the biggest King crab legs I've ever seen.  So glad we hung in there and waited.  We quoted our host several times on our trip because sometimes...."food is a nightmare"  but tonight it was a dream!

When you can't go to Nova Scotia for lobster,
Alaskan King crab is a great substitute!

A good time was had by all!

You have to love a place with a sense of humor!

He is pretty pleased with his meal!

A little more than halfway through our Alaska adventure, we really like this place.  The food, the people, the nature, the mountains, the glaciers and the hiking.  Honestly, we could have spent a few more days on the peninsula and had more than enough to see and do.  Maybe we would have even tried fishing...but we had one more park to see.  That story will be another post, because I am tired of writing this one which means you are also probably tired of reading it!  

If the trip had ended here, it would have been a great trip.  So the blog will end here...for now.