Alaska vacation

[Greg]

Let me just start off by saying I'm not a fan of cruises, but that's how we started our Alaskan vacation this year and honestly, it's not a bad way to see the Inside Passage. We were able to catch a handful of amazing locations easily and quickly, then transition to alternative methods of transportation. I mentioned to Scott @ID Bronco that he saw a greater variety of animals than we did in his Glacier NP thread and he requested seeing more of our trip, so you can blame him for this thread.

Thia was a family vacation for my wifes side of the family. We flew into Victoria, BC and boarded the ship in the afternoon... the first full day was a sea day, but the scenery traveling was still pretty impressive. By the morning of the 2nd day the ship was in port at Ketchikan. We had a very early fishing booking and as we left the boat, the weather was cold... in the 50's and raining. We met up with our guides, found the dock and loaded our group up into two boats and headed out into the bay. Our guides knew what they were doing and in no time at all we were pulling in Silver Salmon, Coho and searching for the desirable King Salmon. It rained off and on, but we were prepared and it was an absolute blast. Our boat didn't land any King Salmon, but the other boat hooked one and the youngest girl landed a monster.

After the fishing excursion we went into town to explore and find some lunch. Ended up eating at the Alaska Fish House, it was pretty good, I had a Blackened Salmon Bowl, the wife had Crab Legs.

The next day we headed into Juneau for a canoeing adventure at Mendenhall Glacier and Lake. The glacier is 3000 year old and over 13 miles long! The canoes are massive, holding 15 people. The trip took a couple hours, I think it was 3-4 miles of paddling that we ended up doing. We rowed across the lake over to a massive waterfall and had a little snack break with some hot cider to warm up with. It was cold, the weather kind of spit some rain and snow but that was OK because we were working hard... at least, I was.

After the trip around the lake we were pretty hungry, so we ordered 4 pounds of King Crab legs at Tracys King Crab Shack for nearly $300, to share. That is the most money I've ever spent on a meal, but I figure I'll probably only be in Juneau once and we do love crab legs! The legs were served in a bucket with lots of butter... and they were so damn good. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. It doesn't look like a ton of food, but it was plenty. Also had an Alaskan Brewing beer to wash it down and that just added to the experience! We wandered around the dock for awhile afterwards, trying to walk off the meal.

 

[Greg]

The next port the following day was Skagway, home of the Yukon Gold Rush! We were in town pretty early, checked out some of the old railroad cars, a narrow gage rotary snow blower, etc. We walked up the main street and saw the Red Onion Saloon, found one of the historic brothels (there were real girls dressed up, hanging out the 2nd story windows singing and trying to bring in patrons!), museums and so much more to see. There was a legit boardwalk lining the blocks, which was pretty neat to see. We spent some time in one of the museums learning more about the history of Skagway. We decided to ride the White Pass narrow gage railway up to the Yukon and into Canada... it's a pretty quick 3 hour trip. The scenery was amazing, you could step out between cars and really get killer views. The railway was built to shuttle gold miners up the mountain, but before the train miners had to pack their equipment over the mountain... up the trail of 1898. Canada had strict requirements about people entering the country to mine at the time, they had to bring 1,100#'s of supplies with them. Many miners bought horses in Skagway and make multiple trips up and down. Over 2000 horses died making that trip, over and over.

We had a couple more days 'at sea' and both were incredibly scenic... first day the massive cruise ship headed into Glacier Bay. We spend most of the day outside checking out the views, it was chilly but oh so beautiful. Watched some of the glaciers calving, saw smaller icebergs floating around and watched at least 200 otters playing around in the bay. People with binoculars spotted Bear on the shores but we couldn't quite see them. Other people spotted whales in the bay, but we missed them too. Glacier Bay is a place I'll remember forever... it was so raw, so incredible. The following day we headed into College Fjord with 5 tidewater glaciers (glaciers touching the water of the bay). Both of these places are locations with sights I never thought I'd see in person. So thankful for the opportunity!

 

[Greg]

Our cruise ship docked at Whittier and we unloaded.... walked a couple hundred feet over to the Alaskan Railroad and a beautiful glass dome car. We settled in for a 9 hour trip with Denali National Park as our destination. The views were simply amazing, we saw Dall sheep, Moose, Eagles and so much more. We had lunch in the dining car and another Alaska beer, a Railroad Golden Ale from Bear Paw Brewing.... I couldn't help myself. At one point along the ride we passed a neighborhood next to an air strip and EVERY home had a STOL or Bush Plane parked outside the house.... probably 15-20 of them! I love avaition and airplanes, especially Bush Planes, STOL and Float Planes, they really catch my attention! I was studying to be a commercial pilot at one point and flying is in my family history.

We learned a lot about the Alaska Railroad along the way, it's history and saw a bunch of the Maint of Way guys, equipment and section houses along the way. Interesting to me, as that is my line of work. In the evening we ended up staying at a lodge in Denali NP, had a great dinner and called it a night pretty early.

The next morning we had a nature tour scheduled into the wilderness of Denali. I didn't know what to expect of Denali and honestly, it wasn't what I thought it would be. Cars and roads are very limited despite the massive size of the park, tour busses are the preferred mode of transportation. We boarded our bus and headed into the park proper. The road turns to dirt and the Park Service only allows a select number of vehicles past that point per day. It gets very wild and remote past that point and they strive to keep it wild for a long time to come. Mount Denali the highest peak in North America at 20,320', is nearby... but it's shrouded and we won't be able to see it. We explored an old cabin that was used in the early years of establishing the park and is still used in the Winter by Rangers as a shelter while they're working. At the end of our tour we were able to hear a presentation from a Athabasca tribe member who talked about the tribes history in the area, his family, the all the different Athabascan dialects and so much more. It was very insightful and emotional. He did a great job... his name is Greg.

We loaded onto a tour bus and headed to another lodge, took a little hike and spent time identifying some of the plants along the trail. Still in Denali NP, we talked about what we were going to do the following day. We talked about doing some hiking, but as the following day rolled around the weather had other plans. It was raining HARD, was forecasted to rain all day with 1 inch of rain!! It's crazy how wild, green and thick the undergrowth is, but it IS a rainforest. It reminds me of Hawaii, as crazy as that sounds... it's beautiful.

Our last day in Alaska was spent in Anchorage, we were spent... my wife had caught a cold and it was kicking her ass. We were both ready to be home, had dinner and retired pretty early. It wasn't getting dark until 11:30 PM so good curtains were very important. We still had a couple more days of traveling ahead, to Seattle and then SLC where we left a truck. We arrived at SLC at midnight, got a room and crashed hard. Drove home the next morning, uneventfully. Both of us ended getting a terrible head cold and sidelined us for few days each. I really hate cruises.... and I hate traveling for hours on end.