Another rainy and chilly day was in store for us, but our intrepid group geared up and prepared for a 9.2 mile hike on the edge of Denali. As one guide has reminded us throughout: “there’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad gear and bad attitudes”. We were offered options throughout the day — to turn back, or…
Author: lkcopeland57
August 5: A drive through Denali
Early call today — breakfast at 6AM! The plan — a bus tour Denali National Park and Preserve — which are timed and fill up quickly. The park entrance is about 30 minutes away, so we joined the many visitors and waited for our converted school bus to load up. Destination: the Eielson Visitor Center, 66 miles in on the…
August 4: Denali State Park
We left our beautiful accommodation after a lovely and filling breakfast and headed north to Denali State Park. Adjacent to the National Park, a 325,240-acre state park located in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough adjacent to the east side of Denali National Park and Preserve. The trailhead was about an hour away, and once there we geared up and headed up the Little…
August 3: Seward to Talkeetna
The skies started cloudy and chilly and rainy in the Kenai Peninsula, but we were headed north, and due to spend a fair amount of the day in the van so it didn’t much matter. We gathered at 7:30AM, stopped for coffee (good coffee for those who cared), at a cute spot in town before pointing the van north and…
August 2: Resurrection Bay and the Gulf of Alaska
They called today our marine holiday, as it was spent primarily on a mid-sized boat exploring the rugged coastline of Kenai Fjords National Park. We boarded the Weather or Knot in Seward and headed out Resurrection Bay towards the Gulf of Alaska, looking for seabirds and other signs of the local wildlife that summer in the area. The day was…
August 1: Kenai Fjords National Park
Breakfast at 8AM was a luxury, especially with the rainy skies, and a forecast for a cloudy and perhaps misty day. We piled in the van and headed south towards Seward and to Kenai Fjords National Park. The highlight and destination of this park is the Exit Glacier, and our goal was to hike the trail up to see it!…
July 31: Skilak Lake and the Kenai River
Breakfast at 6:15AM meant an early start to the day, and after eggs and reindeer sausage we climbed into the van for a short 90 minute trip to the start of the day’s adventures. We headed west on the Sterling Highway, and followed along the Kenai River for a bit, with gorgeous views of the fast moving aquamarine waters set…
July 30: Anchorage to Moose Pass
An early call for meeting our group and guides meant a wake up call at 6AM. But since I’m still struggling a bit with the time difference and the endless sun I was up just after 5AM, with more than enough time to shower and re-pack all my gear. At breakfast we identified tables with a couple of the others…
July 29: Exploring Anchorage
So this 17 hour day stuff is proving a little challenging. With the last light at midnight and first light at 4:30AM, sleep isn’t easy to regulate. But it does mean LOTS of time to go and see and do. And since Kim and I were up and ready to go by 7:15, we had an early breakfast and caught…
July 28: LAX to ANC
I will admit that I didn’t really understand how far LA is from Anchorage until booking the flight. And even then it seemed likely to me that it couldn’t really be as far as LA is from NY or Hawaii. But it is. A 5 1/2 hour flight, and an hour time difference, brought me to the cool, cloudy and…