I knocked another state off my list! My last week of summer vacation was spend in Alaska, The Last Frontier, with a great group of friends. Click here to follow along on a map.
Zach, Jimmy, Aleks, and Stuart, my travel buddies. Jimmy and Aleks were roommates at St. Olaf; Aleks grew up south of Anchorage and is back there now. He invited us to come check out his homeland, and boy, were we impressed.
After a day of walking around Anchorage, we hit the road. We drove south to the Kenai Peninsula and had views like this the whole way. It was so beautiful.
Homer is a great little tourist town at the end of a long strip of land called "The Spit". They're known for their Halibut fishing excursions and they bring in some really huge fish--as large as five or six hundred pounds!
The Salty Dawg is a famous bar on The Spit. The interior is covered in dollar bills, so we signed one of our own.
After mass in a beautiful church on Sunday morning, Zach and I went fishing for halibut.
We were successful! I caught my limit of two beauties, around 14 and 20 pounds.
We had it on the grill within hours of catching it. We stayed the night with Aleks' parents in Soldotna where he grew up. The fish was delicious!
Monday was a really special day. We drove to Seward and took a cruise of Kenai Fjords National Park. The waters are teeming with wildlife. Our first spotting was harbor seals hanging out on the rocks.
Next up were the stellar sea lions (stellar is part of the name, no joke). They have an opposing flipper that allows them to climb these near vertical rocks, it's pretty cool.
Orcas! I was secretly really hoping we'd see them, and it was an amazing experience. There was a baby travelling with the school, very cool.
We pulled into a bay that seemed to have something floating in the water. When we stopped the boat, tens of thousands of jellyfish came to the surface. It was rather surreal, they move so gracefully through the water.
Next stop was the Aialik Glacier. This thing is huge. At the front wall the ice is as high as 400 feet.
When the glacier calves it sounds like a cannon shooting. We got quite a show. Check out this video I shot, and don't miss the giant wave that the glacier creates. That's probably 200 ft of ice that falls in.
The ride back was pretty wet and windy. I was very happy with my Marmot jacket I got before this trip, it was very useful.
After a night back in Anchorage we headed off in the other direction. We drove north to Talkeetna for some pizza on the way to Denli National Park.
It may seem like we did a lot of driving on this trip, and you'd be right. We drove 1500 miles in our week, and I loved every minute of it. The drives were breathtaking.
After arriving to our lodge just outside of the park, we headed up to Healy to the 49th State Brewery. They have the bus there that was used in the movie Into The Wild. The original bus is still out in Denali somewhere, but it's really tough to find. I mean, have you seen the movie?
49th State was awesome, I would recommend it to anyone. We ran into the brewer and he gave us a tour.
Denali was definitely another highlight. We opted for a hop on/hop off shuttle to Eielson Visitor Center, 4 hours into the park. Our driver was fantastic, pointing out everything of interest and giving us all kinds of park info.
We saw a TON of caribou. I would say more than 50 for the day.
Moose! This was the first one we saw. The view was good but it was far away. Just before leaving the park we saw one very close but it was hidden in the brush.
We were so very lucky with animals. I think we saw about 15 bears. This one gave us a great look walking across the tundra.
Our driver was so great that we stayed on her bus all the way to Eielson where they have a bunch of info about Mt. McKinley (also Denali, "The Big One", in the native language). It was pretty cloudy, which is unfortunately quite normal, so they have etchings on the window where the peaks should be.
We abandoned our bus here to do some hiking. I've always heard that hikers should stay on strictly marked trails; not the case in Denali. This is, for the most part, a "trailless" park. You can walk wherever you want! We opted for a more established path and had a great little hike.
View from the top. It was beautiful in all directions.
We may have played some cribbage at the top. We discussed how many people had likely played cribbage there before. My guess is not many.
Riding back with our new driver we were quite satisfied with our Denali experience. Then three bears walked out of the bushes and onto the road. It was one of the coolest experiences of my life.
The mother walked right up to our bus, I could have reached out and touched her (I didn't--don't worry Mom). They crossed the road, didn't really pay any attention to our furiously clicking cameras, and disappeared.
As if things couldn't get any better, Mt. McKinley made a dramatic appearance as we drove out of the park. We could clearly see both the North and South peak, the highest in North America.
Moose, Caribou, Bear, and Mt. McKinley. They call that the Grand Slam. We were also fortunate enough to see a coyote, fox, ptarmigan (state bird of Alaska), and lots of Dall Sheep high up in the mountains. What a day!
We went back to 49th State for dinner. I had some very tasty Alaskan Salmon.
Find Alpine Creek Lodge on that map. It's a little off the beaten path. Ok, it's a lot off the beaten path. Like 120 miles on a dirt road away from Denali. It was a little weird driving that road at night, we passed exactly one sign of life the whole way. It's a hunting lodge with a lot of character. We had a great stay.
Our last full day in Alaska we drove back to Anchorage. It was, hands down, the most beautiful drive of my life. Amazing landscapes, mountains, lakes, and even a glacier right next to the road. Unreal.
The whole trip was a great success, and I really want to explore more of Alaska. After returning Friday afternoon, I drove straight for Wisconsin to see my sister Anna get married. It was a beautiful day, a beautiful ceremony, and we had a great time. Since then I've been preparing for the coming school year. I'm off to Madison this weekend for another wedding, then hopefully I'll stay put for a while. Lots of travel coming up throughout the year though, so stay tuned!
