Alaska Trip - May 2022

 June 1, 2022

 

This year Jim and I decided to travel to Alaska to see the state as well as Denali National Park as well as other areas of Alaska and the Canadian Yukon.  It was a bit early to visit Alaska so it was cold and there was still snow on the ground.....especially in Denali. It had snowed at least two feet or more the week before we arrived!

 

A view from our plane before landing

 

We arrived in Anchorage on May 18th for the start of our land tour/cruise with Holland America. We headed out for a quick bite to eat.  The recommendation for dinner was 49th Street Brewery.

As we walked back to our hotel I was able to get a photo of this box below.  It was after 9 PM and still light!  Any guess what this item represents??

 

Ok....time is up.   It's a mailbox!

There were 48 eager faces on the bus when we loaded the bus early the next morning.  It was a short bus ride as we were being transferred to the McKinley Explorer train for our day long journey to Denali National Park. 

As you can see from the first photo the state of Alaska helps to fund this sightseeing train.  It has a domed top for a full view of all the scenery.  This is also a dining train complete with a full bar upstairs and a separate dining area below.  Lunch was included with the train ride and the food was extremely good for a dining train.  The bartender on the upper level was also very attentive and worked hard to keep all the riders hydrated with drinks/coffee.  

 

Here are some photos from the train on our way to Denali National Park.

 

The train stopped at the town of Talkeetna where the Princess cruise  passengers got off and boarded a bus.  This is the town where the climbers eager to summit  Mt. McKinley start their journey. As you can see from the photo it was still cold in Alaska.  It had snowed over two feet the week in Denali National Park before our trip even started!

We arrived in Denali in the late afternoon and were transferred to the hotel via bus.  I had to take a photo of our train engineer and conductor.

 

The lodge at Denali was rustic and very comfortable.  The main lobby was separate from the lodging area so in order to get to the main desk it was a hike uphill.  It felt good after sitting for such a long time on the plane and the train.  

We had dinner at a pizza restaurant across the street from the lodge.  Food was good and it turns out that we met a bartender/server from Trenton, NJ.  When we struck up a conversation with her we found out that she was from Mercerville, NJ which is close to where I use to live in Lawrenceville.  I asked if the pizza was as thin as the tomato pie that DeLorenzo's serves. ( DeLorenzo serves the best tomato pie...not pizza that I have ever tasted )   Small world.

The next day Jim and I had signed up for a tour to meet the Iditarod dogs who are the sled dogs of Alaska.  The human controlling the sled is the musher and the master.  Here are some photos from our visit.

This dog didn't have a name but the helper who gave me him to hold said that his name was probably going to be Chalk....for the white stripe down his nose.  He was such a cutie that I really wanted to put him under my coat and take him home!

 

Another close up of Chalk.

 

 

 

The phot above shows the adult iditarod pack who were waiting their turn to be selected to go on a run with the musher during our visit.  They were very excited and were running around in the fenced area hoping to be selected.

All the puppies needed a nap during our visit.  They were tired from all the attention!

Here is the mom.  She has to be separated from all the other males....for obvious reasons....more puppies!  She gets the best accommodations especially in the winter.  There is a heated house where she sleeps in the winter months.

We had the rest of the day to ourselves so we took a shuttle bus to the visitor center in hopes of getting a small hike in before dinner.  Unfortunately the trails were still snowy and slippery and it was not recommended to hike so we passed and instead looked around the visitor center before heading back to the lodge. That evening we ate at the King Salmon restaurant at the Princess lodge which was fine dining compared to the meals ( and better than the restaurant at our lodge)  than  we had the past few days.  It was a great meal and worth every penny!

The next morning the group met in the lobby and boarded a school bus that would take us through the first 42 miles of the park.  The rest of the park was inaccessible due to a bridge being destroyed because of flooding due to snow melt.   This bus trip was one of the best of the entire trip.  We were able to see a wolverine,  (unfortunately I was not able to get a photo of it as it was running across the snow and up the mountain so fast) a moose,dall sheep, a ptarmagin ( local bird) , caribou and yes.....a grizzly bear.    ( we saw it from a distance and in the safety of being inside the bus )  Below are some photos that I was able to take to capture of the wildlife.

Look for the caribou in this photo.  You can see two of them in the upper right portion of the photo.

I was able to take some photos of the landscape of Denali National Park.  It was certainly beautiful but still very snowy.  We were able to see the top of Mt. McKinley many times as the day was crystal clear.  We were lucky as fog often covers the top of the mountain!

Here are some more photos of wildlife

Dall sheep 

A screen shot ( the bus camera)  showing a dall sheep close up

If you look at top of the mountain a little towards the left you can see a grizzly bear.

The screen shows the grizzly bear close up.  The bus came equipped with a camera that could capture wildlife....or anything for that matter...closeup.  

A group of caribou

 

Ptarmigan

 

We had dinner at the same pizza restaurant across the street for our last night in Denali.  We were leaving for Fairbanks the next morning (Sunday) but we certainly saw a lot of wildlife and many views of the peak on Mt. McKinley both in Denali National Park as well as on our bus trip headed towards Fairbanks.

 Here is a link for Denali National Park if you want more information and may be considering a visit there in the future.

Denali National Park

 

The bus ride gave us the opportunity to see more scenery and mountains.  We passed by the road made famous by Chris McCandless....the guy who lived off the grid in Denali and eventually perished.  There is a book called Into the Wild by Jon Krakuer who tells the story of Chris.  I have read it and it a worthwhile read.

We stopped in the town of Fairbanks for lunch ( there were only three or four choices for restaurants ) before heading to the hotel.  Jim and I ate at The Crepery.  It was delicious.  It felt good to get off the bus and stretch our legs too.  

 Once back on the bus we continued on to the downtown part of Fairbanks where we would be staying in a hotel overnight before boarding a chartered plane to the town of Dawson in the Yukon.

 This ends Part 1 of the blog on the trip to Alaska.  There will be at least one or two additional parts to this blog coming your way soon.  Stay tuned.....