2-week Itinerary/Trip Report
Aug 13th, 2006 | 03:30 PM
#1
Original Poster
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 3
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2-week Itinerary/Trip Report
Just got back from a great two-week vacation in Southcentral/Central Alaska and wanted to share my experiences...
This trip was taken by my husband and me; we are both in our early 30's and our trip budget was moderate.
We arrived in Anchorage at around noon, and immediately took a taxi to the Avis downtown location. I used a corporate code (provided in these forums)and got a fantastic deal on a Honda Civic($630 total/2 weeks). Also, getting the car in the downtown location saved a lot of money because we didn't have to pay the airport fee.
We immediately drove to Seward (beautiful drive) and stopped off at the Portage glacier visitor center, which was well worth the short detour. We spent the first night of our trip at The Farm B&B in Seward, $90 for a king-size room with continental breakfast. Honestly, the B&B wasn't really that charming (next to a trailer park) and the decor/furniture felt like I was staying in my grandmother's house. Nevertheless, the price was right, it was clean and the breakfast was adequate.
The next morning, we took the Kenai Fjords Northwest Glacier Tour (around 9 hours) and saw a great deal of wonderful scenery and wildlife - glaciers, seals, puffins, dall porpoises - but the highlight was when we watched a pod of orcas swim right underneath our boat! It was truly amazing seeing the orcas so up close. Another great sight was seeing an orca actually breach! Wow. Although I loved our trip, there was a few hours of "down-time" when there wasn't too much to see..so if you have restless kids, I wouldn't recommend such a long trip. In addition, I thought that the "commentary" on the boat trip could have been a bit more...perhaps the other company with a National Park ranger would have been preferable?
The next day, we drove leisurely to Homer, stopping to see Exit Glacier (highly recommend). We stayed the night at the Land's End Resort, which is located at the end of the Homer spit. It was $160 for the night, with a really nice view of the mountains and bay (we could see sea otters from our room!). The room itself, however, is VERY small...large enough for a double bed with trundle. Although the room was charmingly decorated with a nautical motif, I felt like I was in a cruise-ship cabin. The space issue really bothered me and I probably would have chosen a different place to stay if I had to do it over again. In addition, although the guidebooks talk about the Homer spit as if it's this charming/artsy place, it actually isn't as cute as you might expect...
The next day, we used True North Kayak outfitters to rent a kayak for three days (I wouldn't recommend this outfitter again; I felt that their business was conducted a little sloppily). We spent the next two night staying in the Kachemak Bay "yurts", which essentially is a large canvas tent on a wooden platform, for about $60/night. We were really happy with the yurt - it was very comfortable with 3 twin-size mattresses and a wooden stove. It was "roughing it" without truly roughing it, and they were both located in really beautiful locations right by the water. We were especially happy to have the yurt because the weather was very rainy..it was nice to have a large space to hang up our wet items. The highlights of our kayaking trip was seeing a lot of bald eagles and sea otters up close. The best part, though, was when we were sitting inside our yurt and we heard what sounded like a whale clearing its blowhole. We ran outside, and sure enough, a humpback whale was swimming 20 yards from the shore!
We returned to Homer and spent the next two nights at the Beach House B&B, staying in the Kachemak Quarters room, for $160+tax/night. This was one of our favorite lodgings of our trip; the room had a king-size bed, a "living room" area, whirlpool tub, and a truly kick-ass view of the moutains and water right from our room! If you appreciate well-decorated rooms, this place is for you...the owner has a lot of cute knick-knacks that make the room really charming, cozy and special. The only (small) downside is that you don't have a lot of privacy with the room...
We ate some great meals in Homer - Fresh Catch Cafe has a very small but very good menu, Fat Olives has good pizza/pasta with a large local contingency, and Cafe Cups has a very large menu with a lot of fresh seafood specials every day. I highly recommend all three. The Sourdough Express is wonderful for breakfast too.
We then began our drive north to Denali. We broke up the long drive from Homer to Denali by staying in Girdwood for one night. Girdwood was great. We stayed at the Timberline B&B (around $150). The accomodations were great; you have a whole apartment all to yourself, with a full kitchen and a loft bedroom. You also have access to the hot tub too, which was really nice after we hiked up Mt. Alyeska. The hike was very very steep, but extremely rewarding in the end with beautiful views of the area. We took the tram down for free and then got a delicious salad and pizza from Coast pizza (delivery free). We also ate at Jack Sprat for lunch in Girdwood, where we had a good burger/fries.
The next day, we drove on to Denali State Park. If the day is clear, Denali State Park has some of the finest views of Denali. Be sure to stop by the viewpoints, where there are a lot of interpretive signs and scopes. We stayed at McKinley View Lodge for one night, while we prepared for a backpacking trip on the Kesugi Ridge Trail in the state park. The McKinley View Lodge has awesome views of Denali from their cafe, and the food is fine, but nothing special (mostly burgers and sandwiches). It's a really nice place to stop for lunch (and has some colorfol local history), but I really would discourage from people staying overnight at the Lodge, unless you're really strapped for cash. We had a rate of $75/night for a room with two twin beds. I have to say, it was a dump. Yes, that's harsh, but it's the truth. There was a dead mosquito with smeared blood on the wall, the vertical blinds had multiple slats missing, there was no telephone or TV, but worst of all, we heard a small critter scurrying back and forth above the ceiling tiles. If you do choose to stay here, at least make sure you can get the rooms on the second floor, where you do have good views of the Alaska range.
We had intended on spending the next two nights in Denali State park, but only ended up staying one night, because the mosquitos were really too much for us to handle. The 95% DEET helped A LOT (we also tried some non-DEET stuff from REI that didn't work at all), but even with the DEET, the mosquitos would still buzz in our ears and land on our faces. If we had a mosquito head net, it would have been a lot better, I think.
Anyway, besides the mosquitos, the hike on Little Coal Creek was absolutely gorgeous. I would do it again in a hearbeat. The views are spectacular the entire time, and the tundra plants are fascinating, I loved it! The blueberries were just becoming ripe and they were all over the place. We saw a lot of arctic ground squirrels too, but no bears. We hiked about 4 miles in, camped one night with our tent facing Denali, and then hiked out the next morning. It was a very short backpacking trip, but even with the mosquitos, it was awesome.
We spent the next three nights at Denali Lakeview Inn, our favorite lodging of the trip. It was $130/night for a nice-sized king-bed room. Every room there has a gorgeous view of Otto Lake, where there are a lot of moose-sightings. The place felt like we were staying at a friend's vacation home, it was so home-y and cozy.
Our Denali National Park shuttle bus ride to Fish Creek (6:30 am, 8 hours) was really special. We had not seen any grizzlies up to this point, and we were eager to see some. We weren't disappointed - we saw a sow with her three cubs and we also got to see another sow with her cub eating berries right by the road! I guess the bears are so accustomed to the buses; they really didn't mind that we were gaping at them from 10 feet away! That was really cool. We also saw numerous caribou, dall sheep (in the distance), a moose, and a porcupine. Well worth the trip and our driver was quite knowledgeable. By the way, in my opinion, there is no difference in sitting on the left or right side of the bus.
That's it! Thanks for everyone's input; we had a wonderful trip and hopefully my trip report will help others as well.
This trip was taken by my husband and me; we are both in our early 30's and our trip budget was moderate.
We arrived in Anchorage at around noon, and immediately took a taxi to the Avis downtown location. I used a corporate code (provided in these forums)and got a fantastic deal on a Honda Civic($630 total/2 weeks). Also, getting the car in the downtown location saved a lot of money because we didn't have to pay the airport fee.
We immediately drove to Seward (beautiful drive) and stopped off at the Portage glacier visitor center, which was well worth the short detour. We spent the first night of our trip at The Farm B&B in Seward, $90 for a king-size room with continental breakfast. Honestly, the B&B wasn't really that charming (next to a trailer park) and the decor/furniture felt like I was staying in my grandmother's house. Nevertheless, the price was right, it was clean and the breakfast was adequate.
The next morning, we took the Kenai Fjords Northwest Glacier Tour (around 9 hours) and saw a great deal of wonderful scenery and wildlife - glaciers, seals, puffins, dall porpoises - but the highlight was when we watched a pod of orcas swim right underneath our boat! It was truly amazing seeing the orcas so up close. Another great sight was seeing an orca actually breach! Wow. Although I loved our trip, there was a few hours of "down-time" when there wasn't too much to see..so if you have restless kids, I wouldn't recommend such a long trip. In addition, I thought that the "commentary" on the boat trip could have been a bit more...perhaps the other company with a National Park ranger would have been preferable?
The next day, we drove leisurely to Homer, stopping to see Exit Glacier (highly recommend). We stayed the night at the Land's End Resort, which is located at the end of the Homer spit. It was $160 for the night, with a really nice view of the mountains and bay (we could see sea otters from our room!). The room itself, however, is VERY small...large enough for a double bed with trundle. Although the room was charmingly decorated with a nautical motif, I felt like I was in a cruise-ship cabin. The space issue really bothered me and I probably would have chosen a different place to stay if I had to do it over again. In addition, although the guidebooks talk about the Homer spit as if it's this charming/artsy place, it actually isn't as cute as you might expect...
The next day, we used True North Kayak outfitters to rent a kayak for three days (I wouldn't recommend this outfitter again; I felt that their business was conducted a little sloppily). We spent the next two night staying in the Kachemak Bay "yurts", which essentially is a large canvas tent on a wooden platform, for about $60/night. We were really happy with the yurt - it was very comfortable with 3 twin-size mattresses and a wooden stove. It was "roughing it" without truly roughing it, and they were both located in really beautiful locations right by the water. We were especially happy to have the yurt because the weather was very rainy..it was nice to have a large space to hang up our wet items. The highlights of our kayaking trip was seeing a lot of bald eagles and sea otters up close. The best part, though, was when we were sitting inside our yurt and we heard what sounded like a whale clearing its blowhole. We ran outside, and sure enough, a humpback whale was swimming 20 yards from the shore!
We returned to Homer and spent the next two nights at the Beach House B&B, staying in the Kachemak Quarters room, for $160+tax/night. This was one of our favorite lodgings of our trip; the room had a king-size bed, a "living room" area, whirlpool tub, and a truly kick-ass view of the moutains and water right from our room! If you appreciate well-decorated rooms, this place is for you...the owner has a lot of cute knick-knacks that make the room really charming, cozy and special. The only (small) downside is that you don't have a lot of privacy with the room...
We ate some great meals in Homer - Fresh Catch Cafe has a very small but very good menu, Fat Olives has good pizza/pasta with a large local contingency, and Cafe Cups has a very large menu with a lot of fresh seafood specials every day. I highly recommend all three. The Sourdough Express is wonderful for breakfast too.
We then began our drive north to Denali. We broke up the long drive from Homer to Denali by staying in Girdwood for one night. Girdwood was great. We stayed at the Timberline B&B (around $150). The accomodations were great; you have a whole apartment all to yourself, with a full kitchen and a loft bedroom. You also have access to the hot tub too, which was really nice after we hiked up Mt. Alyeska. The hike was very very steep, but extremely rewarding in the end with beautiful views of the area. We took the tram down for free and then got a delicious salad and pizza from Coast pizza (delivery free). We also ate at Jack Sprat for lunch in Girdwood, where we had a good burger/fries.
The next day, we drove on to Denali State Park. If the day is clear, Denali State Park has some of the finest views of Denali. Be sure to stop by the viewpoints, where there are a lot of interpretive signs and scopes. We stayed at McKinley View Lodge for one night, while we prepared for a backpacking trip on the Kesugi Ridge Trail in the state park. The McKinley View Lodge has awesome views of Denali from their cafe, and the food is fine, but nothing special (mostly burgers and sandwiches). It's a really nice place to stop for lunch (and has some colorfol local history), but I really would discourage from people staying overnight at the Lodge, unless you're really strapped for cash. We had a rate of $75/night for a room with two twin beds. I have to say, it was a dump. Yes, that's harsh, but it's the truth. There was a dead mosquito with smeared blood on the wall, the vertical blinds had multiple slats missing, there was no telephone or TV, but worst of all, we heard a small critter scurrying back and forth above the ceiling tiles. If you do choose to stay here, at least make sure you can get the rooms on the second floor, where you do have good views of the Alaska range.
We had intended on spending the next two nights in Denali State park, but only ended up staying one night, because the mosquitos were really too much for us to handle. The 95% DEET helped A LOT (we also tried some non-DEET stuff from REI that didn't work at all), but even with the DEET, the mosquitos would still buzz in our ears and land on our faces. If we had a mosquito head net, it would have been a lot better, I think.
Anyway, besides the mosquitos, the hike on Little Coal Creek was absolutely gorgeous. I would do it again in a hearbeat. The views are spectacular the entire time, and the tundra plants are fascinating, I loved it! The blueberries were just becoming ripe and they were all over the place. We saw a lot of arctic ground squirrels too, but no bears. We hiked about 4 miles in, camped one night with our tent facing Denali, and then hiked out the next morning. It was a very short backpacking trip, but even with the mosquitos, it was awesome.
We spent the next three nights at Denali Lakeview Inn, our favorite lodging of the trip. It was $130/night for a nice-sized king-bed room. Every room there has a gorgeous view of Otto Lake, where there are a lot of moose-sightings. The place felt like we were staying at a friend's vacation home, it was so home-y and cozy.
Our Denali National Park shuttle bus ride to Fish Creek (6:30 am, 8 hours) was really special. We had not seen any grizzlies up to this point, and we were eager to see some. We weren't disappointed - we saw a sow with her three cubs and we also got to see another sow with her cub eating berries right by the road! I guess the bears are so accustomed to the buses; they really didn't mind that we were gaping at them from 10 feet away! That was really cool. We also saw numerous caribou, dall sheep (in the distance), a moose, and a porcupine. Well worth the trip and our driver was quite knowledgeable. By the way, in my opinion, there is no difference in sitting on the left or right side of the bus.
That's it! Thanks for everyone's input; we had a wonderful trip and hopefully my trip report will help others as well.
Aug 14th, 2006 | 09:08 AM
#4
Joined: Feb 2006
Posts: 28
Likes: 0
miktam-thanks for the report - I really enjoyed reading it and reconfirms the change I made in lodgings for our trip next week. I changed from The Land's End Resort to the Ocean House B&B in Homer (suggestion was made on this forum for the B&B). I am a bit concerned about the mosquitos - I would have thought they would be gone by now? We're leaving on Sunday - can anyone else comment - do I need to bring my supply of DEET this late in the season? I've never had a problem at this time of year. Also, how was the weather - from what I can tell, it looks like it hasn't done anything but rain for the last two weeks and the forecast I'm seeing calls for rain through next Wednesday, at least! Sounds like you had a great time - thanks for sharing.
Aug 14th, 2006 | 09:34 AM
#5
Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 4,469
Likes: 0
I agree, Mary's McKinley View Lodge is a DUMP. I have reported on this in the past,and it does appear they have made no improvement since I was there in 2001. Pick somewhere else to stay. They have no intentions of improving.
You might want to send them an email. I did and got back a reply, they were "working" on it. Maybe if they get enough- they will make an effort??
You might want to send them an email. I did and got back a reply, they were "working" on it. Maybe if they get enough- they will make an effort??
Aug 14th, 2006 | 05:57 PM
#6
Original Poster
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 3
Likes: 0
Hi...To answer some questions:
1) the corporate code for the rental car at Avis was A469100
2)the mosquito situation at Denali State Park was pretty intense(especially as you go higher up in elevation) but when we took our shuttle bus ride to Fish Creek in Denali National Park, we didn't notice any mosquitoes...maybe there's a difference between the north and south side of Mt. McKinley? If I were you, I wouldn't chance it; just bring the DEET just in case!
3) The weather on our two-week trip: 2 days of consistent rain, 3 days of pretty-clear skies and consistent sun, and the rest of the days were a mix of clouds/sunshine/occasional showers.
1) the corporate code for the rental car at Avis was A469100
2)the mosquito situation at Denali State Park was pretty intense(especially as you go higher up in elevation) but when we took our shuttle bus ride to Fish Creek in Denali National Park, we didn't notice any mosquitoes...maybe there's a difference between the north and south side of Mt. McKinley? If I were you, I wouldn't chance it; just bring the DEET just in case!
3) The weather on our two-week trip: 2 days of consistent rain, 3 days of pretty-clear skies and consistent sun, and the rest of the days were a mix of clouds/sunshine/occasional showers.
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