anitas

My husband and I are planning a alaskan trip in August 2004 for 14 days. We will be flying into Anchorage and renting a car or RV. I have several questions:

1. When do the salmon run?
2. Are there a lot of mesquitos that time of year?
3. What are the campgrounds like? Do the bears visit the campgrounds?
4. Is is safe to walk around the campgrounds in the evening hours?

thanks

BudgetQueen

Salmon are running in August. Request the Anchorage visitor guide www.anchorage.com prime area is Ship Creek if looking at something downtown. Plenty of bugs until mid August and later possible, interior bush. Various campgrounds that range from the basic state parks to private with plenty of options. You need to narrow down your question. As for bears- not a lot of contact in parks that I have heard of. Beyers Lake had a resident sow- that I saw briefly- on the run. Noise is a good idea when walking around in wilderness any time. I have taken a soda can and had rocks in it- plenty of noise that worked for me.

dfrostnh

We spent some time watching salmon and fishermen at Bird Creek in early August when we drove from Anchorage to Seward. We spent most of a week in the Wasilla area and don't remember any mosquitos even though we sat on a porch while supper was grilling. It will still be light long into the evening. The campground in Seward is right on the water in the downtown area. Although it lacked in privacy, the view was terrific! You can get more information about visiting Alaska by following links to the visitors guide on the Anchorage Daily News website www.adn.com. We enjoyed visiting the Saturday public market in Anchorage (fresh produce, food, music, crafts, etc). Have a great trip.

ketchikangirl

Visit www.cordovachamber.com website. Visit Cordova during the infamous "Copper River Red" season!! Begins ~ May 15. halibut fishing is awesome and the scenery is outstanding. Visit the Child's Glacier and the Million Dollar Bridge. You can fish without many others at your elbow. This is truly Alaska's Best Kept Hidden Secret. Cordova, Alaska. 5 1/2 hour ferry ride from Valdez, or 7 hours from Whittier and there are daily Alaska Airline flights from Anchorage and Seattle. The people there are very friendly and make you feel at home.

bigtyke

We rented an RV in Alaska the first 10 days of July 2002.

We stayed at the same campgound outside of Anchorage on the first and last night of the trip. The first night there were lots of mosquitos. A week later there were very few. What was there was dragonflies which were eating the mosquitos

We stayed in two state campgounds and two private ones. The one private one in Fairbanks was fairly nice, the one near Denali was only so-so (altho we did stay at it both coming and going to Fairbanks, so it was good enough for our purposes)

Both the state campgounds were fine.

There was a bear warning at the campgound outside of Anchorage (and we did see bear tracks on the short hike we took)

RVing was alot of fun - our first experience. Have one person act as the navigator and get a copy of the Milepost to aid in this. We used Great Alaskan for the RV. They were very good.