Please critique our 2-week land itinerary

Old Jan 31st, 2021, 07:16 AM
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Please critique our 2-week land itinerary

We are a 60+ year old couple, in relatively decent shape, and like to do easy hikes, kayak and canoe, drive scenic drives/exploring/take snapshots of beautiful scenery and wildlife , stay in nice places. Like authentic over touristy. I just booked a flight in and out of ANC. could you please critique this rough outline and suggest possible hotels? We live in a city so spending minimal time in cities. Any must dos along the way? (no flights unless its a must; hubby doesn't love heights and planes). The only place I've booked so far is the Denali Lakeview in Healy for 3 nights. Also heard great things about the Alyeska, so going to try to get a booking there. Its my hubby's 70th birthday trip and we've been wanting to do Alaska, so we can afford to splurge a little. Thanks in advance!

https://goo.gl/maps/x9zZJJiNa9N48fxE7

7/21 arrival ANC
7/22 Talkeetna (want to get closer to Denali...any other suggestions?)
7/23-26 Healy (Denali Lakeview Inn)
7/26 Fairbanks
7/27-29 Valdez
7/29-31 Girdwood
7/31-8/2 Homer
8/2-8/4 Seward
8/4 Anchorage
8/5 Fly home 10:50 PM


auntieapple is offline  
Old Jan 31st, 2021, 09:57 AM
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My wife and I took a 10 day trip to Alaska in 2016. We covered all of the roads that you marked on your map except the detour to Valdez. What time does your flight into ANC get in? If it is one of the late night arrivals, you will have to get a hotel in Anchorage. We were lucky enough to get into ANC about 11AM and got out with our rental car by 11:45. We had rented a compact car but they were all out so we settled for a Subaru Outback 4WD which I ended up driving on a few dirt roads. We spent a few hours walking around Anchorage before driving to the Microtel in Eagle River. The next morning we topped off the gas at the gas station next to the Fred Meyer and got supplies from FM. We drove all the way from Eagle River to North Pole (just beyond Fairbanks) to a nice B&B. We left the B&B early morning with packaged breakfast provided by the host and got back to the visitor center of Denali for our 8 hour bus trip out to the Eilson Center and return. We got back to our car after the trip about 8PM but it was still daylight. It was just getting dark when we got back to the B&B at 10PM. We spent the next day visiting sites in Fairbanks including a nice museum at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks campus.
If the object of driving down to Valdez is just to see a glacier, I would skip it. I walked up to the toe of the Exit glacier not far out of Seward. I would skip Talkeetna as well.
You can read my trip reports by clicking on my profile. If you plan to do the bus trip out into Denali, buy the tickets before leaving home (online).
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Old Jan 31st, 2021, 10:53 AM
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Various thoughts, in no particular order...

First, and you probably have considered this already, there's a real risk of some parts of your trip being curtailed (not necessarily canceled but limited) based on how the pandemic is going this summer and on the State of Alaska's (and the National Park Service's) regulations. I personally would be a bit concerned about allocating too much time to Denali NP due to (a) possible restrictions to travel along the park road due to road conditions, and - maybe more importantly - (b) how the shuttle buses to the interior of the park will be managed with respect to load factors. (They'll require masks, but bus capacity might well be restricted to maintain distancing.)

Second, the trip as proposed involves a LOT of long drive days, with a lot of backtracking caused by the absence of any easy "loop" routes. Driving from, e.g., Valdez to Girdwood in one day, even with long daylight hours, is pretty grueling. Do NOT accept the drive time estimates provided by the likes of Google maps - they're invariably optimistic, sometimes laughably so. I am personally no big fan of Talkeetna - pretty touristy IMO, and I would probably agree with Tom on the advisability of heading all the way to Valdez if the object of those (very) long drives - Fairbanks to Valdez, Valdez to Girdwood - is mainly to see the scenery around Thompson Pass and Worthington Glacier. Now granted, those are some of the finest views in the state, but to be honest, there's no shortage of terrific mountain-and-glacier views all over the place.

Third, in light of the above, I'd be tempted to draw up some "what if" or contingency plans that could be implemented once there's more clarity on conditions you're likely to encounter. Let me give you a couple of options to research, either/both of which might be appealing depending on your preferences. Note both would entail a couple of additional flights on top of the long-haul ones to and from Alaska. (Where from, by the way?) However these would be on scheduled full size jet planes, so hopefully not stressful to your husband.

1. Nome and the Seward Peninsula. Nome is an historic gold mining town located on the south coast of the Seward Peninsula fronting the Bering Sea. You can fly there nonstop on Alaska Airlines from Anchorage, around $300 round trip, or it's a good value if you have any Alaska Airlines miles to redeem. Unlike other bush communities off the main road system (the vast bulk of the state) Nome possesses a local road system that radiates out into the countryside of the Seward Peninsula. You can rent a vehicle in Nome and explore these roads, which feature beautiful scenery, a LOT of wildlife including muskox, moose, caribou, bears, foxes and vast number of birds. There are historic sites like "the last train to nowhere," limited access to Native villages, and you'd get a real feel for the vastness of the subarctic. Have a look at this website to see what sorts of things you might experience - Wildlife Viewing on the Seward Peninsula, Alaska Department of Fish and Game

2. Sitka and SE Alaska. You could consider stopping in Southeast Alaska on the way north or south. I'd especially recommend Sitka, which is very historic (it was the capital of Russian America) but is also a lovely little community set in some of the most beautiful country in the state. You could experience the SE Alaska rain forest, Tlingit history and culture, and visit the Fortress of the Bear and the Alaska Raptor Center, both dedicated to rehabilitating and protecting their respective species. If interested, there are wonderful fishing, whale watching or other wildlife-based tours available from Sitka, as well as hikes and other cultural attractions. It's really a lovely area, and wouldn't require much of a detour on your route.

I'd do some research on either/both of these alternatives as possible ways to swap a couple of days for road-based activities for the rest of your trip.
Gardyloo is online now  
Old Feb 1st, 2021, 09:13 AM
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Regarding drive times; roads are slow. If Google says 1 hour, double it, or more.
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Old Feb 1st, 2021, 12:32 PM
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Hi,
We were just in Alaska for the Cohu salmon run last year in September. It was our first time in Alaska and we staid primarily in the Kenai peninsula (after staying in ANC). Seward was a nice area, we saw many eagles (both bald and Stellers), sea otter and seals. We rented a boat and went out into resurrection bay and had an amazing time. A pod of killer whales came very close to our boat, a pod of Dalls porpoise road our bow wave for about 10 minutes, we spotted some false killer whales and saw several Stellers sea lions on some rock outcroppings. If you're not comfortable taking a boat by yourself, there are very nice charter trips that will take you around Fox island. There are some that will take you up to see the glaciers calving into the sea as well. Highly recommend getting out into the water. You can also take charter boats out of Whittier to see a lot of glaciers, and possibly whales. Getting into Whittier is interesting, as it's a one lane road/train track through a long tunnel in a mountain.
We also enjoyed pulling of the road along the Kenai river to explore some of the many lakes and rivers bends. We also saw a couple brown bears, so be very bear aware. We didn't drive all the way to Homer, but the parts we did drive were spectacular. We rented from AirBnB's in Coopers landing, Seward, and Girdwood and all were very nice and comfortable.
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Old Feb 1st, 2021, 04:27 PM
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I loved Resurrection Bay. So beautiful!
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