Re-worked itinerary, how does this sound?

Old Feb 16th, 2010, 07:36 PM
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Re-worked itinerary, how does this sound?

I've been reworking our itinerary for July 2011 and wanted some thoughts on how this sounds. Thanks again to all the previous suggestions. Here it goes:
Day 1 - Fly into Anchorage, drive to Talkeetna
Day 2 - Denali flightsee/glacier landing, hang out at Talkeetna, views of the mountain, visit the state park
Day 3 - Flightsee in AM if weather didn't allow the day before, drive about three hours on Glenn Highway, stops along the way, to ???, stay overnight
Day 4 - Drive to Valdez, stops along the way as suggested
Day 5 - Valdez in the AM, fast ferry back to Whittier, (yes, it''s a Wednesday when the fast ferry runs) stay overnight in Girdwood
Day 6 - drive to Homer, see the Seward highway sights, Mt Alyeska tram
Day 7 - Brooks Falls day trip, overnight Homer
Day 8 - drive to Seward, see Exit Glacier(if weather doesn't allow Brooks Falls yesterday, can try to do on this day)
Day 9 - Seward, Kenai Fjords 6 hour tour, overnight in Cooper Landing
Day 10 - guided fishing in on Kenai river
Day 11 - Hubby has more guided fishing, I take Kenai Canyon rafting trip
Day 12 - Prince William Sound 26 glacier tour, overnight in Anchorage
Day 13,- free day to try a flightsee or Brooks Falls trip(from Anchorage) if washed out on planned days, otherwise, relaxation day, hike trails around Anchorage.
Day 14 - fly home from Anchorage
Questions: Does this sound too busy? We want to see everything but don't want to feel like we are running from place to place with no down time.
Is there enough "cushion" time built in for rescheduling the very important things like the Denali flightsee and Brooks Falls if the weather is too bad to fly on the planned day?
Is there enough time for the Glenn/Richardson highways/Valdez to enjoy and sightsee, or should we try to add more time to that roadtrip? We can add more time to other things by cutting out Homer and flying to Brooks from Anchorage, would you recommend this, if it means missing Homer, it would give us an extra day, perhaps to add to the trip to Valdez or maybe a very quick stop in Denali? we pretty much have ruled out driving to Denali because we just can't get enthusiastic about the bus tour and many posters have said that it's not worth the extra time to go to Denali if we are just going to do the first 15 miles, and we will see so much mountain scenery with the road trip to Valdez.
I know there is some great scenery from Paxson to Glennallen that we will miss by flying into Anchorage, if you highly recommend we include that we could look into flying into Fairbanks and out of Anchorage and do pretty much the same trip if we rearrange the order a bit.
Anyway, I like the basic feel of this itinerary but am concerned we are packing too much in and any modification suggestions are appreciated. The timing of most of it is flexible, except we want to be at Brooks before Cooper Landing because of the timing of the salmon peak run and the peak bear viewing times.
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Old Feb 19th, 2010, 08:33 AM
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You are backtracking all over the place, between Anchorage, Homer, Seward,Girdwook. It could be more organized. I'm assuming a bear flightseeing tour is the priority? Then I would park myself in Homer for 3 days, perhaps plan a fishing trip there? You have already verified this is a peak viewing time? I mostly hear, July is NOT the best time??

I would rethink your Valdez idea, there isn't a enough time for more than the drive. It is much more than this. Especially- a highlight is getting to McCarthy/ Kennicott and spending time in Valdez- which you have neither.
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Old Feb 19th, 2010, 01:28 PM
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Couple of comments on the bear viewing ...

1) This has you flying from Homer to Brooks, but the best Homer guides prefer to pass on Brooks even in July because of the crowds and go instead to either Geographic Harbor or Hallo Bay or, later in July, Moraine and Funnel Creeks. These are considered far superior bear-viewing areas because of the scenery and lack of crowds.

Probably you can find someone in Homer who will take the easy way out and fly you to Brooks, but the best companies like Emerald Air and Bald Mountain much prefer the other places.

2) I would personally prefer to fly to Brooks from Anchorage because there seem to be many fewer weather problems. A Katmailand pilot, who flew this route practically every day, told me they sometimes lose only one or two days a summer to weather going into Brooks (via King Salmon or Kulik Lodge, where you switch to a float plane for the short hop to the lake). In Homer they are grounded up to half the days in some years.

3) Your plan calls for trying to go bear-viewing the next day in case you miss out the scheduled day due to weather. I do not think this is a feasible plan! The best companies are booked solid every day months in advance, so you wouldn't be able to find an opening with them with one day's notice. Again, maybe there are new companies who don't have as much business and can fit you in, but Emerald Air and Bald Mountain are almost always booked solid far in advance.

As for Queen's comment that July may not be a good time ... this is perhaps true for some of the bear viewing lodges, but for fly-in trips it is definitely not true. July is the best month for Brooks (early July is when the bears clog the falls catching migrating salmon) and also for Geo Harbor, which many people feels is the most scenic spot to watch bears. The people with planes have access to many different areas and will use at least 6-8 different areas during the summer, moving to where the bears are at any given time, so they don't have the same problems as the fixed location lodges, like Brooks (where there are plenty of bears centered around early July and then plenty more late August thru Sept, but not so many otherwise).
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Old Feb 19th, 2010, 07:49 PM
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Thanks for your replies. I did confirm that July is the best timing for Brooks. I'm not committed to Brooks, have been thinking about Lake Clarke as well but really wanted to see the bears fishing and it sounds like Lake Clarke is better in August for that. We're wanting to catch the red salmon run on the Kenai on this trip, thus we are committed to July. I wa just reading about Geographic harbor yesterday and is sounds great but what I read indicated it is also best for August and not great for July, is that not correct? I'll look into the other sites you mentioned, it doesn't have to be Brooks, we just want to see lots of bears and get great photos. I have been leaning strongly on cutting out Homer and would much prefer to travel from Anchorage or even Soldotna for the bear watching, it would give us more time for the other areas. Budget Queen, I did need more feedback on the Valdez part of the trip, at this point it does just feel more like a drive with not much time at the destination. If I don't go to Homer I can add another day to this leg of the trip, what do you recommend there? I'm spending a full day in Talkeetna in the hope of seeing nice views of Denali from there and taking the flightseeing. The alternative would be to skip Talkeetna/Denali altogether and flightsseing Wrangell-Elias, is this comparable and would I really be missing out not heading that way to Talkeetna? Thanks for the feedback, I thought the itinerary was beginning to make sense but if it seems all over the place I need to keep working on it.
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Old Feb 20th, 2010, 05:12 AM
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If you only are investing a single day in Talkeetna, you have to be willing to accept the huge odds of no McKinley view, and flight cancelations. Only you can decide.

As for Denali Park and McCarthy/Kenicott, completely different. Denali Park is very developed- priority here is wildlife and scenery. Wrangells, Kenicott/McCarthy is completely undeveloped, remote, scenic beauty.
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Old Feb 20th, 2010, 06:09 AM
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I thought that by staying a full day and overnight in Talkeetna I was increasing my odds of flightseeing significantly, I thought that gave me a chance to reschedule if the earlier flight was cancelled. Yes, I would be very disappointed if I couldn't flightsee after making the trip to Talkeetna for that specific purpose. As for the Valdez/Wrangell-Elias leg, I'll just have to do more research into that area. For the bear watching, I'm thinking of pushing the trip back by a week and fishing the Cooper Landing salmon run first and bear watching last, that would put me into the very end of July/August 1 for bear watching which I think is bad for Brooks but better for the Lake Clark wilderness lodges and perhaps Geographic Harbor. Ah well, I guess I'm not as close to getting this together as I thought, it's back to the drawing board. It's good I have lots of time. Thanks.
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Old Feb 23rd, 2010, 06:56 AM
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Last trip, I had 4 reschedules of McKinley flights and still did not make it. Hope you get lucky, but do not think that flights can not be canceled over a few days, they certainly can. And, there is only so much space, do not assume, either, that you are just going to easily get on the "next" flight. You are only going to get on if there is seats open.
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Old Feb 25th, 2010, 05:17 AM
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I'm leaning heavily towards skipping Talkeetna and Denali altogether and spending extra time at the Wrangell St Elias area, taking their 90 minute flightsee which doesn't sound like it gets cancelled very much at all, and seeing the scenery there. Maybe a fly in fly out of the Root glacier guided hike. Does anyone have any information on the differences between the Root Glacier guided hike and the guided hike on Matanuska Glacier in terms of the scenery, difficulty, and general experience? Do you recommend one over the other, or are they different enough to do both?
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Old Feb 27th, 2010, 09:07 AM
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Hello again. We are still talking and working through out itinerary, which has changed alot since I first started this thread. Wanted to just throw out a rough new itinerary with some specific questions, hope that's okay. I wasn't sure if I should start a new post or add to this one, hope this is what I'm supposed to do. We have decided to cut out Denali/Talkeetna and Homer, and focus more time on the other areas. Here's roughly what we are thinking:
Day 1 - Arrive Anchorage
Day 2 - Bear watching at Brooks Falls with Rust Air from Anchorage
Day 3 - Drive to Gennallen/Copper River, stop at various views, Manatuska Glacier, etc., perhaps fly in and stay at McCarthy/Kennicott instead of Copper Center
Day 4 - Wrangell-Elias fly in fly out, hike Root Glacier, flightseeing tour, stay Copper Center
Day 5- Drive to Valdez, stops along the way, explore Valdez
Day 6 - Valdez, maybe take the sea kayaking to Columbia Glacier, or at least the sea Kayaking to Valdez glacier(shorter)
Day 7 - 5 hour ferry back to Whittier, drive back to Anchorage or perhaps Girdwood, or just drive back to Anchorage and skip the Ferry
Day 8 - Drive to Seward, stops along the way, Exit Glacier
Day 9 - Seward, Kenai Fjords 6 hour tour
Day 10 - Cooper Landing
Day 11 and 12 - guided salmon fishing Cooper Landing, I raft Kenai Canyon one of those days
Day 13 - drive back to Anchorage
Day 14 - Home
Does this sound better than the last chaotic plan? We are trying to not bounce all over the place and stay at least 2 nights at most places . Here are some specific questions. Is it worth the moving around to stay at McCarthy/Kennecott one night, rather than Copper Center both nights? We increased the time in Valdez to 2 nights because the town seems very appealing. Is that too much time and what do you suggest doing there? Is the sea kayaking a good choice? Any hikes or guided hikes you can recommend? We don't want to hike in brown bear intensive areas unguided. Black bears are fine. We are debating staying in Cooper Landing the whole time instead of splitting the time with Seward. Cooper seems very pretty and we are committed to time there due to the salmon fishing. Can we see Seward from Cooper Landing and does that make sense to do? We are going back and forth on the Kenai Fjords tour, my husband gets very seasick and everything I've read says the shorter calmer tours just aren't as good. I assume there is still alot to see in Seward if we don't take a tour at all? Hiking to recommend?(guided if it's brown bear intensive). Last but not least, if we completely skip the Kenai Fjords tour we would like to see more of Prince William sound. We added the long ferry for this purpose, but my husband wants to take a train at some point so we were thinking of somehow adding the train to Whittier from Anchorage and the 26 Glacier tour. Do you think that's worth doing if we don't do the Kenai Fjords tour, even if we take the ferry and have seen Columbia Glacier? Where we could add this is if we stay in Cooper Landing and visit Seward, we could cut the Cooper/Seward segment from 5 days to 4 and add the trip to Whittier there. Or we could keep Valdez at 1 night instead of 2, and skip the sea kayaking. I know it will be a great trip anyway we choose, but the details are tough to sort out. Suggestions appreciated, and please let me kow if you still think I'm cramming in too much. Thanks.
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Old Mar 6th, 2010, 06:20 AM
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Wow, frankly, with all your questions, you are too early for such fixed plans. You really, need to sort out, all your questions on locations first. All of these areas will certainly offer you plenty IF of interest to YOU to visit. There are no specific answers for what is "best".

Your glitch can be your single day allotment for Brooks Falls, you are definately better with a 2 day window. As for staying at Copper Center or Kennicott- up to you, with your activity listing, probably staying at Kennicott would be a preference.

Only you can make the decision about Kenai Fjords, (consult a health care professional for motion sickness advice) and UNLESS you have other plans and priority interests, it may not be worthwhile for you to tour there. It's an hour one way transit from Cooper Landing, if you want to make a day trip.
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Old Mar 6th, 2010, 02:40 PM
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You're right of course, the plan keeps changing as I get more information on each area, I guess I'm still fighting the urge to try and do it all. I'll spend some time looking into specific areas and that should answer some of these details. I think it's a good rough itinerary and will naturally change a bit more as I get more info. Thanks for your patience, I'll keep working on it.
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