Welcome to Alaska
August 18 through August 29, 2022
Our 50th State
Sherry's Bucket List
Planned by Frank
August 19, 2022
We arrived late yesterday. Today we walked the Fairbanks YRE and achieved an event in all 50 states of the United States.
We arrived late yesterday. Today we walked the Fairbanks YRE and achieved an event in all 50 states of the United States.
We had scheduled a van trip to the Arctic Circle, which is about 200 miles north of Fairbanks on a dirt road. A road, BTW, specifically forbidden to be driven with the rental car! Anyway, while we were waiting for our flight from Chicago to Fairbanks I got a call from the wife of the van operator. She said she had to cancel our trip because he died. Sorry for your loss, but where is my refund?
We looked at scheduling a similar trip by another operator, but they were either fully booked, or so much more expensive that we decided to not do this portion of our trip. So, we visited Santa Claus, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, Eielson AFB, and had pie instead from the highest truckstop.
Today is a travel day, heading down AK-2 - Richardson Highway. We stopped at Rika's Roadhouse, a historical look at Alaska in the 1920s in Big Delta State Historical Park. Lunch in Delta Junction next to the Sullivan Roadhouse, where we then take AK-4 towards Wrangell-St Elias National Park and overnight at Uncle Nicolai's Inn.
We drove to the beginning of the Matanuska Glacier. It extends for 27 miles. We chose Guided Glacier Tours to take us on a 3-hour hike onto the glacier. It was very difficult for my knees, but we did all except one climb. This is something you will see only once in your life. Spent the night at the very, very expensive Majestic Valley Wilderness Lodge.
Drive to Anchorage. Took at look at Palmer and enjoyed the visitor center and garden. Arrived in Anchorage and did two events: Campbell Creek East and Lake Hood. We saw two moose on the Lake Hood trail.
Still in Anchorage did Historic Downtown (1711) and the Chester Creek/Tony Knowles Coastal Trail (0902) in the rain. Downtown we encountered several planets on the Anchorage Light Speed Planet Walk, and even more on the Chester Creek trail (Pluto if I remember correctly). We visited the Ulu knife factory on the other side of the tracks.
Went to the Kincaid Park cross-country ski center. Today's trail was on the grass of the cross-country ski trails, out by Cook Inlet. It was a little muddy, but the sun was out and it was a beautiful day in the woods. We then drove to Eagle River for the night, and our next event.
Next event is at the Eagle River Nature Center in Chugach State Park. The 5K is the Albert Loop Trail. Unfortunately, this trail is closed seasonally because the bears take it over gathering salmon. We improvised by doing the nature trail, then onto the Iditarod trail, through a cutoff up to the Dew Mound Trail, which was very rough, and back to the Visitor Center. We did get to see a little bit of the river, but no salmon or bears. Then drove to Talkeetna where we hoped to fly into Denali and land on a glacier, but weather postponed it until tomorrow morning. Spent the night at the Talkeetna Fireweed Cabins, which was quite unique and enjoyable.
Our postponed flight was postponed again, so we opted for a refund as our day was needed to get all the way up to Denali National Park. I was very disappointed, Sherry not so much. At Denali we found the Visitor Center, saw some of the displays, and did the walk. It was over trails and DOWN to Horseshoe Lake. Saw the beaver dam then walked UP. We turned it into a 5K, then spent the night at the Denali Park Hotel.
Today was our Denali Tundra bus tour, a 6-hour, 42-mile out and 42-mile back on the only road in Denali National Park. The road was closed at that point because it has been completely washed away. The driver estimated it will take 5 years to restore because the damage took out the entire roadbed. We saw from a distance some moose, caribou, dall sheep and two grizzly bears, as well as some small birds and arctic squirrels. We were totally unable to see Denali because of the clouds.
Our last day in Alaska. We went back to Denali and explored a bit more, then drove to Fairbanks. We had lunch, fooled around, saw some more stuff, then got on our plane. It left at 9pm, we flew overnight and arrived in Colorado Springs at 11am the next day. A great time was had by all.