Johns Trippin'

After Wrangell-St. Elias NP, we drove to a boondocking site on the side of a lake in the small city of Valdez. When we arrived, we set up in a small parking lot beside the bay. Some waterfowl were there to greet us. The next day when we woke up there were two trumpeter swans outside the window. Later that day we went into the town to see it. First we went to a salmon hatchery and saw the salmon going up the fish ladder and into the building to be cleaned and egged. These were pink salmon which is not a human food fish. On the way in we saw sea lions at the entrance of the fish later, gobbling all the salmon they could eat. We also saw a bear near but not at the hatchery, fishing for salmon. After that we went to a museum and looked around at all the exhibits there. We had seen a candy shop across the street so we hit that next and bought some sweets. That night we watched a movie. The next day, in the morning, we had church on a boat. We drove to the harbor that morning and got on th...

Wrangell-St. Elias National Park (so named because it's at the confluence of the Wrangell and St. Elias mountain ranges) is the largest park in the system at over 13 million acres. By comparison, Yellowstone is just over 2 million acres. This park was unique for us because we visited it twice, more than a month apart. That's how big the park is... it has two entrances that are hours apart. Our first visit was through the northern entrance, which is by far the lesser used of the two. The Nabesna Road is an old mining road (with copper being the mineral in question), and it is not maintained in parts, which means it's only suitable for 4 wheel drive vehicles. This excited us because we hadn't really had an opportunity to put our new Jeep to work yet. With rough gravel and multiple stream crossings, this sounded perfect! Stream crossing Our first destination was a trail up to an old mine shaft at the end of the road. The trail was short but had fairly significant elevation...

The home base for Lake Clark National Park is the tiny town of Port Alsworth. While it's theoretically reachable by water, it can take weeks to get there via that route, so it's typically reserved for large machinery. Everything (and everyone) else gets there by air. There are two private airstrips in the tiny town, apparently traced back to the feuding Alsworth brothers who each built their own. It was a short flight for us out of Anchorage, and my goodness was it beautiful. Our pilot stayed low the entire time, keeping us under the clouds, so we were able to get great views of the mountains and glaciers. Of all the flights we took while in Alaska (10 legs), the flight to Lake Clark was only rivaled by the flight back from Lake Clark. Quick aside: If you go to Alaska and are able, you absolutely have  to get up in the air. Take a bush flight; take a helicopter tour; take a commercial flight from Juneau to Anchorage. Do what you have to do to see the state from the air. It...

When we got to Seward, it was drizzling. We stayed in a gravel lot next to the water. The next day, Jordan and I walked to a playground close by. It was raining so the playground wasn't very fun, but the wet ramps at the skate park next door made good slides. After lunch we went to Kenai Fjords NP. You can only drive into a very small portion of the park. The best way to see it is from a boat. We didn't have a boat (we would have taken a ferry if the weather had been nice), so we were stuck with driving. There's also only two trails in the park. We did one of them to Exit Glacier.  On the way back from seeing the glacier, we stopped at Outwash Plain, which is where all the water from the glacier comes out. There's a lot of ice from Exit Glacier that gets stuck at Outwash Plain. Ice chunks trapped in Outwash Plain A big ice chunk that got stuck in the river The other trail went four miles up to the Harding Icefield where the glaciers start. We would have done that too if...

You know what it's like in Alaska in August? Rainy. Like many (really, all) of the Alaska parks, Kenai Fjords is not terribly accessible. And given that "fjords" is in the name, the proper way to see the park is by water. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate. We didn't want to pay for the privilege of spending a rainy day out on the water, so we opted to do the park's single hiking trail instead. It wasn't much, but it was our only option. The trail led to the Exit Glacier, or rather, to a view of Exit Glacier. It used to lead all the way to the glacier, but this glacier (like most in the state) has been receding at an alarming rate. As a result, the trail now stops well short of the actual glacier. The glacier has pulled back hundreds of feet in 17 years Fortunately the rain let up for the hike. After viewing the glacier, we headed down to the outwash plain, where the glacial runoff reaches the bottom of the mountain and turns into a river. The kids h...

Ever heard of "Fat Bear Week?" That's Katmai National Park. Ever seen the iconic pictures of bears standing on top of the falls and catching salmon that jump up? That's Brooks Falls at Katmai National Park. If you want to see brown bears, go to Katmai National Park (or anywhere in that region of Alaska). We had to wait about 15 minutes for a bear to move away from the sign before we could take this picture Brooks camp is remote. You can't drive there. It's on a lake that connects to the ocean via various rivers, but it's well inland, so boating isn't really a viable option either. That means you are flying. And with no airstrip, you are landing in the water. Getting to the park involves a few hops in a small planes. We were only doing a day trip, which means we started in Anchorage early in the morning. Our first flight was to King Salmon, which was about an hour. Once there, we took a shuttle bus to the river and swapped our wheeled plane for a seapla...

If I had to pick a town, Whittier would be my pick for the most "Alaska" looking town that we have been to. On the way to Whittier, Alaska, we had to drive through a tunnel. This was not an ordinary, under-a-road tunnel. No, this tunnel went through a  mountain.  It the longest tunnel in North America. The tunnel is 2.5 miles long. Trains and cars had to take turns going through the tunnel. After we paid the fee and drove through the tunnel, we were officially in Whittier, AK.  I want to say, "We finally came to this great famous city, Whittier!" But a a few buildings splattered on the coast with only a couple hundred people doesn't deserve such talk. Honestly, I don't know why we went to Whittier in the first place. Whittier is also a common cruise stop and don't ask me why. (Well, actually if you really wanted to know why, it's because the ocean over in that area never freezes over because it's a warm water bay.) We parked the RV in some boring...