Category Archives: Travel

Denali National Park Hiking

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One day in Denali was completely full with the bus tour and with rafting. We planned another day for hiking, and the hiking in Denali, just around the visitor’s center is wonderful. We didn’t have time to do much hiking, but based on the maps, you could spend a couple of days hiking just on the trails. Then of course, you could spend lots more time doing off trail hiking. Right now, so many wild flowers are in bloom that the trails are full of color. The trees are green, and it is just wonderful.

Bike Path back to visitor’s center

Trees lining the trail

Hines Creek

Arctic Ground Squirrel in the parking lot

Spruce Grouse (hen with two chicks in the front)

Hedysarum alpinum (Alpine Sweetvetch)

Chamerion angustifolium (Fireweed)

Denali River Rafting

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While in Denali, we went white water rafting down the Nenana River with Denali Raft Adventures. I am a chicken, so the McKinley Run, which was class I and II rapids, with two class III rapids was more than enough excitement for me. I have now decided I am good with class I and II, but I really don’t need the class III. I sat in the back and took photos with my iPhone, which I then held stuck into my life vest when the water got a bit to turbulent for me. [This is why the water looks fairly calm in most of the photos below as when the water was a bit too rapid, the phone was in the life vest.] They provided dry suits, like the SCUBA dry suits (but without the BC vent), which was good because the water was cold, and everyone got splashed at least some. In any event, the rafting did provide wonderful views from the river. There was some wonderful geological features that I could admire from the river besides the river itself, which is a textbook case of a meandering, eroding and depositing river. The river also cut through geological layers and a fault that was visible, so that was fun to see.

Guide says this is referred to as neapolitan rock due to the geologic layers

Floating down the river

Floating down the river

Dormant volcano in the background

On the right of the photo, river erosion of the left side of the shore is visible

Deposition of a sand bar is visible on the right side of the river

Denali National Park Bus Tour

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From Anchorage, we took the train to Denali for the next leg of our Alaskan vacation. We took a bus tour of Denali Tundra Wilderness Tour, which takes goes about 60 miles into the park from the visitor’s center. The bus driver was pretty good about stopping whenever wildlife was spotted. Unfortunately, most of the wildlife is pretty far away or hidden behind trees. Good for the wildlife, but bad for taking photographs of the the wildlife. I took numerous out of focus photos of caribou, several moose behind a tree photos, and an impressive number of photos of far away bear sides or butts where you can barely identify them as bears. The tour also stops at several gorgeous overlooks including the last stop of Stony Hill, which provides impressive views of Denali.

Teklanika River

Toklat River

Denali from Stoney Hill Overlook

Polychrome Overlook

Bears

Caribou

Hedysarum boreale (boreal sweetvetch)

Castilleja elegans (elegant Indian paintbrush)

Anemone parviflora (Small-Flowered Anemone)

Anchorage, Alaska

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I have been in Anchorage for several days now. I don’t mean to criticize, but downtown Anchorage is an area in serious need of revitalization. It has a few nice small parks and green areas. It has lovely trails, mainly following Ship Creek and the bay. It has a couple of lovely larger parks with trails. Downtown has some wonderful restaurants and some nice shops also. However, the downtown area as a whole needs revitalization.

Alaska Railroad

Anchorage Information Center

Alaska Center for the Performing Arts

Ship Creek

Ship Creek

South of town is Potter’s Marsh, a wonderful place to bird.

Potter’s Marsh

Just north of the airport is Earthquake Park. At least part of the park, near the water is where homes used to be, but the homes sat on a cliff and were destroyed in the 1964 earthquake when part of the land slid into the water.

Earthquake Park, looking downhill at the area that in 1964 slid into the water

Earthquake Park

Kenai Fjords Cruise

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From our train trip to Seward, we then took a cruise from Seward around Resurrection Bay and Aialik Bay in Kenai Fjords National Park. It was an amazing six hour cruise around gorgeous scenery. There was beautiful tree-lined rocky shores and numerous glaciers. We also saw several humpback whales, harbor seals, a sea otter, and numerous birds, including puffins (one of my favorite birds).

Thumb Cove

Puffin

Humpback whale, mother and calf

Sea otter

Near entrance to Aialik Bay

Aialik Glacier

Aialik Glacier

Harbor seals in front of Aialik Glacier

Harbor seals in front of Aialik Glacier

Humpback whale

Skee Glacier

Alaska Railroad Coastal Classic

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We arrived in Anchorage a few days ago, and yesterday we took a day trip to Seward to take a cruise to Kenai Fjords. To get to Seward, we took Alaska Railroad’s Coastal Classic Train from Anchorage. The route was gorgeous. We traveled along the coast of Turnagain Arm before cutting across through glacial valleys where the Kenai Peninsula connects to the main part of Alaska. We traveled along the Placer River including through several tunnels before then traveling along the Trail River. The trip was worth the train ride alone, even if we had nothing to do in Seward. Along the way we also spotted sheep, moose, and lots and lots of birds.

Turnagain Arm

Placer River

Spencer Glacier

Placer River

Placer River

Placer River

Trail Creek

Upper Trail Lake

Lower Trail Lake

Juneau, Alaska

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I have been in Juneau for several days now, and I have had a chance to walk around historic and not completely historic downtown quite a bit. Juneau reminds me of many older cities where they still have some of the historic buildings, which in many cases have been restored and repurposed, and they have new buildings mixed in with the old ones. There is a Main Street, but the main street seems to be more Franklin Street, although with so many shops closed because of lack of cruises, downtown is slightly not normal. However because there are no cruise ships, Juneau is easy and pleasant to walk around, as in not crowded, and you can actually stand on the docks and look across the water to Douglas Island. Near downtown, Juneau has a seawalk, which is nice walk to view the water and tidal flats. Ravens are everywhere, but bald eagles are not as easily sighted.

Old Alaska Electric Light & Power building

Looking down Seward Street

Sealaska

Franklin Street

Docks

Seawalk

The Whale Project

Looking to Juneau from Douglas Island across Gastineau Channel

Mendenhall Glacier Recreation Area

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We spent the say at Mendenhall Glacier Recreation Area, which has lots of hiking trails to see the area. Some of the trails are to provide good views of the glacier, some are for hiking in the woods, and some are few viewing the salmon and the bears when the salmon are spawning. There salmon were not here yet, but we got really lucky and saw a momma bear and her two cubs. The visitor’s center has photos and a film that shows just how much the glacier has retreated. One of the trails we hiked on also has markers showing where the ice used to be, and the retreat of the ice is incredible. The area is lovely, and one thing I liked was how basically anything that was not moving was covered in lichen and moss.

View of the Mendenhall Glacier and Nugget Falls

Mendenhall Glacier

Nugget Falls

Steep Creek. Streams from mountain runoff are everywhere

Steep Creek flowing into glacial lake

Black bear and one of her cubs

Second black bear cub was originally sleeping in the tree before joining mom and sibling

Lichen and moss on a boulder

Lupines

Lupines

Small waterfall on Trail of Time trail

Small creek

Gold Creek Flume Trail

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The rain stopped for just a little bit this afternoon, so we went hiking on the Gold Creek Flume Trail, which is close to downtown Juneau. As far as I can tell, the entire trail is on top of a flume that takes water from the Gold Creek to a hydroelectric plant. With the exception of a small segment where a rock slide seems to be on top of the flume, it is a really easy trail to walk on, as you are on wooden planks. It is a nice hike through the woods with views of Gold Creek below and the mountains above. The western end is where the flume heads down the mountain. The eastern end seems to be where the flume separates from Gold Creek.

The western end of the trail has a very Alaska warning sign because Alaska. Only missing warning about bears.

Flume flows down the mountain

Trail is on top of the flume through the woods

Small waterfalls everywhere

Rock slide area

Waterfalls are visible in the mountains and streams are frequent near trail

Eastern end appears to be where flume is separated from Gold Creek

Gold Creek at western end of trail

Alaska State Capitol

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With this Alaska trip, I was able to accomplish one of the more difficult tasks in my quest to see all 50 state capitols, as Juneau is not the easiest capital to travel to. I also lucked out because it only opened less than a week ago before which it was closed because of COVID. The Alaska State Capitol is one of the, or perhaps the, least fancy state capitols. The building was formerly a courthouse, and then they turned it into the capitol. There is no dome or other fancy halls. It is an office building. It is lucky for the state, in a way, that they have so few residents because the senate and house chambers are small and used to be courtrooms. There are also quite a few old photos and lots of Alaska Native art, which are quite nice to see.

Alaska State Capitol exterior

House of Representatives Chamber

Senate Chamber

Senate Finance Committee Room

Alaska Natives carved door

Map of Alaska cut from piece of 48 inch pipe used to construct Trans-Alaska pipeline. Weld represents 800-mile route of the pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez.

Phone booths (phones do not work, I checked)

Elevator bay