:: Denali National Park ::
Denali National Park was amazing! We were there at just the right time to see the fall arrive, and along with it the bright colors of the trees and brush. This was the northern most point of our trip and the darkness didn't set in until almost 10pm, even this late in the year. In addition to the great fall colors, Denali also gave us great views of Mt McKinley which is the highest peak in north America (20,300') and the third highest in the world. Even on clear days they say that the view is often obstructed and the mountain is often hidden behind it's own weather. We got lucky and had one clear day in which we could see most it, the peak was still hidden behind clouds. Other than great landscapes and scenery we also had the chance to see a good amount of wild life in the park including bears, moose and dall sheep.
:: Lake Clark National Park ::
We made our way to Lake Clark National Park via Homer, AK. Homer, by the way is a great little town. Although we were only there a day and a half, I'd love to visit again some time. Lake Clark National Park has no roads and is only accesible by plane. We took a little prop plane from Homer and landed right on the beach. It was the perfect place to watch wild life in thier natural habitat, doing what they do naturally. If you think you've seen bears because you've been to a zoo, your mistaken, this experience is like nothing else. It has to be the closest thing to a Safari outside of Africa, unfortunately we only had a day to sample the experience. The bears were probably about 7' tall standing upright and must have weighed 500-700 lbs. They were running, pouncing on the salmon that poured out of the stream into the ocean. Bald eagles soard, waiting patiently for thier chance to swoop in and grab the left overs. It was one of the things I looked forward to the most, and it did not disappoint!
:: Whittier ::
Whittier is not much more than a cruise ship port with less than a few hundred residents and only 30-40 of them stay year round. The one thing that Whittier does have is great close up access to several glaciers in the area's bays and water inlets. Before boarding the cruise ship here, we spent the day floating in out of the bays getting our first experience with the glaciers of Alaska. It was cold and rainy but the color of the glaciers was amazing, we also had a short visit by a couple of otters.
:: Yakutat Bay ::
Yakutat bay is the home to Hubbard Glacier which is the largest glacier we saw on the trip. The scale of this glacier is lost in the pictures, but imagine this; The face of the glacier is 7 miles across and reaches over 350 feet above the water line (another 250 feet below)!! From the face of the glacier at the water, back to it's source is 76 miles..that's one huge chunk of ice!!
:: Glacier Bay National Park ::
Glacier Bay National Park, another national park in Alaska with no roads. Seems to be a trend up there, but this one too is only accessible by boat or plane, this time we entered by boat, more of a ship technically. Another relaxing day of glacier viewing! Again, great color and amazing scenery as we floated slowly through the bay.
:: Skagway ::
Our first stop after floating among the glaciers for 2 days was in Skagway. We didn't actually stay in town long, instead we rented a car and drove through British Columbia and into the Yukon Territory of Canada. On our way out of town (and the country) we made a quick stop and came across a bald eagle perched up on a hill side. I couldn't resist trying to get a better angle for some great pictures so of course I made my way up the hillside in order to get the pictures you see here. It sat there for quite a while and was very cooperative so it was well worth the deviation to our original plan.
:: Yukon Territory, Canada ::
After my bald eagle had enough of me and flew off we got on the road to the Yukon. It was a nice drive through the mountains that gave us some great views. We stopped for lunch in a tiny little town called Carcross, a little touristy now, but I suspect that's because it is litterally the only town for probably 100 miles in any direction so it's natural for everyone to stop there. After lunch and wandering around town for a few mintues we continued north to the smallest desert in the world. The Carcross desert is only 1 square mile. It's kind of random to find sand dunes this far north but the story is that glacial lakes deposited silt here durng the last ice age, once the lakes dried up, the sand was left behind. After this we again headed north, this time to Emerald Lake. The lake gets it's emerald color from light reflecting off the large amounts of clay and calcium carbonate that was left behind after glaciers from the last ice age melted. Emerald lake is where we turned around and headed back to Skagway and the ship.
:: Juneau ::
The original plan for Juneau was to hike all day to and from Mendenhall Glacier. It's one of the only glaciers that is accessible by a reasonably short, mildly strenous hike. In order to actually get up close and touch, walk on and around a glacier it usually requires a plane/helicopter ride or a very long multi-day hike. The weather wasn't really cooperating with us on most of the trip to this point and the forecast didn't look any better as we got closer to Juneau so we shifted gears and went whale watching instead. I was slightly dissapointed I wasn't going to be able to get up close and personal with the glacier but the day proved to be great for more wild life, so option two turned out to be an excellent choice.
:: Ketchikan ::
Ketchikan was the last stop on the cruise and a more laid back day. We took a flight through Misty Fjords which was pretty neat and very remote. We landed on a lake about half way through the trip to get out and walk around a little. The pictures you see are of the plane on the lake we landed on. After that we found a place in town for lunch and just walked around for a while before heading back.
