Alaska Adventures Await

by Elaine Nagle
March 2010

Alaska should be near the top of your "Bucket List." If you’ve never been there, be assured that our 49th state has adventures for every age and ability. My husband John and I recently returned from Alaska with 29 friends from our church. One of our group was a "tracked out" fifth grader and another woman was confined to a wheelchair. Yet everyone found appropriate activities and had a great time and brought home many fantastic memories.

Of course we took lots of photos and you can go online and find plenty more, but to me, Alaska has to be experienced. Like the Grand Canyon you can’t really fathom the size and splendor unless you are in it.

Our trip was a land and sea cruise trip. We flew from RDU to Minneapolis, to Seattle and on to Fairbanks, and then rode in a coach to Denali National Park. We left Denali and took a glass dome train to Whittier where we boarded our cruise ship. We started our trip the end of August.

The first adventure was on a four-deck paddlewheel down the Chena River. Of course we were with about 500 other "friends" but still enjoyed a stop at Susan Butcher’s Iditerod Dog training home. Our second stop was at an Athabasca Indian fish camp. We were able to walk around the camp to learn about their life style. Here we got up-close views of reindeer and caribou.

Our coach made a stop in Nanena where they hold an annual contest to see who can accurately predict the exact time the ice in the river will break up in the spring. Locals and visitors alike pay $2.50 each to choose the exact time they think the clock will stop. The winner of the precise time wins the money. The 2009 jackpot was about $300,000!

It was cold and rainy when we arrived in Denali but this did not dampen our enthusiasm. We learned that by the end of August, this area was already in the fall season. We confirmed this as we took a four-hour school bus ride into the park. I was surprised to see the tundra as a gorgeous blaze of colors—red, yellow, and orange. We were thrilled to see a huge moose (about 1500 pounds!) right outside the bus window busily trying to remove the velvet from his rack. We were reminded that the park is NOT a zoo—these are animals in the wild.

We left Denali aboard a double-decker, glass-domed train for the nine-hour ride to Whittier. The views were breath-taking! I kept thinking of "purple mountains majesty" as we rode past the vast ranges. Some mountains were covered in the flaming tundra, others were sheer rocks, many had long waterfalls, and some were snow-topped and pocked with glaciers. The train tracks paralleled and crossed rivers, streams, and bogs.

We boarded our cruise ship in Whittier to begin the sea part of our trip. We spent the first day at sea learning to find our way around the ship. The large cruise ships have been taking thousands of people to Alaska for years and have all the problems worked out. TIP: If you take a cruise ship excursion you don’t have to worry about the ship leaving you behind if your excursion runs overtime. If you book your own excursions you don’t have that guarantee.

Our first port of call was Juneau where we chose an excursion to Mendenhall Glacier. We saw waterfalls and sockeye salmon in the water by the visitors’ center and could see the vast glacier and the icebergs scattered in the water as the glacier calved.

Our afternoon excursion was on a catamaran into Auke Bay and Favorite Channel. We saw ten to twenty Humpback Whales. Humpbacks are similar in size to a long bus and can weigh as much as 100,000 pounds. They display their characteristic flukes when they breach. These whales will migrate to Hawaii in the fall where they will mate and give birth. The mothers provide about 3000 gallons of milk per day for their young.

On our second day at sea, the ship sailed to Glacier Bay that has twelve tidewater glaciers. At 3.3 million acres of forest, inlets, and shore with mountain peaks rising up to 15,000 feet, it’s the second largest wilderness area in the world—just behind Antarctica! No photo can do it justice.

Our first up-close look was at Margerie Glacier. We heard the cracking and saw the calving as the glacier’s ledge began melting at the water’s edge. The glacier moves forward about five feet per day. This glacier was about a mile wide and had an ice face about 250 feet above the water line. The bay is about 1000 feet deep. My new jacket was a blessing since it had fleece on one side and was waterproof on the other. Hats and gloves are essential—even in August!

Our second glacier was Johns Hopkins, which had opened up to boat traffic the day before we arrived. This area is the breeding/birthing grounds for harbor seals, and boat traffic is prohibited until that process is complete. As we approached I noticed what appeared to be pepper on the floating ice chunks. Turns out that the "pepper" was really the seals, and there were about 1000 of them! It’s very hard to judge distances in Alaska because everything is so gigantic, and there’s nothing else to use for comparison.

An excursion in Skagway found us on a jet boat for a couple of hours. We rode in the rain. In an open boat. On a waterproof blanket. And under a waterproof blanket. They also gave us rubberized rain jackets, gloves and ear muffs. The water temperature was 38 degrees. This harsh environment is a reality in areas of Alaska; it was great to experience it on a typical day in the fall. Afterwards we cooked hot dogs over an open fire and greedily drank hot chocolate.

Closer to Skagway I finally got to see salmon, driven by instinct, fighting their way against the current just to spawn and then die. Doesn’t seem fair to me!

Our final port of call in Alaska was Ketchikan. We took a catamaran out to Misty Fjords; the trip took about two and a half hours. Deep in the fjord we sailed past steep mountainsides that plunged into the water to depths over 1000 feet below us. Waterfalls, mosses, cedar, spruce, hemlock and alder trees created the most delightful woodsy aroma far, far back in the wilderness.

Ports of call in Alaska depend on the cruise ships to make their money in a short tourist season. There are so many available that it’s really hard to choose. And some of them are very pricey as well. But the experiences are unforgettable. Our 5th grade companion loved the zip line excursion, and our wheelchair friend was able to experience the catamaran into Misty Fiords. Some of our group went salmon fishing, others wanted to land on a glacier. One couple took a cooking class, a few did kayaking, some rode ATVs, others rode horses. On a previous visit we chose hiking and a rafting adventure.

So, check your physical condition, check your wallet, and choose your excursions accordingly. There really is something for everyone in Alaska! And it’s waiting just for you.

Elaine Nagle and husband John lead travel excursions for Christ the King Lutheran Church in Cary.

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