Alaska Kayak Tours

Any travel advice for my June trip to Alaska?

Dave in Kenai gave good advice last year and anyone else is welcome to chip in.
I’m taking my 70 year old mom to AK in June, she just retired from a pretty physical. I was in AK in 2003.
I’ve got the air tickets. It might be possible to tweak travel days but for now:
Arrive ANC Mon 1230 AM, pick up rental car, go sleep.

The details of your itinerary allows for more detailed comments.

Not sure if you’re routed through Seattle but if you are, you certainly want window seats on the EAST side of the plane (E+F coming north, A+B going south) – that’s where the good views are. For east-west trips, I like the north side because the sun isn’t in your eyes and the scenery looks better with the sun behind you instead of looking into the haze. (And in winter, you might see aurora to the north). For ANC-BRW sit on the west side of the plane in case “the mountain” (Denali) is out.

In Barrow it will, of course, be continuous light. I found the natives really friendly (it probably helped that we gave medical care to a guy going into convulsions and helped carve up the bowhead whale on the beach). Consider taking a trip out to Point Barrow north of town – there was someone with a Hummer offering trips 10 years ago. If you’re bird watchers, check websites for the weird stuff you can see there and almost nowhere else. Spend some time just walking around the dusty roads in town. Caribou and fish drying on the rack, decript cars and snowmobiles covered with blue tarps, plywood shacks as houses – the whole Alaskan village scene.

While in Seward, allow 2-3 hours for the SeaLife Center, a very good modern aquarium right on the water. The main street in town is very walkable (on a nice day). The day cruise is a great idea, hope you get better weather this time. A halibut charter leaves early and gets back about 1-3 pm, so it most of a day right there. You would also need at least a night in town afterwards so your catch get get frozen for shipment home (if you check it as luggage). Definitely stop at Exit glacier a few miles north of town, about 6-7 miles up a side road to the west of the Seward highway. An easy one-mile walk takes you to the base of the glacier. If you want an uphill climb, you can continue up to overlooks or onto the glacier itself. From the parking lot/visitor’s center, you can often see mountain goats on the slope above. (You can also sometimes see them from the cruise boat).

Definitely go to Denali, make reservations for the park bus in advance. That’s how you see wildlife – riding the bus. Bring binoculars, camera and a bag lunch. The visitor center there is good. Check out the evening/campfire programs.

Figure about 4-5 hours from Anchorage to Denali NP. Keep your eye on the horizon in case the mountain is out. Just outside the park are a couple of outfits that offer white-water rafting on the Nanana River. They provide the rain slickers and life jackets. They stay out of the rough stuff because a flipped boat in that cold water would be a problem, so it is a fun but not scary ride. Another option in a slightly warmer setting would a raft trip on the Kenai River out of Cooper Landing (an hour from Seward).

Sea kayaks can be rented out of Seward or Homer or Whittier. I’d do it out of Seward with your timing -you’re already there and the scenery is good immediately. In Whittier, the best scenery is farther into Prince William Sound and that is an hour water taxi away. In Homer you want to get across Kachemak Bay (Mako’s Water Taxi is good) but that an extra hour, and $30 each.

In Anchorage I’d recommend (in order): the Native Cultural Center (2-3 hours) NE of town on the way north), The Art and History Museum downtown (1-2 hours) and, maybe, the Anchorage Zoo (AFTER you toured the state, you could see any critters that you’d missed in the wild).

Between ANC and Seward, Girdwood has summer tram rides up the mountain (its a ski resort in winter) and the “Double Musky” is a very nice resturant between the highway and the ski resort. 35 miles from ANC

Portage Glacier is a quick easy stop at the head of Turnagin Arm, 45 mintues from ANC.

If you looking for a meal between Girdwood and Seward that leave Summit Lodge at about mile post 80 in a gorgeous setting on a mountain lake.

Sound like your mother is in decent shape. A nice hike out of Cooper Landing is the Russian River Falls Trail. It is 1.5 miles on a very substanial slightly uphill trail to an overlook of the Falls (a cascade, really) where the salmon are fighting their way upstream. They will only be a few in June, but worth looking for (the Reds arrive in July and August).

Fairbanks has some nice attractions too, but I agree with only one week, you’ve got a nice set of destinations and more would be spreading yourself too thin.

Have a great trip.

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