Alaska Day 2 - Seward

This was our only day dedicated to Seward, it is a long but enjoyable 3hr drive. The train journey is even more scenic and goes through areas of Chugach NP that are inaccessible by road. Tourism and fisheries primarily drive this town. Notable things to do are the cruises, sealife center and glacier hikes.

Kenai Fjords NP Cruise

 
The 6hr wildlife & glacier cruise provides ample opportunities to view wildlife and glaciers. It will get chilly once the vessel is in cruising, thus dress in layers and have a rainjacket handy. The included "lunch" was a joke for vegetarians (we got salad instead of the hummus roll since they ran out of it!). But apart from that the cruise was nice and the crew were wonderful. 

Glacier.. in perspective (see the small tiny ship?)

I was hoping we would visit the Aialik bay & glacier, but enroute we were told that the cruise was visiting the Holgate Glacier and not Aialik (bummer!). As we went through Resurrection bay, we enjoyed the spectacular scenery and saw lot of wildlife - whales, orcas, stellar sea lions, harbor seals sea otters etc and got glimpses of Bear Glacier. The major stop was the Holgate glacier - it was enormous. 

Wildlife

Glacier wall

One of the crew members picked up an calved glacier ice floating in the bay. Glacier ice doesn't melt as fast as regular icebox ice - something to do with the bigger size of ice crystals and absence of air bubbles in glacier ice.

Glacier ice

Exit Glacier

• Access: Harding Icefield / Exit Glacier. The park is a short distance from the town of Seward, about 120 miles south of Anchorage. There are three final destinations from the visitor center - the toe of the glacier (moraine maybe inaccessible), the edge of the glacier wall and the icefield. Although we wanted to do the icefield hike, we settled for the "edge" due to the fear of hiking without bear sprays at 7pm and the one of the return dudes said that he was the last person from the last trek of the day to the icefield. (bummer!)

• http://www.nps.gov/kefj/planyourvisit/exit-glacier.htm

From the vista point

From the hike end point

Another angle

Alaska Day 1 - Chugach State Park & Matanuska

We wanted to start in a relaxed manner and thus planned only self-tours on the 1st day, lest we knew about the surprises in store for us. We headed out to explore a few trails and lakes in Chugach National Park. Mind you, this is a huge park and you can drive about 50 miles to visit various parts and it extends almost into Seward. We picked a few popular ones from web searches and tourism websites.

Flattop Mountain

http://dnr.alaska.gov/parks/maps/flattopmountaintrailguide.pdf 

That flat top is the hike destination

• Access: Drive south on the New Seward Highway and take the O'Malley road exit and head east about 4 miles and take a right onto Hillside drive. Drive approximately 1 mile and turn left onto Upper Huffman Road, and drive .7 miles to a three way intersection, turn right onto Toilsome Hill Drive. Go about 2 miles to the Glen Alps parking area. $5 park access fee and there are two trails - there is a easy trail on the northwest for scenic views and the Flattop Trail is found by climbing the stairs on the southeast side of the parking area. 

The top

• Summary: The trail starts with a wooden staircase and switchbacks through hemlock until reaching the alpine tundra at Blueberry hill. The last few hundred feet are steep & rocky. The views are great from the top of the 3550 ft peak.

• The Hike: http://www.hike-anchorage-alaska.com/PicsHikes/HowtohikeFlattopMountaindirections.aspx

View of Anchorage downtown from flattop

We grabbed lunch back at the hotel and set forth on Glenn Highway.

Thunderbird Falls

• Access: Mile 25, Glenn Highway, Thunderbird Falls Exit, follow signs one mile to trailhead parking. $5 access fee.

• Walk through the mossy forest of birch trees about one mile; you're soon surrounded by ferns, and then at the viewing platform, where you can watch the thunderous falls tumble down the rocky cliff face.  There is another side trail that provides access to the base of the falls.

• http://dnr.alaska.gov/parks/maps/thunderbirdfallsguide.pdf

Thunderbird falls from observation deck

EkLutna Lake

• Access: Take Eklutna Lake exit at Mile 26 on the Glenn Highway, and follow signs ten miles to Eklutna Lake

• Twin Peaks Trail / Lakeside trail from the lake trailhead. We wanted to do one of these trails, but lack of time forced us to just hang around for a while before heading back to hotel. 

• http://dnr.alaska.gov/parks/maps/eklutnalaketrailguide.pdf

Eklutna Lake trailhead/entrance

Matanuska Glacier Park

• Access: Take the Glenn Hwy (Route 1) towards Glenallen. At mile 102, drive into the Glacier Park Resort.

view from the parking lot

• Stop here at the State Recreation Area for a photograph of the Matanuska Glacier-a rare roadside glacier that you can actually look down on. Even though they say "You can get closer to the glacier via a one-mile interpretive trail", dont pay and park here. Instead proceed further to access the face of the glacier. Continue on to Glacier Park Resort at mile 102. For a $20/person fee you can drive to the terminal moraine and walk around on the ice. You can go further northeast on Route 1 to get different views of the glacier.

glacier wall

glacier ice hike

glacier ice hike

glacier

Glacier river = matanuska river

Ice climbers

Alaska Day 0 - OAK to ANC

Due to late flight booking we could only get reasonable tickets from Oakland airport to Anchorage. We don't prefer OAK airport merely due to traffic if driving, and lack of public transportation (outside of east bay).

The security scan and layover in Seattle were smooth. From Seattle it is a long 5hr flight to ANC, we decided to learn few things about Alaska from the in-flight magazines. Here are a few we could remember:

• Over 100K glaciers and 3M lakes.
• 49th and the largest state in US!
  
• Alaska was purchased from the Russian Empire in 1867, for $7.2 million ($113 million in today's dollars) - $0.02/acre
• Juneau is the capital, not Anchorage. The only US capital accessible only by boat or plane.
• The trans-Alaska pipeline is 4ft wide x 800 miles long!Of the 20 highest mountains in the United States, 17 are in Alaska. 
• Mt. McKinley is the highest peak in North America. Mt. McKinley is the highest "vertical rise" in the World.
• Economy - oil & gas, seafood, logging, transportation,tourism, metal mining/minting.

Flying over Gulf of Alaska, approaching ANC, we could see over the peaks above the clouds - called a "Nunatak" but with clouds instead of snow/ice. More like this, but lots of them, we lost our other pictures taken from flight :(

Arriving at ANC, looking at our outfits of down jackets, we were instantly "Cheechako" (native for tourists). The airport is very neat and big. This walkway caught our attention, and someone told us about "Northern Lights" effect.

We were pleasantly surprised by the midnight sun, take a look of downtown Anchorage at midnight.

We checked-in and tried to sleep, to begin an adventurous vacation. Welcome to "Alakshak" - meaning great lands or peninsula!

Alaska 2011 - Plan & Logistics

In our quest for honeymoon spots, Alaska came a close 2nd. Thus, for our 1st anniversary we decided on Alaska.. well atleast part of it - Anchorage & vicinity. We planned the travel, boarding & lodging, daily activities and transportation ourselves... although last minute. We also got help from another couple who visited Alaska in summer '10.

Flight  : Alaska Airlines, OAK to ANC

Car     : AVIS Compact Car @ Airport

Hotel   : RodewayInn @ Downtown ANC

Duration: 6 Days

Apart from the usual things, the other most important things to pack: Hiking Shoes, Sunscreen, rain jackets/umbrella, kayaking/rafting wear, *mosquito repellents*, eye-shades (24 hr daylight), crampons, hiking poles, bear sprays. During our hikes, we heard some Alaskan locals carry a gun for protection from wildlife in some of the wild trails. 

Various sites offer useful travel information:

http://alaska.org 

http://www.alaskatravel.com

http://travelalaska.com/

Alaska is huge, it is impossible to cover everything in 1 week. Of the various places to visit, we picked some that we could cover in this trip: Seward, Whittier, Anchorage, Talkeetna, Mt. McKineley, Matanuska, Wasila, Palmer.

Las Vegas - Summary

Although short, it was a good trip. But ofcourse, we will visit Vegas again...

Wish List: Valley of Fire, Red rock Canyon

View Las Vegas 2010 in a larger map

Las Vegas Day 3 & 4 - Vegas!

We spent next two days touring the various casinos and watching some free shows and David Copperfield show. They were all nice. Next time cirque du soleil for sure!

Day 3

• Caesars Palace
• Mirage & Volcano show
• Fremont Street Experience
• New York
• Stratosphere
• Sahara
• Cosmopolitan
• Aria
• Mandalay bay
• Excalibur
• Luxor

Day 4

• David Copperfield Show
• MGM & Lion Habitat
• Paris, Paris Tower & Bellagio fountain viewing
• Flamingo
• Venetian
• Encore
• Wynn
• Circus Circus (but missed the show)

Las Vegas Day 2 - Grand Canyon

We wanted to visit Grand Canyon, but it is quite a drive from Vegas. After thinking about the west rim for while, we settled on the south rim and took turns driving. We left pretty early at 5am and caught this pleasant foggy sunrise on 93 towards Kingman - very scenic drive through the hills and valleys. Enroute we even encountered snow at Williams, AZ.

Sunrise enroute to Kingman

We spent the entire day at the park - took the shuttle for rim tours, caught the rim trail, visited Yaki point and bright angel lodge. And we witnessed sunset from Pima point. Hopi point also provided wonderful views of the canyon sunset.

grand sunset experience