Stokes Speaks: Alaska the Interior (Part 2)

After our stint in SE Alaska, we flew from Juneau to Anchorage. The town of Anchorage looks just like any other suburban sprawl city in the lower 48, until the clouds clear. It's only then that you can see the multitude of mountain ranges (including Mt. McKinley or Denali). We did not get the privilege of seeing the view from the city itself, so to me, Anchorage still seems like any other city.

From Anchorage we drove to Denali National Park. On the way, of course, we stopped at a great brewery for lunch. Great Bear Brewery (#2 on our brewery tour, after Alaskan) in Wasilla, great IPA and Pale Ale and great food.

We then arrived at Denali and set up camp for a night at Riley Creek Campground.

The next morning we broke down our tent loaded our stuff and hopped aboard the camper bus at 6:30AM for a trip to Wonder Lake Campground.

SIDEBAR - In order to avoid the issues that Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite and other National Parks have had with too many people, Denali has instated a rule that visitors may not drive their own vehicles into the park (except for the first 14 miles of the road.) All visitors must ride one of the buses that drive the length of the one and only road through the middle of the park. They are trying to keep the animals wild and regulate the traffic. It seems that this is working, as the animals seemed pretty unaffected by the buses. The downside is, you have to ride a school bus down a bumpy, twisty, gravel road for 4 hours one way to make it all the way to the end.

My husband planned this part and did a magnificent job! He found a remote campground at the end of the road, so we could take the trip out to the end, spend the night and head back the next day. This way, we didn't have to spend 8 hours on a bus in one day. Also, the camper bus tends to be quite empty. We all got our own seats, and when we saw wildlife, we were able to move about the bus as we chose. Many of the other buses that we saw (and there are a LOT of buses - mostly from cruise ships) were completely packed full of people. If they saw a bear on the left hand side of the bus, people on the right hand side couldn't really get a good look at it.... "Yeah!" to my awesome, intelligent huband for coming up with this plan! Here are some pics from Denali...

View from the Toklat River of some random peak

Grizzly with a herd of Caribou in the background

A sow griz and her 2-3 yr old cub

DENALI!!! Only 30% of visitors get to actually see the peak! It is so powerful - make you feel so insignificant...

Moose muching on some willows.

Denali again. The peak is in amongst the clouds.

Our little campground in the tundra. What you cannot see in these pics are the mosquitos. Absolutely relentless.

Grand total for Denali 7 grizzly bears, 3 moose, many caribou, and dall sheep, but no wolves.

The next night we camped at Eklutna Lake and in the morning rented some bikes and did a 10-12 mile ride near the lake.

The next night, we spent in a dive motel in Anchorage to shower and do a brewery tour of the downtown breweries.

We hit the Moose's Tooth which was packed at 3 in the afternoon - Great beer (Alpenglow Amber and Beer Tooth Ale)- great pizza, nice atmosphere.

Then to Glacier Brewhouse - a bit too hoity-toity for us - we had dessert and a few beers.

Then to Sleeping Lady and their restaurant the Snow Goose - nice atmosphere and view of Cook Inlet, but beers too mellow.

Then onto Humpy's - just a bar with a great live band and rowdy dancers :)

Obviously, we slept in the next day.

Then we headed south to the Kenai Peninsula and camped at the Exit Glacier Campground outside of Seward (for free!).

View from Seward

Today's catch from one of the charter fishing boats. Halibut (flat fish) plus a couple of some other fish....

The next day we took a Kenai Fjords Boat Cruise.

This was our 295 foot vessel for the day.

It started out a bit stormy...

Andy rode out in the front - uncovered through the rough seas. There is a large inside seating portion to protect you from the winds, etc. - That's mostly where I sat :) It got calmer as we tucked behind some islands.

Andy and I in front of the Ailack glacier. This is a tidewater glacier which means it calves into the ocean. We saw quite a few chunks break off and fall dramatically with a tremendous splash.