Adventures

Day 19 - From Denali to Anchorage

Before we had to leave the Denali National Park we decided we wanted to drive the Park Road as far as you are allowed with our own vehicle. And we were so glad we did! We not only saw the first bull moose of our vacation, we also did finally get to see a bear. A real life grizzly bear.

As we first saw him, he was really far away and could hardly be seen without the help of our binoculars. He was on the other side of a riverbed and went into the bushes. After a while we decided to go down there to get some pictures of the valley - not having the best feeling....

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Day 18 - Denali National Park and the green shuttle bus

The second day of our road trip began early for us, as we had to make our way to Denali National Park until 11.30 at the latest to be on time to board our shuttle bus. Since we hadn’t seen any animals on the previous day and were almost through the scenic parts of the road, we didn’t expect too much of the last bit of road left on the Denali Highway. But just about five minutes after we had started driving again two caribou stood right in the middle of the road. We stopped. They looked at us and then started to walk towards us. They stayed in sight for quite some time, looking at us just as curious as we looked at them. Then another car drove by and they went off into the bushes.

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Day 17 - The scenic Denali Highway

The beginning of our trip to the Denali Highway led us up the Glenn Highway, a route we had taken before, up to Glennallen. From there we followed the Richardson Highway to Paxson where we finally took a turn onto the Denali Highway. Just getting there had already swallowed up 6 hours in the car, and we were determined to drive at least half of the Denali Highway that day.

The craziest thing though was actually the process of gassing up. We knew we’d have to gas up again before we went onto the Denali Highway, but didn’t want to gas up as early as Glenallen. We had a map that showed a gas station in Paxson but I really didn’t want to take the risk of taking the very last possible gas station. Turned out it was a good decision, because Paxson ended up being something like a ghost town. The lodge advertised in our brochure was abandoned and the gas station was nowhere to be found...

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Day 11 - Puffins, Exit Glacier and more clouds

Even though it had rained hard all night, in the morning it started to clear up and we did even see a bit of blue sky for a while. Since the weather conditions didn't seem stable we decided to go for a indoor-activity today.

Therefore we visited the Alaska SeaLife Center, located right at the coast in Seward. The center is really well done and shows off what Alaskas waters have to offer. We saw majestic King Crabs, lots and lots of different salmon, starfish and jellyfish (this time even alive!). But there weren't only fish there... 

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Day 9 - Homer

After a nice breakfast with Bagels and Cream Cheese we walked out to the Homer Spit. The view from the top of that short strip of land was incredible, since we basically had a 360° view around Kachemak Bay. The weather was OK, it wasn't very cold and it wasn't raining, but it was pretty foggy out there, so we couldn't see the glaciers that are supposed to be there. Instead we saw the blue-ish silhouettes of the mountains stacked up after each other, everything wrapped in fog and clouds, which gave us to the possibility to take some really nice pictures nevertheless. It almost gave the impression of twilight all day.

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Day 8 - The Kenai Peninsula

The start of our second week in Alaska also marked the beginning of our second road trip. This time we're not going up into interior Alaska, but rather down south to visit the Kenai Peninsula. With a pop-up trailer attached to the huge car we started our way south via the seward highway along Turnagain Arm. During the five hour drive we passed through Copper Landing, Sterling, Soldotna and Anchor Point to finally make it to our destination: Homer. The scenic drive led us along the sea, through the Chugach Mountains, over several rivers and swamp areas.

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Day 3 - Trip to Tok

On our third day, we did our first "road trip", which lead us to the famous city Tok. Since the roads in Alaska aren’t as crowded as the german ones we’re used to, we had to prepare for every circumstance which could occur. So we packed all our stuff, loaded the Excursion and got on Glenn Highway. We were heading into the direction of the next big city of Alaska, Fairbanks. Driving through Alaska is pretty scenic. The road led us through a variety of countrysides and we could experience the diversity of what Alaska can provide. The landscape is so beautiful and we had some really amazing views...

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Day 2 - Mile Hi

As the weather was absolutely beautiful we took the opportunity to do a real hike today. We were told that the walk up to "Mile Hi" was only a short hike of about thirty minutes, but it ended up being a real steep mountain trail and we did also take a lot longer than those thirty minutes. There were quite a view very good photo opportunities along the way and we stopped several times just to take in the scenery with our hearts and minds and especially our cameras...

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Day 1

Sadly we didn't have the greatest weather for our first day in Eagle River, AK, and therefore couldn't do much outside. We visited Walmart instead. Three times. It is only a ten minute walk away from where we're staying, and alas, even though we're with real americans, we did walk there all three times.
We had some trouble making our credit cards work and were a little bit worried we might be in Alaska for three weeks, but without any money. In the end it turned out that we could get cash though, so everything is set for our trips to Tok and the Kenai peninsula this and the following week.

When the weather did finally clear up a bit we went to a viewpoint partly up Mt.Baldy and then back another way to take a little walk down a hidden path to an absolutely beautiful waterfall...

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