Seward and Glacier cruise - Alaska part 7

Last 2 days was a part of the great glacier experince. With the book milepost in hand, we started our journey from Anchorage to Seward in the Kenai Fjords. The town of the famous exit glacier and from where the glacier cruises started. A few other places near Achorage from where you could take a cruise were Whittier, Portage, Prince William Sound, Homer etc. But we had heard a lot about this drive and train ride and were looking forward to do the same. We rented a hotel in downtown Seward. We had plans to hike Exit glacier one day and do the glacier cruise the other day. Exit glacier hikes is one of the best hikes. If you ever go to Alaska and plan to visit glaciers do not miss this one. Also, if you plan to skip Denali, I have heard that the Kenai peninsula and Kenai Fjords national park are one of the best parks there. A lot of tourists have now explored more of Alaska and prefer the Fjords for there are more things to do there.
We booked our tour via Major Marine tours which again had a 2 for 1 coupon in the Alaska tour savor coupon booklet. They also had some excellent reviews, ranger aboard for information, free coffee and a great meal and desert. It was very well organized with a lot of staff to help with sea sickness, medicines, attending the sick and keeping children busy with some national ranger programme. Though we had taken our sea sickness medicines my husband had a tough time keeping his food down along with a few other passengers. He enjoyed the glaciers as the boat stopped around it for food and refreshments for about an hour. Though a lot of people in reviews said they were not able to see much wildlife we saw balooga whales, baby whales, puffins, seals, sea otters etc. We even saw glacier "calving" in a few places. Though the glaciers appeared small the sound of calving made us realize the size and intensity of them. Checkout the pictures below of glaciers from various point and from cruise:

photo: Atop Alyeska resort via tram. There is a very steep hiking trail to go down from atop Alyeska resort if you have enough time energy or you are staying at the resort. or you could go back via tram.

 photo: On the way to Portage glacier

photo: animal sancutary

 photo: glacier cruise photos

photo(top): holgate glacier

photo(top): Ayalik Glacier: Close up with of this cave in glacier that looked like a small opening from ground must be about 50 feet high.

While on the way and back from Seward, we visited the animal sanctuary, the seward aquarium.
Heres a photo of the famous puffin, which can dive in miles and miles in chilly water for food and can walk on water :)

Denali - Alaska part 3

Denali:

We made our way towards Denali by 5pm in the evening and it was getting cooler than expected. Anchorage luckily the earlier day was a good 70 degree plus and I assumed (which is a wrong thing to do in Alaska!) that the weather would be similar the next day. It started with a warm morning which beckoned to wear some summer clothing. Initially it felt like the perfect choice but I started shivering even in my layered clothing as the day progressed. Keep in mind that Denali is usually a few degrees about 10 degrees colder than Anchorage on any given day and so dress accordingly.
Soon, we came across a sign "scenic byway" and there is where I started to fall in love with the "magical mystical Denali". The drive from Anchorage to Denali was the most beautiful drive in the world. I cannot imagine how beautiful the yellow, orange hues might look there in fall.  They have the famous instructor led $4000 fall photography tours here for fall. You could see as far as your eyes could take you and at that point I just wanted to stop the car on roadside and sit in the middle of the road for forever. I wanted to take it all in and never let go of that picture, It was like I had found peace in the arms of nature. We stopped the car roadside and walked a couple of meters when we saw a few tourists trying to make their way to the river.

The rivers Susitna and Chulitna flowed beside the mountain and the road for as long as I could remember. The water so blue and still and fresh. There was no one else on the road. It was just the vast expanse of big mountains, the gorgeous river and one single road to destination from wherever we looked. It was like time came to a complete standstill. If I did ever go back to Alaska I would never want to miss this route and the glaciers ofcourse!

We stopped at nearly every location on the way to take pictures. The best part is all along the road, they had signboards stating "photostop 1000ft". Accolades for the state tourism who had done a great job at promoting tourism. As we stopped on as many photo locations we could and for road construction work (which they usually try to finish in 3 months of summer they get), our 4.5 hour journey extended to a nearly 12 hour one. We came to the Mt Mckinley north viewpoint and MtMckinley south viewpoints in the hope of getting a glimpse of the beautiful and highest snow covered peak in North America. But!, it wasn't a clear day. They say MtMckinley is visible on 20% of time the whole of summer and to a very few lucky visitors. Drat! we were out of luck, not only then but the whole of our trip. But that din't dampen our spirits, because the whole of Denali was stunningly and outrageously beautiful. Nothing can describe it. The images seem to be so ingrained in my mind that I can close my eyes and imagine being there. I did go back anyday at slightest opportunity.

Soon we reached around 20 miles from Denali park entrance and filled up gas full tank at the nearest and last gas station before we headed to entrance of park. Our hotel was just 1 mile outside the park and it was like all the tourists were living in that 1 mile radius of the park entrance. We parked our car and checked in, again saving money on hotel stay on "2 nights for cost of 1" deal from Alaska tour savor book. It was called the grande denali lodge hotel, atop the mountain with the most beautiful view of the area. I had heard a lot about the beautiful princess lodge in that area, but bookings there seemed to fill very fast. We booked in May for our August travel and din't get a booking with princess lodge. 

We had a hearty dinner atop at the hotel restaurant. The view as you can see above, again was gorgeous. My husband was trying to keep his balance by the railing trying to click some pictures as the sun set.

Since, the hotel faced the canyon directly, the canyon winds were making it hard to stand or walk without falling. The winds were raging at about 80 miles per hour. It was hard to hold foot on ground and to stay warm due to windchill, but there was a group of young girls who were just sitting out in porch wearing sweatshirts and chatting away to their hearts content. Below is the picture of the road, river and the canyon.

A week in Alaska - Alaska part 1

If you want to plan Alaska trip this year, Its time to get your bookings rolling! "A week in ALASKA" - yes! Thats how much time we could get to vacation Alaska. My husband had always wanted to go there and no matter whereever we went on vacation, Alaska was always on his mind. Like a 5 year old kid who would become all excited at the topic of Disney. Well we have been to Disney as well for the kid within us :) but thats another blogpost. So we decided in January this year (2013) that we would go to Alaska. Something came up in March and by the time we decided to book our tickets it was mid-April. Mind you getting tickets and booking in mid-April for a holiday in May/June/July is not going to happen. There were too few hotels and bnbs to select from and many of the places and tours were showing full. That was a wake up call. In the coming week I researched on Alaska. I contacted a few friends, looked at their itineraries and then started a 5 day overwhelming google marathon to get all things together to update my husband over the weekend with a plan. 

That weekend we literally sat on the edge of our couch one whole day and did all the booking starting with airplane booking to hotels to a few tours. Tip: Do a quick check on availability of hotels or campsites, of places you want to visit before doing your plane bookings. Some 30% of bookings open 2 weeks before the actual trip date and so if you don't see any open spots you may call and want to ask about this option. We got a direct delta flight from Atlanta to Anchorage, woot! It was a 6.5 hours flight, but basically awesome because the return was a red-eye flight and no layovers! It was around $650 and we din't find a cheaper layover deal either. Our friends who were visiting end of August and September found better deals at around $400. I am guessing this is because the season starts to slowdown somewhere around August.

Trip options:
Below is the drive trip we did from Anchorage-Denali-Anchorage-Seward-Anchorage

One of the tourists we met on our way did Fairbanks-Denali-Anchorage-Seward-Anchorage (one way car rental)

Many itineraries included glacier bay national park, Juneau in their trip. They flew into Juneau. Took one day trip in glacier bay national park and then flew into anchorage to continue their drive trip.

Many others we met, mostly families with kids, did cruises starting in British Columbia(BC) or Anchorage. 

Aren't their too many great ways to visit this place!. We were quite excited. With recommendations from travel forums we realized that driving around the place was much easier and fun way to explore Alaskan interiors. So we rented a car for the whole drive and got ready for some adventure! Many larger families we met on trip had rented RV's instead too.

Checkout the google map for the drive below:

Alaska has it own regional time which is one hour behind pacific time, 4 hours behind Atlanta. We left Altanta at 4:30pm on Friday evening and landed at Anchorage at 7pm after a 6.5 hour flight. After renting the car and renting a GPS for the next 7 days we headed to our hotel. Our GPS brought from home loaded with Alaska maps did not work there, surprise surprise! GPS do not include Hawaii and Alaska maps! Though we tried to load Alaska Maps using some recommendations we found online, we were skeptical it will work. Its was 9pm by the time we checked in. The hotel restaurant was about to close. But courtesy hotel we found a great pizza place called the 'Mooses tooth' near our hotel which was open till 11pm. Well, the pizza place was not only open, but also bustling with people and having a wait time at 10pm in the night! oh well! did I say night? It was still broad daylight in Alaska, the sun had no indications of setting.  It was a great day in Anchorage with temperatures in upper 70's..aha! No jackets, no coats, I put on my fav dress and was ready to dine out. I was glad for the weather myself, but more glad for the people living there who were able to enjoy those few months of summer.

Btw, Here are some great breathtaking views of glacier from the plane. This is when I was fiddling away with the powers of Iphone camera and unhappy that our DSLR battery was in check-in luggage and we could not take a DSLR shot. Also, with us was a sweet grandma excited about traveling Alaska with her big family and craning her neck to get a glimpse of this wonder. We were ramdomly clicking photos and sharing them with her. Looks like one should never underestimate the powers of Iphone camera. Thanks to the great Steve Jobs :) Nothing in the trip could give us this wholesome ariel view of the terrain and glaciers of Alaska.