My 7 Weeks of Adventures in Alaska

  This year marks the 17th anniversary of my greatest adventure -- an 11 week driving trip to and through Alaska. Most links in this post take you to my own web pages which detail that aspect of the trip with additional explanation and well over 100 photos combined. (Yes, an 11 week trip in such scenery does engender many photos in this digital age -- over 3000 are in my computer's Alaska album -- but only a small percentage are presented.)

I began the 10,000+ mile odyssey by driving to Washington state, and since my route took me near Yellowstone, I left the Interstate and made my 8th or so visit to the Teton/Yellowstone area. Next I camped around Creve Coeur, Idaho and biked the Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes, followed by biking my favorite of the 100+ bike trails I've pedaled, The Hiawatha Trail, which traverses the Bitterroot Mountains on the Idaho/Montana border. This bike trail travels the roadbed of the Milwaukee Road's "Route of the Hiawatha" which takes you over 7 high steel trestles and through 10 tunnels, the longest of which is the 1.7 mile-long Taft Tunnel with no lights inside.

A solo backpack in Washington state's Goat Rocks Wilderness was followed by a volunteer trail project in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. Then I visited some friends in Seattle and also biked the Burke-Gillman Trail. Finally it was to Bellingham, Washington, to catch the Alaska Ferry after a quick ride on the Inter-Urban mountain bike trail.

Then the Alaska portion of the odyssey began. I cruised on the Alaska ferry for 36 hours to Ketchikan, Alaska, accessible only by air and sea, but I opted for a stateroom in lieu of camping on the ferry deck as seen here (click to enlarge any photo)...


After getting off the ferry, I camped 4 nights in the Tongass National Forest with this view from my campsite and with regular visits from deer...



... and kayaked Misty Fjord National Monument, hiked numerous trails through the forest, visited the three totem pole locations, and did the tourist-type-stuff in town along with thousands of passengers from several cruise ships docked there. My favorite part of town was historic Creek Street, the old bordello section of town that is now chic and expensive shops. The reason I liked it was the clever sign that proclaimed it as "Creek Street -- Where fish and fishermen came to spawn."

Then back on a ferry for the overnight cruise to Juneau, Alaskla's capital, also accessible only by air and sea (to keep the politicians safely away from their constituents, no doubt!) I again camped 4 nights in the Tongass National Forest, and during the days I rafted the Mendenhall River. I'm seated front right in blue shirt and green hat and about to be swallowed by the wave...



...and biked several Juneau trails and roads, hiked numerous forest trails, took a small boat cruise to Tracy Arm Fjord and Sawyer Glacier where we saw the glacier "calving" and spotted hundreds of sea lions...



... and back in town, I ate at the famous Red Dog Saloon. Here's a photo of the scenery I biked by near town...



Then back onto the ferry a final time for more magnificent views like this...



... as we traveled the last leg to Skagway, Alaska, where I camped 3 nights, rode the White Pass and Yukon Railroad which took miners up 3000 feet elevation into the Yukon of Canada, and also went on a single-engine sightseeing plane flight over Glacier Bay National Park...



The next 3 days I was driving through a corner of British Columbia and then through the Yukon to get back to Alaska -- two more border crossings -- camping each night and enjoying the breathtaking scenery and wildlife sightings. A detour to the Town of "The City of Dawson" (check Wikipedia for an explanation of that strange name!) was a natural for a retired English teacher because it has the homes of poet Robert Service ("The Cremation of Sam McGee" and "The Shooting of Dan McGrew")...

and, a mere block away, author Jack London (The Call of the Wild, The Sea Wolf, and White Fang)...



After a ferry ride across the Yukon River, I drove the Top of the World Highway which promised endless vistas -- only to see nothing but smoke from wildfires which burned millions of acres that summer.

Anchorage was next. I rode the Alaska Railway, rafted Spencer Lake alongside Spencer Glacier and down the Placer River...



...and biked 3 of Anchorage's bike trails, one of which takes you past a historical display of the massive earthquake of Good Friday, 1984 which registered 9.2 and lasted nearly five minutes.

I was actually in Alaska for 7 1/2 weeks, driving most every paved road and some gravel ones. The fabulous Kenai Peninsula was amazing and I visited towns such as Homer, Girdwood, Portage, Frazier, Kenai, Soldotna, Whittier, and Seward, and took a boat cruise to Kenai Fjords National Park, Holgate Glacier, and Chiswells Island NWR.

I visited America's two largest national parks -- Denali (3 times) and Wrangell-St. Elias (twice) -- and camped and hiked at both. For perspective: Yellowstone is the largest national park in the lower 48 states at 2 million square acres and has 251 miles of paved roads. Denali NP has 6 million acres and one road which is 95 miles long and mostly gravel. Wrangell-St. Elias NP has 11 million acres and 2 roads of 60 and 42 gravel miles.

The highlight of Denali is the wildlife. They consider 5 animals to be the representative species of the park: grizzly, caribou, moose, Dall sheep, and wolf, and I was fortunate to see plenty of all five...







Out of Denali, I rafted the Nenana River with its class 4 rapids so turbulent and water so cold we had to wear dry suits and helmets...



In Fairbanks, I flew 170 miles on a two-engine flight to Coldfoot, 60 miles north of the Arctic Circle, where a van picked us up and drove us back on the gravel Dalton Highway (built for construction of the pipeline)...


...alongside the Alaska (Aleyeska) Pipeline...


The highlight of the trip was a 2 week Sierra Club outing. We met in Fairbanks, spent 9 nights in our tents, hiked and camped in both the national parks mentioned above, including this high mountain ridgeline hike in Denali NP...



...and did a backpack in Denali State Park across the highway from Denali NP because large groups can't backpack the national park...



...and from which we had views of Mt. Denali (aka Mt. McKinley) the highest point in North America at 20,320 feet...



Our second planned backpack in the mountains north of Fairbanks was canceled due to those raging wildfires.

Yes, it is cold in Alaska in September -- below freezing most nights with our water bottles freezing in our tents overnight! The fringe benefit: we encountered none of the gargantuan mosquitoes Alaska is known for (often called Alaska's state bird!)



And yes, several nights we were entertained by Aurora Borealis, aka the Northern Lights show...



...and I got to canoe amidst the magnificent scenery...



...and in Wrangell-St. Elias NP, I did a 4 hour hike on Root Glacier during some free time from the group, wearing crampons to scale the ice...



Did I say that my 2 weeks on the Sierra Club outing was the highlight of the trip? Well, the drive home on the famed Alaska (or Al/Can) Highway was another highlight! Running 1523 miles from Dawson Creek, Canada, to Fairbanks, it is a drive of a lifetime. The signpost in Fairbanks lists the mileage to many cities, including back to Chicago...




Encountering wildlife on the road or alongside the road was normal, as the photos on my Al/Can page linked to above will attest. Speeding would have caused you to miss magnificent scenery, or worse, caused you to hit wildlife just around the next bend. I even spotted a black bear slowly ambling across the highway. As you can imagine, I stopped often for wildlife and scenery photos, and as seen below, Fall was rapidly approaching as I drove home...



So that's a brief description of my greatest adventure. Or odyssey? Or epic? Or search for self?

Whatever you call it, this adventure so affected me -- being immersed so long in Alaska's history, culture, scenery, wildlife, outdoor offerings, and having met and conversed with so many of her residents -- that a poem came pouring out, "Homage to Alaska."

I had worried before the trip that it would be hard for me to sustain a solo driving trip of 10,000 miles and 75 days, and though I was anxious to get home, the lovely drive on the Al-Can was invigorating and I savored it. After Dawson Creek, when the terrain turned to farmland and expressways as I drove across eastern Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, North Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, I finally longed for home and the miles couldn't pass fast enough. But it was indeed a trip of a lifetime and one I would recommend to everyone who has the time and opportunity. And probably best enjoyed with a companion.

How My Love for Backpacking, Mountain Biking, and Paddling Began

Our family vacation in 1987 was to Steamboat Springs, Colorado, a trip that not only returned me to my beloved Colorado Rockies but also introduced me to backpacking, whitewater rafting, and mountain biking, activities that have dominated my outdoor life for the last three decades.  I had never heard of the Routt National Forest, but I fell in love with it on a scenic15 mile day hike from Rabbit Ears Pass, along the Continental Divide Trail, and then down to Fish Creek Falls. 

On this hike, I noticed numerous obvious campsites along the trail, triggering the urge to learn to backpack which we did as a family two years later after outfitting our family of four with the necessary gear. I have subsequently done over 60 backpack trips, some with friends, some with my sons, and many solo, as I've explored over 50 wilderness areas across the country, including a return to the Routt with a 1990 backpack here in its Mt. Zirkel Wilderness.

The next day in 1987, we rented mountain bikes at a local outdoor shop, and after asking the store clerk if there was a place to ride in the national forest, he said yes, there was a very nice but strenuous 20 mile bike loop available.  He told us to bike over to the gravel Buffalo Road and head up it. We had to walk the bikes in a couple of really steep sections, but all three of us, my wife, 15 year old son, and I, were all runners and in good shape. The views looking back at the town far below us were awesome. My 10 year old son was not old enough for this experimental ride.

The clerk had told us to watch for a particular set of landmarks, and when we saw them, we then spotted the narrow trail that headed back down the mountain to the town. This was Spring Creek Trail which we began biking down, and on which we had an amazing adventure!  Here's my 15 year old son...

As I look at these 30+ year-old photos now, I'm chagrined that we didn't have helmets on. All our biking around home had been on residential streets, and helmets were not in vogue back then so the thought had never entered my mind when we rented the bikes. And the fact that the clerk didn't supply them or even mention them indicates to me that the times were very different back in 1987. Nowadays I would never bike without a helmet! Below is a photo of me coming down the Spring Creek Trail in my Cubs hat...

Biking through creeks was new to us, of course, but didn't deter us -- just added to the fun of this new experience.

This stimulated my desire to do more such biking, and a few years later, I bought my first mountain bike, a Specialized Hard Rock, which replaced my 15 year old Sears Deluxe Varsity bike. Then in 2008 I began riding a Trek mountain bike.

We had Deer Grove Forest Preserve just three miles from our house, and one of my regular local biking routes travelled the residential street that paralleled the forest preserve for a mile. Then one day, with my new mountain bike which I was still getting used to, I ventured into the forest for a mile, but when the dirt trail turned south, I went back out to the road and continued my usual route.  

The joy I’d experienced in the woods for that brief section remained with me all day and night, so the next day I biked that route once more, veered into the woods again, and was so captivated by the forest ride that I made the turn south and biked the entire six mile loop that followed the perimeter of the preserve.  And I was hooked!

The trail had constant twists and turns and was replete with rocks and roots and ruts, and in the western section of the preserve it was like a roller coaster with up and down hills and constant blind turns, providing a challenging workout, wondrous scenery, and wildlife sightings. I was so enthralled that I then shunned my normal street rides and solely biked in the woods. Twice I nearly hit deer that were blocking the trail as they browsed the bushes as I came around blind turns. 

But it still wasn’t enough. The preserve continued on the east side of Quentin Road which ran through its center.  I was familiar with the woods over there because I had devised my high school's home cross country course there (I was one of the coaches) so I biked over there and explored the east side’s four miles of dirt single track. I loved it too, and added it to my biking route, thus making a 16 mile route which I biked many dozens of times over the next 30 years, and even though I've moved into my retirement townhouse 30 minutes away (which is right next to another preserve) I still return to my old favorite loop trail many times each year. I've since replaced the Hard Rock with a Trek mountain bike, but I still have the old bike for friends who wish to join me on a ride.

On that 1987 vacation, we also did a white water raft trip. Here we are in the front of the raft enjoying the thrills! 

This raft trip inspired me to try canoeing, kayaking, and a lot more whitewater rafting. And since I love camping, many of my paddling adventures, be they via canoe, kayak, or raft, are multi-day trips where we camp on the shore each night, often in tents but sometimes just under the stars.

Though I'm 75 now, I biked 2700 miles this year. In 1999, I began a spreadsheet to log my biking, hiking, and paddling mileage, and now after 22 years my mileage totals are 44,699 for biking, 14,555 for hiking, and  2077 for paddling, and though I'm slowing down a bit as I age, I hope to keep adding to those totals in coming years. I have photos and info for all of my outdoor adventures listed in the sidebar at the top right of this page.

Wildlife! Caught Au naturel!

 

Wildlife! Caught au naturel!

  ===================================

This cute grizzly cub was watching the stopped traffic that was watching him in Yellowstone National Park. Momma griz was nearby but no people were approaching her or the cub, so she was not agitated, just browsing the foliage near the road (second photo below). A ranger was also present making certain no one tried any selfies!

This doe and her fawns were spotted near my campsite in Yellowstone.

This mountain goat was just chilling out next to the sign-in box at the entrance to Washington's Goat Rocks Wilderness in the Pinchot National Forest.

This prairie dog was on lookout duty at the prairie dog colony at Badlands National Park.

This stellers jay was one of many thieves that kept trying to pilfer my food at a campground in Alaska's Denali National Park.

Two more grizzly bears at Denali National Park.

A mountain goat seen from the Alaska Railroad just south of Anchorage.

A curious and photogenic squirrel that joined me for lunch atop Avalanche Peak in Yellowstone. I'm not sure what he is eating, but I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

These beautiful elk was photographed at Yellowstone National Park on the lawn at Mammoth Hot Springs. I guess these guys would be better classified as tame-life rather than wild-life.

Also at Yellowstone, this elk with the huge rack was alongside the road.

Here's a brief video I filmed in Everglades National Park while hiking the Anhinga Trail. I was fortunate to have the camera rolling as this Great White Heron catches and consumes a huge fish! 

This field of elk was also taken at Yellowstone National Park across the road from our cabin at the Lake area. The elk were resting in the meadow of tall grass and appeared to be partially submerged submarines.

This is "Cathy" the wild turkey. She lived at the bottom of the Grand Canyon at the Bright Angel Campground, near Phantom Ranch. The story is that she walked down from the North Rim years ago and had been a fixture at the campground ever since.

This bison was photographed at Yellowstone National Park. It and its companions were walking in the southbound lane of traffic in an area where a mountainside was on its right and a steep dropoff on the other side of the roadway, so walking on the road made perfect sense since these critters avail themselves of the easiest way to get from one place to another. All traffic was stopped of course, so I reached for my camera, but the flash went off as I took the shot and this startled behemoth turned his huge head toward me and affixed his "evil" eye on me, giving me a startle -- and I momentarily feared he might completely turn his body and use his size and weight to butt my vehicle off the road and over the cliffside. Fortunately, he had other things on his day's agenda and just kept meandering south with his buddies.

This cute fellow is a marmot. They live in the higher altitudes, in this case at 11000+ feet in Rocky Mountain National Park. They are curious and entertaining companions when you join them for a night in their domain. I also saw a cousin of his in Glacier National Park where there are hoary marmots -- the front half of their bodies are white and the back half brown, giving them an unusual appearance. A number of times backpacking, I've camped and shared their home with them for a night. They've never bothered me, though I always had my pack off the ground so as not to tempt them.

Here's another marmot with white fur coat but brown tail, as if someone held it by the tail and dunked it in a can of white paint.

This guy is more grizzled and probably older, and notice his head is solid black with white around his black nose.

These two mountain goats were traveling with their kids when I encountered them on the Highline (Garden Wall) Trail in Glacier National Park, up at the top of the Grinnell Glacier Overlook spur trail. In fact, they had been ON the trail and I had to wait 5 minutes for them to meander off at their own pace, not wishing to anger mothers with children.

Moments later, same terrain obviously, I came across this guy following them.

Also seen on the Highline Trail in Glacier was this shy bighorn sheep, camouflaged in the rocks but circled in green marker.

Many assume alligators are only in Florida, but I've seen this guy on three different trips while biking the perimeter trail around Jekyll Island off Georgia's coast. He resides in this pond which is located in a small woodlot, but he is always just 10 feet from the bike trail, and often sunning alongside the trail.

Many deer live around Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the Grand Canyon since it is a riparian ecosystem thanks to Bright Angel Creek and the Colorado River, rather than desert like much of the rest of the canyon away from the river. The pack poles are not very high, mainly to get your gear and food off the ground and out of reach of ground critters. The deer can reach the packs, but unless you leave a compartment open, they won't bother your stuff. In other words, they won't eat through the fabric to get at whatever is inside.

This emaciated and sickly fox lives around Windigo on Isle Royale National Park. Numerous foxes live around the campgrounds, scrounging and begging for "people" food. Unfortunately, they get enough handouts to become lazy and dependent on scraps and don't bother to hunt for their own food. The diet is, of course, all wrong, too, and they become sickly and die. Is there a lesson here? I hope so!

This family of mergansers numbered 19, comprised of mama and 18 babies. They were out for diving lessons, with mama leading the way and all 18 kids following her example. Of course, they were not as good as mom yet, and after mama dove underwater, the babies would follow suit, and mama would surface after 30 seconds and they would be far behind her or off to one side or the other. Upon surfacing, they would frantically locate her and scamper back to her tail, and the process would begin anew. We watched this for 45 minutes, thoroughly entertained, until the babies grew weary and mama took them to some rocks for a period of feather primping and a nap.

Isle Royale National Park is prime locale for spotting moose which number as many as 2000. They have never been hunted by people (just by the indigenous wolf population) so they do not fear humans, so sightings are frequent and can even be close encounters. Twice I've come around a blind turn and nearly run into a moose butt, whose front end was busily browsing foliage. I've even had to detour off the trail to get around a moose that wasn't about to interrupt its meal to move and allow me to continue on the trail!

Moose also aquatic animals, quick in the water and able to dive to decent depths to browse the luscious and ubiquitous underwater plants. We've watched them do just that from our campsites at times. They can put on quite a show at meal time.

These wild burros live in Custer State Park in South Dakota.

This alligator was photographed at Florida's Big Cypress National Preserve. You can see gators from Key West north all the way to Georgia and the Carolinas.

Below is a crocodile. Everglades National Park is about the northern extreme for their range, so the Everglades is about the only area where they intermix with alligators. I've been to Everglades NP at least six times, but 2015 was the first time I saw a croc up close enough to get a photo, and actually I saw three crocs that year, and every time it was because the park rangers we were working with on our volunteer trail crew project pointed them out to us.

This cottonmouth snake was sunning on a branch above the flooded waters of Wateree Swamp in South Carolina. I was on a volunteer trail project for the Palmetto Trail constructing a boardwalk on an old railroad trestle, and was shooting down at the snake from about 10 feet above it. They were the reason we were warned not to drop any tools into the swamp, and if we did, not to try to retrieve it.

This deer was on hillside above the road near Firehole at Yellowstone.

This caribou was slowly sauntering across the Al-Can Highway in the Yukon Province of Canada.

This photo of a reindeer (caribou) with a magnificent rack was taken at Santa Claus House in North Pole, Alaska, a suburb of Fairbanks.

These caribou were photographed along the Al-Can Highway in the Yukon Province of Canada.

These sea lions were relaxing on ice floes in Tracy Arm Fjord out of Juneau, Alaska, as we approached Sawyer Glacier.

These bighorn sheep were on the shoulder of the Al-Can Highway in the Yukon Province of Canada.

These bison were on and alongside the Al-Can Highway in the Yukon Province of Canada.

Everglades National Park was the home for the critters in the next four photos. This gator was sauntering across the tram road/bike trail in the Shark Valley section of the park, so naturally I stopped my bike and gave hime the right-of-way (and snapped his photo.)

One of my favorite birds because of his multi-neon colored body -- the purple gallinule.

This convention of gators was convened below the spiral observatory halfway around the Shark Valley loop in Everglades National Park. I've actually seen several dozen at this location on other visits.

Look closely -- this is another gathering of gators -- there are three babies in this photo atop one another (and a fourth behind and blending in.)

Here's a brief video with movie footage of Florida wildlife, mostly waterfowl -- fifty in all.

One of my other favorite colorful birds is the Roseate Spoonbill. These were photographed at one of the best locales for seeing Florida waterfowl -- Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge near Cape Canaveral. Here's one hunting for lunch...

...and here's one in flight...

A pair of ptarmigan in Denali National Park.

These moose were browsing on the campsite next to mine in Grand Teton National Park. You can see someone's camping chairs behind the light brown moose.

A large herd of pronghorn antelope were having a hillside lunch alongside the highway at Blue Mesa Reservoir as I drove to Gunnison, Colorado...

...and I spotted their cousin while hiking along the shore of Yellowstone Lake...

This solitary bison was browsing at Yellowstone's Old Faithful, completely oblivious to the hundreds of spectators seated and standing a few dozen feet away, awaiting the next eruption. (Yes, the bison was safely out of range of the hot water by the time it erupted. He must have checked the schedule in the Visitor's Center!)

This herd of bison were residents of Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, a park many people have never even heard of.

This osprey (fish hawk) was perched high above a body of water in Everglades National Park, scanning for lunch below.

This flock of wild turkeys was looking for supper as I returned to my campsite in Great Basin National Park in Nevada.

One of the strangest and neatest looking species of ducks -- the Muscovy -- which is common in Florida.

Owl held by a naturalist

Moose in Rocky Mountain National Park

Bighorn sheep in Colorado National Monument

Blue morpho butterfly in Costa Rica

Okefenokee Swamp

"There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot." 

  --Aldo Leopold --

"What is man without the beasts?
If all the beasts were gone, men would die from great loneliness of spirit,
for whatever happens to the beasts
will also happen to the man."
-- Seattle, Chief of the Dwamish of Puget Sound --

"The buffaloes are gone.
And those who saw the buffaloes are gone.
Those who saw the buffaloes by thousands
and how they pawed the prairie sod into dust
with their hoofs,
their great heads down
pawing on in a great pageant of dusk.
Those who saw the buffaloes are gone.
And the buffaloes are gone."
-- Carl Sandburg --

  "Wilderness can be defined as a place where humans enjoy the opportunity of being attacked by a wild animal." -Edward Abbey