Denali would take no fewer than two whole days (one there, plus two halfs to get there and back.) It would be tough to fit in with the whole "relaxation" and "vacation" vibes my hosts have planned. But I really wanna see BEARS.

Obviously, I've been boning up. Thank you, Frommers.

>if you are lucky you will have a clear sky one day & see the
>"big mountain" from anchorage or as we used to call it
>"skankorage". (you'll see why, no offense to your native
>friend).

I should clarify: she's not an eskimo. Plain ol' whitey who grew up there. It would be awesome if she were an eskimo. Because I'd always be calling her "eskimo," which would bug the shit out of her.

>The drive on the only road to Denali is pretty great. Either
>way - Seward & Homer are pretty awesome. Like i said - i
>can't say anything bad about the place, I'm j.

That's what I'm thinking. Just based on the pictures, it seems I can't go wrong. It's all gonna be pretty amazing.

>Look forward to the pictures.

Oh. Pictures? I hadn't thought of that. Okay, yeah, I suppose I can arrange that. I know a groundswell when I hear one!

Flew into Anchorage. Drove to Denali and did some backcountry camping and did the bus ride. Lots of scraggly bears with light colored fur. I think we spent four nights and five days in Denali. There's really no point in driving up there if you don't have time to take the 12 hour bus ride to see the whole park. Denali was impressive but it was the most time consuming and my least favorite part of the trip

Then we drove to Fairbanks. Did a three night hiking trip on the Pinell Mountain Trail during the summer solstice. Then we drove up to a weird little place near the Arctic Circle called Circle Hot Springs where we swam in natural hot springs and stayed in a creepy resort/lodge/serial killer hideout--that has since shut down. I liked Fairbanks quite a bit--college town and all and not many tourists.

Then we drove back to Anchorage to resupply/sleep in a real bed. Then we drove to the Kenai peninsula. Seward was o.k. but sort of touristy. Lots of cruise ships. We did a hike to an abandoned WWII military base. Boat dropped us off on the beach and we had to time our return hike around the tides. You can explore the gun turrets, tunnels, etc and the view from up on the cliff of the town and the entrance to the bay was great. We did the obligatory boat cruise to see the whales. Seward has a pretty neat aquarium. Worst food of the trip was in Seward. Expensive but bland tourist food.

Now--Homer. Favorite part of the trip. Homer is sort of a haven for artists and hippies--and bikers. The best hamburger I ever ate in my life was at the Otter Bar in the Best Western Bidarka Inn. Doubt that cook is still there though.

Homer had it all--fishing, tons of bears, great hiking, glaciers, and wonderful food. I recommend hiking in Kachemak Bay State Park. You have to take a water taxi to get there (but it is very cheap and takes less than an hour) and you can do a day hike (8-10 miles)from the beach up to a glacier you can touch. We saw at least 20 bears over the course of two days in Kachemak--and close up. I turned my back on our food sack for 2 minutes and there was this huge gorgeous bear with black fur pawing the bag. I yelled and he ran away. We camped by the shore of a lake with a glacier at the other end. There were icebergs floating in the lake and you could hear chunks of ice falling into the lake at night. Gorgeous beyond belief.

There is a great little artists colony called Halibut Cove near Homer. Some guy paid people to move there and founded a town. You can explore, tour some working artists' studios, buy some art, and eat at an amazing restaurant.

Whatever you do--eat lots of fish. I am sorry I don't have pictures to post--the trip was pre-digital camera.

The dam on Ship Creek is kind of a cool place to actually see a bunch of Salmon. You can't fish above the dam, but there's a fish ladder there, and there's all sort of fishing below the dam. It can't be much more than a half mile or so from downtown. Have fun in the glacial silt. That stuff can be very, very sticky.

And we're spending the first half of the week at a cabin on the Kenai river, a few miles from Kenai and Soldotna.

So far, the itinerary looks like this:

Friday night: Arrive Anchorage late, drink beer, sleep.

Saturday: Meander our way down to Kenai, hiking and taking in all the cool stuff along the way: Turnagain Arm, Portage Glacier, Beluga Point, Bird Point (I really want to see the Bore Tide, though my hostess says when she was a kid they called it the "boring tide"). Go kayaking on Prince William Sound out of Whittier. Arrive at the cabin late afternoon/evening.

Sunday: Fish the Kenai for salmon.

Monday: Down to Homer for halibut fishing, then touring the town, the spit, the beach, tide pools if possible, etc. Maybe across the bay to Kachemak. Back to the cabin.

Tuesday: More salmon fishing.

Wednesday: Head down to Seward and catch a 6-hour, 120-mile boat tour. See fjords, glaciers, otters, orcas, greys, humpbacks, eagles, bears. I'd like to go see that old fort dusker mentioned -- I read up on it and it sounds cool. But we'll probably only have time afterwards to see Exit Glacier.

Thursday: Head back to Anchorage. See the town, hike flat top, the Tony Knowles trail, see the native cemetery with its colorful "spirit houses," maybe take in the Native Heritage Center.

Friday: Tool around north of Anchorage -- obligatory stop at Wasilla, then up to Hatcher Pass, etc.

Saturday: fly back.

Other alternative is on Thursday, after a little bit of Anchorage, to head up to Denali and stay the night. Then get up in the morning to catch the shuttle into the park. Spend the full day there, then drive back to Anchorage Friday night. I'm being discouraged from this alternative.

Partly I want to see bears. Partly I know that once I've hit all 50 states I'll need a new goal. One I'm toying with is all national parks. There are currently 58 and I've been to 16. 17 after the fjords. 18 if I also see Denali. I don't know about this goal, though. I've been to lots of National Monuments and the various lesser classifications of parks. Seems unfair not to include those. Plus they're adding national parks all the time. I don't know. Maybe it shouldn't be about checking things off lists. Maybe.

I'm at 13 now. Got a long way to go on that one.

Plus give yourself a bonus if you ever find yourself in Guantanamo Bay.

And you could try to hit former territories or things controlled by the US like the Philippines, Cuba, the Panama Canal, the US sector of Berlin, etc. You could call your quest the gobanana imperialist tour.

Hey, don't think I haven't considered it. Looking at the Alaska map, I was pondering an eastward roadtrip just to hit the Yukon Territory.

Provinces I've already done: BC, Alberta, Quebec and Ontario (I think -- is that where Niagara Falls is?), which is pretty good for an American. Doing Canada would be hard. I imagine having to go to Manitoba and Saskatchewan would be like having to go to two of the states left on my list -- Oklahoma and North Dakota. Hard to get to, and pretty unsatisfying once there.

I'd definitely like to see the four Atlantic provinces. And one of my dream trips is a fall train ride from Vancouver to Calgary (which would totally repeat two places I've been, but not the in-between part). They have those glass-topped viewing cars for leaf peeping.

I, like you, was dying to see a bore tide in Turnagin Arm. It was disappointing to say the least. But the bore tides in maritime Canada were wild--and fairly predictible.

LOVED Nova Scotia, P.E.I. (north side--not the Anne of Green Gables amusement park section) and especially Cape Breton Island. New Brunswick was just o.k.

Haven't been to Quebec to compare but hope to get there next trip.

Sounds like halibut fishing will take up most of your time in Homer, but if you do get half a day--take a water taxi to Kachemak and get dropped off on the beach (or spit, whatever they call it). The hike to the iceberg/glacier lake is only about a mile. It's much farther if you want to touch the glacier, but if you just want to see the lake with icebergs floating in it and the blue glacier off at the other end (and probably a few bears) you can manage it in about 3 1/2 to 4 hours (an hour and a half for water taxis and waiting for water taxis, half an hour to hike to the lake, an hour to take pictures, and half an hour to hike back to the beach).

But you're probably already in AK by now.

Humpy's!

Saskatoon has a pretty good Fringe Festival in the summer and the river valley is spectacular but there really isn't that much going there that you can't see other places. For example, the Western Development Museum is just like any western heritage site. There is some great canoeing in Northern Saskatchewan (and probably Manitoba, but I’ve never been there either). The Mendel Art Gallery sometimes has some great exhibitions. Stay the fuck out of Regina, unless you want to experience a CFL game cause that’s the only thing Regina has going for it! Key phrase “no natural source of water”.

Train trip from Vancouver to Calgary? Via Rail does Vancouver to Edmonton, which I think is better and would be really amazing. I'd like to do it again. Though timing it for fall is a bit tricky as autumn only lasts about 2 weeks.

After halibut fishing in Homer, you should check out one of the restaurants that will cook up your catch for you. I think the one we went to was called Captain Patty's, and it's on the Spit, though we hadn't fished that day (we just ate what they usually serve). There are places like that in Seward, too. My S-I-L ordered some steamed clams as an appetizer, and though they were out of clams, the waitress told us to ask again in about a half hour, as they had some people out digging them up at the time. That's pretty damn fresh.

Also, halibut fishing is probably less work, but we went a couple hours without catching much before they started to roll in, so it's "easier", but maybe not faster. The limit was two, so once we had the boat's limit (12 = 2 x 6 people), we went in. No monsters. Most around 20-30 pounds, with one at around 80 pounds. They can get pretty damn big, but you don't really want a big one. Big = old, which means the meat isn't as good (though you can get cheek meat out of a big one). We also caught a bunch of little dogfish and I caught a Ling Cod that we couldn't keep (out of season). But yeah, you pretty much just drop a line, grab a beer, and wait for something to grab it (the line, not the beer).

In Seward, we actually camped on the beach the night before our charter (right around the time of the Solstice), and it worked out really well, but if you're staying near Soldotna, you're probably already fairly close.

For beer in Anchorage, I'd suggest hitting either the Glacier Brew House for nice dining, or the Moose's Tooth for really good pizza. Both places brew their own. You could also pick up a couple growlers of fresh beer to take with you to the cabin.

Do not try to walk across the Turnagain Arm when the tide is out! The silt literally sucks. There is a legend of someone getting stuck in the mud who had his body ripped in half when they tried to pull him out by helicopter. There's no evidence for that, but there is a story that's actually scarier, and true:
In September 1988, a newlywed husband and wife on four-wheelers took off across the mud flats bound for “the other side of the inlet” on a mining expedition (they were clearly not the sharpest cheese in the chandelier to begin with). One of the ATVs became stuck in the mud less than two hundred yards from the beginning of their adventure. The wife hopped off the ATV and onto the mud to try and push the machine loose. She quickly became stuck. The husband worked for two hours by himself trying to free her, then called for help. Emergency response from the Anchorage Fire Department and the Alaska State Troopers came quickly but they could not dig her out in time. When the tide rushed in they could do little but watch her drown.

Yikes!

If you run into my brother, say hello.

Yeah, the halibut trip is for two reasons I think 1) because there's no salmon fishing on the river on Mondays; and 2) to ensure that I catch a fish, since Kings are really really hard to catch and reds less hard but still hard. 4 hours should do it. Then I think we might have time, especially with daylight going 'til 10 or 11 to go across the bay and do some hiking where dusker was talking about.

> The limit
>was two, so once we had the boat's limit (12 = 2 x 6
>people), we went in.

I am told this is in sort of game show format -- do you want to keep what you have or choose the mystery halibut in the box? That is, you can't haul in 4 or 5, put them all in a tank, and pick out the best ones. You've got to keep or throw back each one, and make the decision based on what you might or might not still catch.

>Do not try to walk across the Turnagain Arm when the tide is
>out! The silt literally sucks. There is a legend of
>someone getting stuck in the mud who had his body ripped in
>half when they tried to pull him out by helicopter. There's
>no evidence for that, but there is a story that's actually
>scarier, and true:

I've definitely seen the warnings about the silt, and witnessed the sucking sand/galloping tide combo at Mont. St. Michelle in France. Very cool. I'm troubled that dusker and other witnesses have found the bore tide boring. My guide book talks about a "wall of water 6 feet high," but actual humans are saying, "It's like a wave coming in -- 1 or 2 feet, maybe."

>If you run into my brother, say hello.

How can I not run into him? Aren't there only like 100 people in the whole state?

And yeah, dusker's convinced me about Denali. I'd forgotten about the school bus thing. No bathrooms on board! And who needs to see scrawny bears?

That's not how we did it, but we had gone a couple hours without catching anything, so by the time they started coming in, if they looked pretty good, we just kept them. I'm pretty sure we didn't throw any halibut back. It was a two hour boat ride to and from the spot where we fished, so we still had that long trip back in. Might not be as long a ride out of Homer. I think I technically only caught one (plus the cod), but I wasn't complaining. At the end of the day, the captain just divided the catch evenly between the five of us (me, my brother, and three other guys we didn't know). We went home with probably 50 pounds or so. Delicious after we put them on the smoker.

There are usually derby's and stuff too, like for biggest fish of the day/week/month/etc. And I think they tag a bunch as well, and you win a prize if you catch one of the tagged fish. I'm pretty sure that was in Homer. I don't think we did that out of Seward. So I suppose if you buy into the derby, you might want to toss one back if it's not a potential winner.

Love this website because he's not objective like the travel books--if a hike (or a bore tide) sucks, he says so. You can check your Frommer's info against his opinion and see what you think.

He has 2004 pictures of Kachemak but they don't do the iceberg lake justice. Who knows--maybe the glacier has retreated so much that it's not that great anymore.

Edited to remove links that just didn't work no matter what I did.

Let's try again:

www.alaskahikesearch.com

If you do the bus ride bring four times as much food with you than you think you'll need. There is nothing to eat out there and you might think you won't need that much since you're not hiking--but it is grim if you underpack.

Besides--Denali bears are pitiful creatures. Skinny, scraggly hair that's all matted and missing in huge patches. No salmon in those glacial rivers. Berries and small animals make for scraggly bears--the salmon-fed bears are the deal.

O.K.--I just remembered we saw cubs. But we saw cubs on a hike in Yosemite too that were much cuter.

The wildlife you run into accidentally is way more memorable. Stick to kayaking, fishing and hiking and you'll see a bear.

In ascending order of priority:

Oklahoma
North Dakota
Vermont
Hawaii

Tell me about it. I accidentally packed my toenail clippers instead of fingernail clippers, which is ridiculous since my fingernails are on a 5-day cycle and my toenails can go almost two weeks before they go clickety-click on the floor.

And cleaning my own fish didn't help any ...

Bonus points for catching that on a fly rig. Most I've ever done with those is tie the line in a knot or snap the fly off into the forest somewhere behind me.

* take forever to filet but have a nice, sweet, dolphiny flavor.

eta: Alaska's pretty and all, but you could've gone to Oklahoma and experienced all this majestic splendor:

You're kicking yourself now, aren't ya?

That night and every night:

And what we didn't eat, we froze:

A bunch of which came back with us to Chicago in a fish box.

>Bonus points for catching that on a fly rig. Most I've ever
>done with those is tie the line in a knot or snap the fly
>off into the forest somewhere behind me.

This is a different kind of fly fishing than I'm used to. I'd only done the graceful "River Runs Through It" kind of fly casting, where you're playing out the line and delicately placing the fly on the surface.

This is more business-like. You've got a sinker, for one thing, so the fly goes under. You only let out about 12-15 feet of line, land it a bit upstream, let it float downstream, bumping along the bottom, waiting for a hit. And if nothing comes of that you jerk it crosswise at the end, hoping to snag one in the mouth. Repeat.

Still, with the weight of the rod and line the salmon's got ridiculously high odds of breaking off. I had lots of fish on and even a handful up into 6 inches of water that got away before we could net them.

Here I've got to get my rod tip up:

This was my first catch, but we had to throw it back because I snagged him on the top of the head. Anyway, It's a very different experience landing a 7 or 10 lb. salmon on a fly rod than, say, a bass or trout. Still, we had a pretty good first day as a group:

And yeah, Oklahoma -- it's on the list ...

When reports show people are catching tuna in the area we'll bring a bottle of soy sauce and a tube of prepared wasabi. If someone catches a tuna we're in sashimi heaven for the ride back.

Look at the fat on GB's piece of salmon. LOOK AT IT! Man, that looks good. And chock-full of Omega 3 fatty acids too.

This thread is slowly turning into fresh fish porn.

People next to us on the gravel bar brought a grill and cooked their salmon up right there.

On the halibut boat, they fileted all our fish on the ride back in. They were amazingly fast, though I'm told halibut are also very easy to carve -- they practically have lines on them where the knife goes. But it was beautiful and quick and bloody, like a Scorcese film. And then it was over:

>Look at the fat on GB's piece of salmon. LOOK AT IT! Man,
>that looks good. And chock-full of Omega 3 fatty acids too.

Tell me about it. I actually prefer white fish, like halibut, but the salmon's so much better for you.

Filet in haste, drink coffee at leisure.

He wasn't a cutter, though. He was a part of our group. A cousin or a nephew or something. Your basic 17-year-old -- funny at times, annoying at others. And always texting. But I don't recall his finger being weird.

Anyway, I just thought the photo caught a funny moment. It looks like he just murdered someone and stuffed them in that box.

On the way down to Whittier there was this black bear way, way up a hillside -- hell, a mountainside. I had trouble making it out. Apparently the only way you'd know it was a bear was because it was black and moving across a grassy clearing. The natives were all, "There! On the mountain! Behind that tree!" none of which was as helpful as say, "Halfway up the hill, to the right of that big patch of snow at 10 o'clock from the boulder."

But the orcas were a pretty nice consolation prize. And the bald eagles -- we saw 9 or 10 of them.

Really, really glad we didn't try to go to Denali. Your last post kind of clinched it. We did a lot of driving as it was (Anchorage to Whittier, Whittier to Soldotna, Soldotna to Homer and back, Soldotna to Seward, Seward to Anchorage, Anchorage to Talkeetna and back), so schlepping up there and spending 8-10 hours on a school bus would have kinda sucked.