A Week Exploring Alaska
Grady and I started planning this bigger trip to Alaska in 2020 when we were dreaming of traveling again in the midst of COVID-19. Our original itinerary included some backpacking in Wrangell St. Elias National Park that required a lot of logistical coordination and multiple modes of transportation. Unfortunately, Grady was suffering from some significant back pain right before we were supposed to leave for Alaska and we had to delay the trip by a few days. We weren’t sure if we’d be able to go at all and had to cancel our itinerary in Wrangell St. Elias, but 2 days after our planned departure, we booked a flight for that afternoon and hopped on a plane to Anchorage.
At this point, our plans had been canceled and we were considering all other options in Alaska. We packed all of our backpacking gear for a week and rented a mini van that became our #vanlife home for the week. Thankfully Grady is an amazing trip planner and had backup plans B and C ready to go. Upon our arrival in Anchorage, we quickly grabbed some bear spray and headed into the mountains, planning to backpack into some huts to do a little traverse circuit. We couldn’t have picked a better Plan B. The hike in on Day 1 was gorgeous - full of early fall colors, crisp September temperatures, and unbelievable views.
Our luck continued when we arrived to the hut to find only one other person. The hut slept about 8 people maximum, and if there are more people than that, you sometimes have to set up a tent outside of the hut. We were starting to think that it might just be the three of us in the hut, but then some other groups showed up - quickly putting the hut at capacity. We all slept on the floor of the loft and shared dinner and breakfast together around the first floor table. It’s amazing when you’re in a hut how quickly strangers can become trail friends.
If you do choose to stay at these huts, please join and contribute to the Mountaineering Club of Alaska - they operate and maintain these huts and they are intended for the benefit of members. We joined the association and are happy to support their organization.
We spent hours playing games together and ended up deciding to hike the next day with three of the other people from the hike who were attempting our same route. The second day was more technical with glacier travel and the use of some ropes to rappel so we were glad to have some other trail friends along for the adventure. When we reached the top of the pass, after a steep tallus field, we were greeted with a view of Denali. The prominence of a 20k ft mountain is breathtaking.
We were super fortunate that the three trail friends we hiked with all were employees of Denali National Park for the summer and shared a bunch of interesting information with us about the area. We bonded over rappelling onto a glacier and making our way slowly down the snow and ice field. We continued hiking with our trail friends across glacier, tundra, and beautiful high alpine meadows. The variety of the terrain was beautiful.
The next hut emerged as a little dot on the horizon and when we finally arrived to the hut, we were pleasantly surprised to find that we were the only five people at the hut for the night. We explored all around that area of the valley and the views looking back up at the glacier and surrounding mountains really put the scale of the area into perspective.
After we arrived back to the hut, we found a trip registry book that had an alarming number of entries referring to some elusive hot springs. We of course sought out to find the hot springs ourselves, and followed a cryptic map drawn into the book. After the adventure that ensued, we created a map of our own to help guide the next backpackers to find the elusive hot springs themselves. By this point, we were full-blown trail friends with our Denali crew and after playing a bunch more games in the hut on night 2, we decided to hike out with them the following day. We started the morning drinking coffee and watching a helicopter deliver supplies to the hut which was remarkable to see how they navigated the huge peaks and brought in construction equipment to this super remote location.
One our hike out we crossed yet another glacier before making our way back to a goat trail that led out of the depths of the mountains. We passed some beautiful lakes and a lot more fall foliage as the colors were changing quickly. Little did we know, it would snow 2 feet there just two days later. We couldn’t have gotten luckier with our timing!
Just when you thought we would have had enough of our Denali trail friends, we all decided to celebrate the hike with beers and pizza together. We met them at a local brewery and happened to stumble upon a live band that was clearly the place to be that night. We were still wearing hiking boots and rain coats and danced in the puddles to American Kids by Kenny Chesney. It was one of those super cool reminders of how big the US is and how that same thing could’ve been happening in the Southeast, the Midwest, Alaska - or anywhere.
Our mini van felt comfortable and cozy after hiking out and we spent the next few nights camping in the car. We explored some amazing Glaciers north of Palmer, found some local drive-through coffee shops, and worked our way down to the fishing towns along the coast by the Kenai peninsula.
We normally aren’t big on guided/paid tour experiences when we travel, but we really enjoyed the Kenai Fjords Boat tour run out of Seward. It was a few hours and we saw beluga whales, killer whales, humpback whales, and a number of birds. We’d absolutely recommend it to others in the area and thought it was a really cool way to see that park given it’s mostly only boat accessible.
We traveled through an incredibly long, one-way tunnel to Whittier, AK. The tunnel experience alone was worth going, but the views from within Whittier were breathtaking. Plus the local fish ‘n’ chips were awesome - especially at a place like Swiftwater Seafood Cafe with the plastic tables and the little red baskets for the food. You just can’t beat it! We were also were lucky enough to catch sunset just outside of Whittier where we could watch the glaciers turning purple across the bay. It was spectacular.
We had a little bit of time to kill the next day before our flight and I stumbled upon the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. I was a little worried at first it’d be a “Tiger King" situation and that we wouldn’t want to support that, but their mission is to rehabilitate animals and it’s a super impactful nonprofit. We had relatively low expectations thinking it’d be more like a small zoo, but it was so immersive and we’d highly recommend it to anyone. We saw a black bear in a tree, some giant grizzly bears, wolves, and tons of other animals. One of our favorites was seeing JB, a 10 ft tall, 1000+ lb grizzly bear, who was rescued when he was a cub after his mother was shot. Seeing the size of one of these bears in-person really humbles you and I sure hope we don’t see one that close out in the wild!
Our trip to Alaska was unforgettable for many reasons, but mostly because it was the best “Plan B” trip we could’ve ever planned. We are already so excited to go back and do our originally planned trip - now, the expectations are higher than ever!