What would you do with a week around Anchorage?

[klar]

Are you saying McCarthy is way too far? Or Dalton?

I was saying Dalton, sorry. Haven't been to McCarthy. That's a lot closer although still a significant drive.

[rockcreek]

If you guys decide to do crow pass best to leave a car at eagle river nature center and get dropped down in girdwood, Ive got some days off while your here and could possibly run shuttle for you.

In regards to rain........ if you don't have good rain gear, it might be wise to pick some up. buy your wife some extra tuffs while your up here. We've had one sunny day in two weeks, and the forecast looks like at least another week of consistent rain showers. be ok with the rain, its just that time of year. That said, if rain crushes your soul, indoor activities include anchorage museum (actually pretty cool art, native culture, alaska exhibits, planetarium), Seward Sealife center, nice climbing gym, beartooth dinner theatre. State fair is going on while your here, thats a good time too.
If you do get some sun and its evening and the sun is setting and you want a romantic (read expensive) dinner, and your in anchorage, the crows nest is on the top floor of the captain cook hotel and has sweet views, a decent wine list and good food

[skifishbum]

Gwinnies raindeer sausage and bloody Mary's bfast
Talketnas cool
If ya got the loot a flight out to the Ruth was stellar
Piss on the side of the new Sheldon luxury hotel
For me

[iceman]

The thing is, there's basically 1 real north-south road all the way from Seward to Anchorage to Talkeetna, Denali and then Fairbanks. You're in the middle of the biggest state, bigger by far than many countries, there's basically nobody there, and yet you keep seeing the same damn people over and over. Think of ways to go sideways and get off the road. Flying is an obvious choice but whatever works.

[BFD]

since you only have a week you should plan an itinerary. The Denali flight seeing is worth doing unfortunately not much else in Talkeetna worth doing jet boat tour would be good if your into that. Kesugi Ridge is great hike. come back across Denali Hwy. forget about the Dalton too much driving. You may need a reservation for the ferry so could have to fix your date. Crow Pass is a good hike but the shuttle could eat up a day of your trip. I think the Bomber to Snowbird loop is a better loop as no shuttle. I would see how Denali Park fits your schedule. If you want to make sure you see bears hike Kesugi ridge to Troublesome Ck.

[farmer]

Went up a couple years ago. We did a sight seeing flight around Denali and highly recommend it.

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[dfinn]

Thanks everyone. Flights are booked, we will be up there a week from today.

Unfortunately plans have changed a bit and the amount of activity I can do is gonna be limited. 3 weeks ago I broke my collarbone, got a plate and 7 screws put in. Long story short, I went fishing before I should have, pulled some of those screws out of the bone and had to go back in for surgery again yesterday.

So any backpacking we had planned is off the table. We are still planning to car camp though, at least as much as possible. I should be up for short day hikes by next week I think.

Our general plan right now is Reed Lakes hike at Hatcher Pass, McCarthy for a night or two hoping to do a glacier hike, head down to Valdez to catch the ferry to Whittier (I need to see if we will need a reservation for this or if we can just show up) then spend some time exploring around the Chugach and Girdwood. The wife has a friend that works in marketing at Aleyeska that we are gonna try and meet up with, maybe some kind of hookup there.

We got a good deal on a mini van for a rental. I’m hoping the seats will fold flat and allow us to sleep in the back, that will beat a tent if it’s gonna be cold and rainy.

[iceman]

The restaurant at the top of the Alyeska tram is pretty good and the views are great. If you go make sure you get up there in daylight.

[dfinn]

That was a fun trip! I feel like we got pretty lucky with weather, it was really nice every day, only had a little bit of rain one evening down in Seward and it didn't even rain that hard. Here's a few notes for anyone else who comes across this thread looking for similar info:

- Go to Denali if it looks like the weather will be clear, do the bus ride into the park. We got a 4pm bus because we didn't book ahead and all the other earlier ones were booked. This actually worked out really well, we saw a ton of bears, caribou, sheep and had an amazing sunset out there. Kesugi ridge hike was also awesome.

- The Spencer glacier raft float was kind of meh. Both the wife and I said we'd probably skip that if we were gonna do it again. It would be cool if you got to spend more time floating around the glacier, that was the best part but you don't get much time to do that before you start floating down the river. The river float part was scenic but not really all that exciting.

- We did a 6 hour glacier cruise out of Seward into Kenai Fjords NP. I thought this would be touristy and disappointing but it was one of the highlights of the trip. It was definitely touristy but the sites were so amazing that it made up for it. We saw a ton of sea life and seeing the glacier calving was pretty wild. If you make it down to Seward the hiking around exit glacier is pretty interesting, you can get pretty close to the glacier.

- Hiking up Aleyeksa, grabbing a couple of beers at sunset and then taking the tram down (for free if you hike up) made for a really nice evening.

- Moose's Tooth and Flying Squirrel didn't live up to the hype. I did think Bears Tooth was pretty good though. Get a bucket of butt at Thorns Showcase Lounge in Seward.

- Dankorage seemed really expensive and not a great selection. There's probably better dispensaries but it's right next to REI so we hit it quick after stocking up on jet boil fuel and freeze dried dinners.

I'll post some pics when I get around to getting them off the camera in the next few days. Thanks again for everyone suggestions!

[highangle]

You were SRSLY gifted with fantastically clear skies, dfinn. Hope you caught some aurora while you were countin' your lucky stars!

Denali bus ride in good weather is not to be missed. And I hope you came back with a good appreciation why it has to be a packed bus ride instead of a free-for-all of US car culture...

Seward's touristy and the restaurants are Alaska-pricy. But you saw that it doesn't have to be that way.
The Showcase: old school dive vibe, good halibut and clams, but I've learned to be careful about that place. Met strangers there for one thing or another, and while the food's excellent that place brings out a dry drunk worse than the Yukon Bar across the street...

Hope you went down the Sterling Hwy and scoped more of the Kenai River than the little bit of the headwaters you can see from the Seward Hwy...


The raft ride on the Kenai is 6 Mile Creek.
Used to be "Six Mile with Nova" was where all the Denali and Copper River crews would all come session end of season as paying passengers before they bugged.
It's still Alaska's premier day-guided whitewater experience.

https://waterdata.usgs.gov/ak/nwis/u...cd=00065,00060

Discharge rates to compare w/YouTube



Congrats on catching the Wx! I suspect you'll be back with a full heart and a fly rod soon. Heh.

[dfinn]

We ended up driving out to Homer to finish our trip off. The drive along the river was nice, not totally sure we needed to go all the way to Homer but we camped on the beach out there, had a pretty good meal at one of the few restaurants that was still open, grabbed a beer at the salty dog and caught an amazing sunset that felt like it lasted about an hour.

Not being able to fish was killing me. If I wasn't on the mend from a broken shoulder some fishing, some white water rafting and some glacier kayaking definitely would have been on the menu. Next time!

Also, that new(?) brewery in Seward is pretty cool and had good beers.

[Dhelihiker]

Alaskan Bush Company for at least 3-4 days

[riser4]

Meth.