Denali NP
We arrived in Anchorage to a clear, beautiful day, and everyone there was excited. Our pilot, the ground crew, the bus driver, even perfect strangers were all saying the same thing, "Look, you can see Denali." Now, I'm thinking, that's Mt. McKinley and how can you possibly miss it?
Of course, I quickly discovered that Alaskans don't call it Mt. McKinley. It's simply Denali -"The Great One". And most visitors never do see it. When our group arrived at the lodge, they rolled out the "I Saw the Mountain" t-shirt rack and the "30% Club" pins. Apparently Denali is so big that it creates its own weather and at least 70% and perhaps as many as 90% of visitors see only a solid bank of clouds instead of the mountain itself. We saw the mountain for less than 48 hours before it disappeared completely, but the views during this short period were incredibly beautiful.
The lodge in the Alaska State Park is situated to provide some of the best views of the eastern slope. Even in late August, Denali is completely snow covered so when sunset finally came at 10:30 or so, we saw pure white Denali beautifully framed in purple alpenglow and the next morning we saw the snow on the mountain painted pink by the rising sun.
All during the day, we saw the mountain change as the sunlight moved across its face, but the best view we had was near the end of our raft trip down the Chulitna river. After we turned the final bend we could look back to an incredible wide-angle view of a major portion of the snow-covered Alaska Range with Denali in the middle dominating the skyline. At that point we really felt that we were in Alaska.
But, we also began to see the changes to come. Denali was snagging the prevailing winds and a small cloud, like white smoke from a railroad smokestack, was beginning to form. By the next morning, the mountain could only be glimpsed through the gathering clouds and finally it disappeared completely in thick clouds and we never saw it again on our trip.
We moved on to the National Park itself and there are some oddities to this park. The train station is actually inside the Park next to the Visitors' Center, but there is no lodging in the park anymore; there is a parking lot where the park lodge used to be. And even if the mountain is visible, you can't see it from the Visitors' Center. You have to pay to take the shuttle bus farther into the interior to have any chance of seeing the western slope and there are no money-back guarantees.
Don't misunderstand, we thoroughly enjoyed our visit. While we were there, the Alaska Railroad was in the station preparing to leave. With its blue and yellow color scheme, this has to be one of the most beautiful railroads in the world and it was a thrill to see it moving out on its journey north.
We also saw the sled dogs in their compound with each dog having its own dog house. We visited with them and saw them up close. Some wanted to be petted by everyone, some were shy at first but warmed up quickly, and some saw us coming and turned their backs and went in their dog houses. They function as working teams during the winter months when the Rangers patrol the park by dog sled but the dogs were on their summer vacation and seemed to enjoy the opportunity to put on a show, pulling the sled down the dirt road.
Wildlife viewing in Denali is one of the main reasons to visit. Many people get to see the Denali Big Four: grizzly, caribou, moose, and Dall sheep. A lucky few get to see the Big Five when they spot one of the very elusive wolves. We got to see red ground squirrels.
It was almost funny. Because the rain was moving in, we only went on the shorter history tour that had presentations about the back country cabins and the Athabascan natives. But, as you ride in the shuttle bus, everyone is on the lookout for wildlife and people spotted "stick bears" and "rock moose" everywhere.
But, at least we did get to see other wildlife on our earlier raft trip. We were told the record for that particular route was 65 bald eagles and we spotted a respectable 18 of them. But the real highlight was the black bear cub we saw jumping on the rocks on the south bank. He was just barely old enough to begin going out a little on his own and he didn't hear us as we floated closer and closer. Then he looked up, gave a squeal, and ran up the river bank looking for mom.
The land portion of our Alaska trip ended with a railroad journey from Denali National Park to the deep water port at Whittier. We were glad we had seen the Alaska Railroad cars earlier because our trip was on the Midnight Sun Express train which only uses the blue/yellow Alaska Railroad engines to pull the cruise line's own railway cars. These cars are the new luxurious cars with two levels. Seating is high on the second level in very comfortable chairs and dining booths are on the first level. It was an enjoyable nine hour trip through Alaska where we saw the first signs of fall color and quite a number of the Alaskan bush cabins and their famous and colorful outhouses and the time went by quickly.
It took me a while to figure out what bothered me about the trip though and I finally realized that it was really too comfortable and too easy. This was a rail journey for people who really don't like railroads. Fortunately, there are a bunch more National Parks to visit in Alaska and we're already planning to ride the real Alaska Railroad cars on our next visit.
The train left the bush country as it entered civilization from Wasilla down through Anchorage and we then passed through the dead tree forest created by the salt water intrusion after the 1964 Good Friday Earthquake. Then we went through the Whittier tunnel and saw our ship, the Island Princess, waiting for us at the dock. It was an impressive sight, but even more impressive was the bald eagle perched high on a tower, overseeing the entire operation. We thought that had to be a good omen.
Glacier Bay NP
So here I was going on a cruise. I really didn't think I was old enough to do this sort of thing; I was planning to do this trip when I turned 70 or 80. But the cruise lines are in a full-blown panic and we're not about to miss a bargain like this. So we boarded the ship and headed for our mini-suite.
The thought of spending a week on a floating Las Vegas hotel is not my idea of good time but I have to say there is nothing quite like viewing a glacier from your own private balcony. Actually, we viewed the glaciers from all over the ship; Glacier Bay National Park is much larger than I imagined. The ship entered the park at 10:30 AM and we didn't leave until 8:30 that evening.
As we entered the Park boundary, a National Park Boston Whaler pulled alongside and two National Park Rangers and an Alaskan Geographic rep joined us on board. They gave their standard presentation and orientation in the ship theater and provided commentary throughout the day over the ship's public address system. All three were happy to take advantage of lunch at the buffet.
As we cruised farther into the park I began to hear a too-familiar squawking and when I looked off the port side I laughed to see thousands of sea gulls in their cliff-side nests. This was the rookery at South Marble Island and it apparently is to southern Alaska what Anacapa is to southern California. A little while later there was a murmur of excitement on deck and we all rushed over to see a brown bear showing her two cubs how to catch fish at the shoreline. Then, we spotted another large cruise ship completely dwarfed by a giant glacier.
Of the 200 glaciers in the park, 16 of them are considered massive and 11 calve, that is, drop ice cliffs into the sea. Each of the glaciers we approached had its own personality. The Johns Hopkins Glacier calves so frequently and with such force that it is dangerous to approach too closely. Seals understand this and safely sleep, eat and breed on the ice floes there. The Lamplugh Glacier has a river running through it and water gushes out an opening in the middle of the wall and pours into the bay. The Carroll Glacier can be seen almost in its full 15 mile length looking like a frozen river descending the mountain all the way to the bay. The Margerie Glacier is the best known. We came up very close to it and were assured that we would see it calve. We stood quietly waiting and we could hear the ice eerily cracking and shifting and in less than 10 minutes a huge section broke off and fell into the water with a great splash.
If the Margery Glacier is the most famous, its neighbor, the Pacific Glacier, is the workhorse. Looking at it, you wouldn't even realize that it is a glacier since it doesn't calve at all and is so covered with dirt that it looks like a rock cliff, but this is the glacier that created Glacier Bay. When Captain Vancouver first saw it in the 1794, it was a solid mass at what is now the entrance to the Bay but when John Muir visited in 1879 it had retreated 48 miles and by 1916 it had retreated 65 miles to its present location. The glaciers here apparently take both sides of the global warming controversy: most of those on the southwest and east sides are receding but several on the west side are advancing.
Skagway and the Klondike Goldrush NHP
After the National Park Rangers left, the ship headed south and then made a huge U-turn to head up to Skagway where we docked early the next morning. My knowledge of the Klondike Gold Rush is that Chaplin's Little Tramp and Disney's Scrooge McDuck both made their fortunes there but that the thousands of real people who climbed the ice stairs of the Chilkoot trail arrived in Dawson City too late to find any gold at all. In other words, a pretty silly affair. But the Park Rangers at the Visitors' Center told an interesting tale of heroes and villains and the Last Great Adventure of the 19th century before we began our century of world wars and much more deadly business.
Just outside of Skagway, we ate lunch at Jewell Gardens, famous for giant rhubarb and growing everything that can be grown in Alaska (which means no tomatoes). More interesting to me was their extensive garden railroad. Of course, we also rode the real thing, taking the White Pass & Yukon Railroad into Canada and back. This is a much more elaborate operation than I thought it would be and would easily be worth a return visit.
Juneau and Ketchikan
Our next port was Juneau and this point I really became annoyed with the scheduling. We docked at 6:30AM and departed at 3:30PM. I understand the need to keep us moving but we didn't have nearly enough time to do all the things we wanted to do and we did a lot in those few hours.
We started with a whale excursion with Allen Marine Tours, a really first-class operation with their own custom designed and built catamarans perfectly suited to the south Alaska waters. They guaranteed whale sightings but that was an easy one. They estimated that over 1,000 whales reside in the waters off Juneau and we saw whale spouts in every direction.
The boat crew has a set path they regularly follow but we spotted something more than spouts and insisted that the take us to the spot. Several whales were gathered there including one that kept repeating some partial breaching movements. The on-board naturalist said that he was simply exercising and strengthening his dorsal muscle and that he was a fairly young, frisky whale probably born in December. I did some quick calculations and checked him out with my binoculars and I figure this is the baby whale we saw off Anacapa.
It's hard to tell whales apart because they look pretty much alike but scientists use the tail shape to identify individual whales and it is my unshakable, scientific opinion that this was the same tail and the same whale. So we saluted him and congratulated him on his successful trip from Hawaii to California to Alaska and wished him a safe return to Hawaii.
The boat crew then got us back on track and swung past a massive herd of Stellar seals lying on the beach and then headed to the krill feeding area. There were humpback whales everywhere there feeding away and we watched one group of six all feeding together and then each in turn finished up and submerged with a final flip of the tail. It was one great dive after another, each a memorable picture, but, I have to say their timing was a little off and, as a group finale, it was a little ragged. If they expect to go pro, they're going to need a good choreographer.
By this time we were getting hungry and the boat headed off for the Orca Point Lodge for a salmon bake. As we pulled into the dock, a bald eagle lifted off from the shore and soared in circles above as a sort of welcome. And the meal lived up to the introduction. We were hungry, certainly, but the fresh-caught, perfectly-grilled salmon easily made this the best meal we had on the entire trip.
After lunch, we boated back to the dock where we boarded the bus for the Mendenhall Glacier. This glacier is quite picturesque but its fame is obviously from the fact that it's practically in Juneau. The glacier is really just the forward portion of the vast Juneau ice fields and it's a little hard to reconcile the state capital and all the civilization that implies with a vast mountain area of ice. It's quite a contrast.
But, hey, enough of that, don't you know, because it's pushing 3 o'clock and we're all rushing to get on the bus to get back to the ship. The driver is pointing out the governor's mansion and the capital building and the Mount Roberts Tramway and other great points of interest but we have no time to see any of the city itself as we hurry to get on board. What made this even worse was that our next port was Ketchikan.
Ketchikan calls itself Alaska's first city because most cruises start in Vancouver and Ketchikan is the first stop. For us, it was the last Alaskan port and after the rest of Alaska, it is a major disappointment. We docked at 10:30AM and being on the port side, we had a complete view of the city as we pulled in. From its neon arch to all the jewelry shops right at dockside to the lumberjack show up the road, Ketchikan looked like the tourist trap for all of Alaska. We quickly worked our way through the dockside hustlers and headed for our eagle tour back on the water.
The tour boat wasn't nearly as nice as the one in Juneau and when the water turned rough, it was obvious it wasn't well suited to these waters. But the eagles didn't care; they were everywhere. We quickly learned the secret to bald eagle spotting: simply scan the trees on shore with the naked eye until you see a white golf ball, then focus your binoculars on that eagle. Pan slowly around to see if you can spot its mate (the female is larger but both have the white head). If you spot the mate, then the fun begins. Carefully search for the youngsters. They don't have the white head yet and are much harder to find.
If you can't spot a youngster in the trees, then you simply check out the nests. We saw seven or eight nests during our trip and three had youngsters still in them. I wouldn't call them chicks because they were huge. When I spotted my first one, I really thought it was a setup with a carved, faked head in the nest, but when I saw it turn and open its beak as dad returned to the nest, I realized these are teenagers that don't want to leave home. One of the other nests had two large youngsters in it, both bobbing up and down in the nest to peek out to see if mom and dad were coming with lunch. Their nests are really huge, but I was surprised that they didn't collapse from the weight. We saw one pair of mature eagles merrily flying around each other and we were guessing that they were celebrating the departure of the kids.
At Sea
We shipped out of Ketchikan at 5:30PM Saturday afternoon and we were scheduled to dock in Vancouver at 7:00AM Monday, so we were going to be at sea for a day and a half. I thought our wildlife viewing was over, but we had a real treat. The on-board naturalist came on the public address system to alert us to a pod of orca whales off the starboard side and we could easily see them swimming and jumping and cruising along as they made their way to northern waters. Long after we had passed them, we could still see their spouts highlighted by the setting sun. Very cool.
I don't usually go into a lot of detail on food and lodging for these trips because anyone who expects fine food or luxurious lodgings in a National Park is in for major disappointment (even the Ahwahnee hotel in Yosemite, with its magnificent public rooms and excellent restaurant, has guest rooms that seem like servants' quarters). But this time, of course, it's a little different.
Earlier, I compared cruise ships to Las Vegas hotels and that is quite apt. I would say the Island Princess is a lot like a mid-tier Las Vegas Strip hotel -- the Luxor or Monte Carlo, for example. The food is good, if literally unmemorable; an hour after you've eaten, it's hard to remember what you had. The pools are adequate and don't have enough deck chairs. The on-board entertainment is lounge quality; there is certainly no headliner. And both offer overpriced spa sessions. But two things they have in common are handled quite differently.
Both have casinos with lousy odds, but on-board you have to buy your drinks. In Las Vegas, the drinks are free. Both have room service, but on-board, room service is simply an included dining option. In Las Vegas, room service will be the most expensive meal you will ever eat in your life.
Being a first-time cruiser, I was curious about the formal dining, but it wasn't a big deal. One guy wore his rented tux to every meal and others dressed casually all the time. Since it was only two nights and only in the two main dining rooms, a lot of people simply ate elsewhere. Those who dressed up enjoyed themselves and many had their pictures taken as a souvenir.
There are two main dining rooms because they are now offering an alternative to the formal seatings with one restaurant having the familiar continual seatings from 5:30 to 10:00. They call this "Anytime Dining" but in practice it means, "Any time you want to eat, there's going to be a line." Of course a reservation lets you skip the line.
The nickel-and-diming is a little annoying: Ice cream cones are free; milkshakes are extra. Drinks are extra, of course, but so are juice and sodas. Pizza and room service are included unless you order room service pizza; that's extra. There are a lot of dining options, but the two other sit-down restaurants had cover charges (OK, I actually liked this one; it was worth the cover charge to eat in a quiet restaurant with only three or four other couples around. It was a nice escape from the hordes.)
I had to check and I'm happy to report that they do have deck shuffleboard just like in all the old movies. But if there was a tournament, I missed it.
Finally, the Island Princess was designed for the Caribbean. Outdoor pools and lounge chairs don't get a lot of use in Alaskan waters, so, as long as they keep offering these great bargains, we're thinking about a cruise to the Virgin Islands National Park to see how a warmer climate changes the experience. Should be interesting. Until then, I have to say this was a great experience. Alaska, like Hawaii, is familiar yet new and thoroughly enjoyable. Good people; good times.
To see photos from this trip, go to:
Alaska 2009 Photos
Alaska 2009 Photos
