Adios Alaska

On our last day in Alaska, we slept in and packed up the minivan and made our way down the hill to the main road. The signs are definitely different in Alaska and gave us a good chuckle:



We returned to the Black Bear Coffeehouse (where we had picked up chai lattes yesterday) as we had confirmed they would be open on Labor Day for breakfast. I remarked this was the second time we ate at an establishment with “Bear” in the name - indeed we’re still in Bear country.

This was definitely the place to be as there was a line out the door, except it was raining so the line snaked inside. We were able to grab seats and we ordered various coffees and chai lattes and the Denali Platter which included biscuits and gravy from scratch with sausage or bacon, a breakfast “bearito”, and portobello sandwich:



I filled up the rental car gas tank twice - once as we left Denali and topped it off in Fairbanks. The first fill was over $5 a gallon and in Fairbanks about $4.67 per gallon. You would think gas would be cheaper here, but not so.

The drive north to Fairbanks Airport took about 2 hours. As we would have to transfer anyway to get to NY, I picked the closer airport instead of doubling back to Anchorage which would take over 4 hours.

It rained and the fog was dense despite the easy drive. We did get to enjoy the fall colors of the leaves for their short autumn season:



We ran a quick errand and drove through Fairbanks before returning the rental car and checking in. With all our luggage and crew, we navigated well through the airport. I had been concerned because I wasn’t able to check-in my mom, brother, or myself yesterday, but was able to check-in my cousin and aunt.

I believe it was because the reservation had gotten wonky - although the 5 of us were planning to transfer in Seattle for JFK in NY, I had split off my ticket a few weeks ago and will be transferring in Seattle for San Francisco for another adventure and rendezvous-vous. Although everything was okay, parts of our info did not transfer over, so the agent had to rekey in.

We made it to Seattle safely for the approximate 3.5 hour flight. The rest of the family splintered off as Justin got them into a lounge for their 3 hour layover and I headed to my gate for my roughly 90 minute layover.

I can’t wait to reconvene with my family and hope they have a safe redeye flight to NY and as they splinter again upon arrival, as Justin rushes to a meeting in Long Island.

I’m so grateful for the adventures we had in Vancouver before the cruise, the cruise itself, and then in Denali. All day we had been saying “Adios Alaska”. My cousin and aunt had lived in Spain and of course, Justin and I love practicing our Spanish. So it seemed pretty appropriate as we explored the great state together for an epic trip and experience!

Denali

The tack on to the cruise was to visit Denali National Park and Preserve, formerly known as Mount McKinley National Park. The park is centered around the highest mountain in North America and means “the high one” at over 20,300 feet or 6,100 kilometers. The park has expanded over the years and in doing so, returned to the original native name of Denali. It’s over 6 million acres - larger than the state of New Hampshire! As we’ve learned, Alaska is the largest state and about 1/5 the size of the entire continental United States!

The landscape includes forest, tundra, and glaciers. We didn’t see glaciers as I think we’ve seen plenty already and would require a more extensive and adventurous trip.

The national park only allows private cars to enter until mile 15, and had partnered with Aramark for bus tours. I chose the basic Tundra Wilderness Tour. The road goes out to Wonder Lake which is mile 92 which takes about 11 hours round trip due to the low speed of traffic. The tour didn’t go out that far, but due to a rock slide that damaged the road at around mile 45, we get turned around at mile 43. The road that slid was built on permafrost and had been melting. It had required frequent maintenance, but recently the Park service decided it should be closed. They are hoping to have the road repairs and a bridge that would avoid the road sliding issues completed by 2026.

When you book, you only get to choose morning or afternoon and you hear two days before your actual pickup time. They come get you in this beige bus and treat you with a snack box and water bottle. My mom, aunt, and brother were stoked not to do much walking and our driver and nearby passengers were very considerate. Our obligatory group photo and bus experience:









Also the range of pickup could be across a few hours and I felt like a midafternoon pickup would waste the day. The earliest pick up can be 5 am, but I learned our pickup time was 6:35 am which I guess was better to see the animals!

Thanks to the over 50 pairs of eyes on board, folks yelled out “3 o’clock, 9 o’clock”, as we spotted various wildlife. In addition to navigating hairpin turns and single lane passages, our driver had a long range video camera and streamed to monitors on the bus. Side by side, you can see my iPhone photo and an image of the monitor of the caribou and brown bear below - the quality was spectacular:





We also saw a female moose…



A grouse…



Dall sheep or thinhorn sheep…apparently these are all male or rams, so it’s a bachelor party!



Several moose… you can see the red on the antlers on the left one on the monitor. The antlers regrow each Spring nourished by blood vessels. The red color will rub off over time…



But the highlight was definitely the mama bear with her three cubs eating berries and making their way down!



Although it was cloudy, we got to enjoy the fall colors as it will turn brown and winter white just in a few weeks. As such, we were told this is a unique time to be here…

















It was too cloudy to see Denali, but we still really enjoyed the experience and decided not to continue on the bus back to the hotel, but stopped in to the Visitor Center. We perused the exhibits before seeing an 18 minute film about the park. 

Here you can see the red line which was our road by bus; the white range is the Denali mountain peak nestled amongst the other mountains; and the white line being the main highway:





My very own antlers for Justin - my mom remarked my fingers are too tiny to even see:



For lunch, we beat the rush at the café and ordered cheeseburgers, seafood chowders, chicken panini’s, and French fries. This was timed perfectly as we were finishing, our hotel shuttle came to the Visitor Center. We looped into town, the sister hotel of the Grande Denali Lodge which is Denali Bluffs, and then back to our hotel.

As we were beat, we all napped and motivated around 6 pm to head into town. We window shopped and enjoyed some chai lattes as we tried to get more steps in.



We ultimately decided to eat at Prospector’s Pizzeria and Alehouse and enjoyed spinach and artichoke dip, Greek salad, and various pizzas. I also ordered a cider from the 49th State Brewery:







After dinner, we returned to our hotel perched on Sugarloaf mountain for our last night in the 49th state!

Anchorage

Although I’ve been to Anchorage over two dozen times, I had never left the airport. During the 1980s and 1990s, Korean Air stopped to refuel in Anchorage. So on our annual trips to Korea, we would disembark and eat a bowl of udon before returning to our very same seats. Here’s a picture of Justin and me on one of our many stopovers - feels very Alaskan:



My mom wanted to recreate this picture, but alas we were not flying out of the airport on our trip. Today, we disembarked from our cruise ship after having traveled over 500 nautical miles! So we said bye bye to our boat after 7 nights…



Apparently it was super sunny for Whittier which is technically the cruise ship terminal for Anchorage. About an hour from Anchorage, Whittier is a year round ice free port while Anchorage cannot handle the large cruise ships and needs continuous dredging.



To get to Anchorage from Whittier, I had booked bus transfers and we had to travel through a narrow one way tunnel built in 1942 - we were lucky we didn’t have to wait to enter as there were long queues on both sides:



We traveled through Portage and saw a few hanging glaciers. According to our driver Brad, there are only two seasons in Alaska: winter and construction. The roads need year round maintenance due to the extreme cold weather.

We drove through Turnagain Arm, a waterway in the northwestern Gulf of Alaska, passed the Chugach mountains, and could look across the water to see the Kenai Península. Some photos from our ride:







We spotted some trumpeter swans that mate for life:



And even some Beluga whales that bop for salmon. As our driver said, “look for white marshmallows”! I included an arrow below and although we saw many, it was hard to take a clear shot in the moving bus:



There were many excursion and bus transfer options offered, but I had opted for the drop off in downtown Anchorage. It was closest to the car rental that had both a minivan and would let me do a one way rental. The civic center is where our luggage was waiting for us from the night before. They can hold your luggage all afternoon and we could even check in smaller bags, so you could explore the town more comfortably while waiting for flights and etc. 

300,00 people live in Anchorage which is about 40% of the state population. Coincidentally, they are planning to have Hamilton and a Korea friendship concert at the downtown performance hall soon:

We had two hours to kill as I didn’t want to pick up the rental car too early based upon our Monday flight out of Fairbanks or we would be charged an extra day. Here’s a sign showing Anchorage as being a crossroads of the world with an Incheon and New York sign!



After walking around downtown, we chose a Korean-owned Japanese restaurant called Kumagoro. Kuma means bear in Japanese. We had super fresh sushi with local Alaskan crab and salmon and several of us enjoyed Kimchi ramen and yakisoba or fried noodle:



After lunch, we picked up our white Toyota Sienna minivan and was able to pack the 7 pieces of luggage and then headed north! Our license plate even has a bear:





Two hours in and roughly halfway through our ride, we stopped in historic Talkeetna. Apparently, it was a town established while the Alaskan railroad was being built. We were in search of restrooms and coffee, but due to the midafternoon slowdown, we could not find any caffeine. Some photos of the town:







We did snack on tasty salmon cakes with maple syrup and chowder from scratch:



Then we piled back into the minivan and on our way to Denali, we saw the Denali train and beautiful mountains of the Alaska Range:

After getting off the highway, we went up some hairpin turns and arrived at the Grande Denali Lodge and successfully checked in. They advised seeing the Northern Lights was likely tonight, but we told and showed them photos of what we saw on our last night of the cruise. They were impressed with our images and how clear it was.

For dinner, we ate at the hotel and surprisingly, the food was very good. I ordered the “Northern Lights” cocktail which had blueberries which are very local and also enjoyed by bears. We shared a Caesar salad and various pastas:



After dinner we took some photos of the night sky and went to bed early after a long day of traveling north: