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Travel 4: All Around the World Same Song

PSA to the Mainaas. We went for a short hike and the wild blueberries were getting ripe fast. There was enough ripe ones to snack on for both of us. Cool public park that anyone can go get berries.
 
MichVandal said:
PSA to the Mainaas. We went for a short hike and the wild blueberries were getting ripe fast. There was enough ripe ones to snack on for both of us. Cool public park that anyone can go get berries.
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Its Maine, wild blueberries are all over the coastal counties . I can take to where they arent so wild (cultivated, sprayed and machine harvested) and its blue for as far as the eye can see.
 
walrus said:
Its Maine, wild blueberries are all over the coastal counties . I can take to where they arent so wild (cultivated, sprayed and machine harvested) and its blue for as far as the eye can see.
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My point is that they are ripening now and nobody else was out there picking any besides us. Just starting now, probably really good in 3-4 days until they all finish.
 
So...Alaska.

Wife and I leave two weeks from Saturday. I last went in 2001 with my parents, who had gone once before in the 90s and have since gone back a couple more times (though it has been over 10 years for them). We cruised the Inside Passage and did not hit Denali on the '01 trip, so I have 4 nights booked there. 3 in Girdwood at Alyeska, and 2 in Seward to hit Kenai Fjords, plus one night in ANC the day we arrive.

As an Outsider visiting during high season I was prepared to pay, but I'm still a bit sticker shocked. Between flights to/from ANC, 10 nights accommodation, transportation, and a Kenai Fjords NP day cruise out of Seward, I've already sunk far more $$$ into this trip than I care to publicly admit and we'll still have to pay for most of our meals. With the exception of the 3 nights at Alyeska, I'm not even paying for true luxury joints. It seems even having the means to be a tourist in Alaska is a luxury enough.

I refuse to book any bush flights or chopper adventures until we actually get up there and I can see a near-term weather forecast. I'll just suck it up and pretend to be a whale if we decide to do anything like that.

We have our hiking boots and breathable raingear on the pack list, though IIRC the weather in South-Central AK is usually drier than in the SE rainforest.
 
Couple of things:

1. I wouldn’t exactly call the accommodations at Alyeska “luxury”. Oh they’re probably marketed and priced as luxury but they’re not really in reality.

2. Bring rain gear. It’s been an unseasonably rainy summer in south central AK and Girdwood and Seward can be especially rainy. Also likely significantly cooler than the weather you’re in now, especially if it rains.

3. Are you taking the train to Denali? Because that’s a really cool trip and more cost effective than driving.

4. Food is going to be expensive. It’s always more expensive than the Lower 48 and the recent years of inflation and high fuel prices are really doing a number on food prices up here.
 
1. Makes sense. The lodge looks a lot like the ones at Snowbird or Alta - built to last and handle lots of snow, not built to look fancy. But of course it's a ski/ride/outdoor resort, so it's marketed and priced as bougie.

2. Will do. I figured Seward would probably have the soupiest weather given its location, but I recall it drizzled around Girdwood & Portage too.

3. Yeah, that's the plan

4. As I told my wife, expect us to pay $40/ea for a salmon or halibut entree, but at least it ought to be wild caught and fresh.
 
Boarding the redeye home in about an hour. Only felt ripped off by one hotel and one or two mediocre meals, so I'm calling the trip a success considering I booked most of it about a month ago, which is pretty 11th hour by my planning standards.

Only thing I would definitely change is booking far enough in advance to be able to pick a better hotel near Denali. Ours had far too much road noise and issues with mildew/mold smell in the bathroom. They were also frequently pumping the septic for most of our stay, so I think they were having end-of-season issues.

One of our river guides was a rising senior at UA_. Next time we're going to do it in reverse and start in _airbanks, since I still haven't spent any time in the village to sufficiently judge it. :p
 
Just about ready to book tix to MN for Christmas and New Year's - our first time back in MN during the winter since 2014.

I seriously cannot wait.
 
Russell Jaslow said:
I have never heard a single bad thing concerning an Alaskan cruise.
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The excursions are heavily weather-dependent and it rains a lot. We were exceptionally lucky with two rain days (sea day from Seattle, Juneau) followed by four sparkling, sunny, perfect days (Skagway, Glacier Bay, Ketchikan, sea day to Victoria).

Even for somebody somewhat settled in now to the awe of the West, Alaska has another gear. The skies, mountains, glaciers, forests, seas are beyond my ability to describe. Your are in a penumbra of the world, where the taken-for-granted comfort of our connection to nature is eclipsed by size, remoteness, and throughout all silence. Like Monument Valley in New Mexico, the Alaska I experienced, even the just the tip of a cruise sojourn with a thousand other looky loos, holds a quiet I waited my life to hear.

When I stare out into space with a telescope and feel the finality of the distance, coldness, harshness -- that is what I felt just being there. When you stare into beauty, beauty stares into you.
 
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