Vacation @ Alaska

Cama’I :) (Before you wonder, that’s how Alaskan natives say hello),

This year has definitely been terrific so far in terms of vacation!! Had never imagined that we would cover southwest & northwest corners of America in a matter of 3 months :-). But destiny had other plans for us! Hehee… or was it me ;-p. Anyways, thought of convincing Niranjan… and in the process, I also convinced Ketaki very good friend of mine or should I say I was able to sell the idea :-) and then rest was history… hehe, since our husbands like us so much, they said YES BOSS!! :-) … and the four of us were sold on the idea of an Alaska trip.

Planning & Planning .............
Hawaii trip planning had taken a long time… on the other hand, the decision to visit Alaska was made in a day, the tickets were booked next day and then it took us one week to plan most of the activities.. planning & execution was around 1st week of may!! Considering the airfares, long weekend etc, the best suited week for everyone was 26th May -3rd June. Having decided the days, the next task was getting accommodations, activities in place. We tried B & B’s this time to get a different feel!! Our only constraint was having access to the kitchen or a separate kitchennet, coz having an option of Indian food is always the best!! You can’t deny the saying, EAST OR WEST DESI FOOD IS THE BEST!! :-). Before you doubt our intentions of trip, I mean “tum log khane gaye the ya sightseeing gaye the” I shall proceed ahead with the trip!! :-). What say??

To begin with, we booked the shuttle bus at Denali National forest, as the entire trip revolved around that. Inspite of it being early in the tourist season, we were able to reserve the bus only for 1st of June. We also made reservations for cruise & kayak paddle in advance. Having decided that we chalked out our itinerary…. I don’t plan to list out everything here coz then you may not read ahead ;-) hehe (wicked me). Short summary of the trip would be, we spent 3 days in Anchorage, 1 day in Seward & 2 days in Denali. Coming back to the trip, my friend and I were just counting days… Unlike Hawaii, where we didn’t need an excuse to shop extensively for the trip, Alaska didn’t have much coz the weather indicated that we needed to have layered clothing. But girls being girls thodi bahut shopping to karni hi thi.

Yippeee... Vacation begins...... :)
Days passed by quickly & within no time, we were all set to board the plane on 26th may at 1.30PM. We flew via Alaska Airlines, with a 3 hr break journey at Seattle. The glimpse of snow laden Mt Rainer and the lush green lands from the plane made it even more exciting.. The first sight of Anchorage from the plane was the snow laden mountains. It was refreshing and coming from Phoenix, it looked like heaven to us!! We landed in Anchorage at 9.30pm. The other amazing thing we noticed was, hey its 9.30pm and still daylight??? Awesome. The first thought that came to all our minds was just in case we get up late, we will still have plenty of day-light to do various activities because the sun sets only around 1.30 am and only for three hours.. All the jackets that seemed to be hidden, popped out the moment we landed in Anchorage, it was really cold! We picked our car from Avis (they had the best deals… even after 31% taxes!!!) and headed straight to the Conner lake’s B&B which was just 5 miles from airport. The sight of exclusive kitchen, private jacuzzi thrilled us. Dreaming about glaciers, we called it a day (although there was no sign of sunset).

Next morning, we started with a perfect south Indian breakfast (hehe) hot hot upma, coriander chutney, desi coffee (courtsey ketaki & myself) & some potato dish (courtesy Mahesh) Check out the snap!! You will forget you are in Alaska!! We packed desi sandwiches and saying enough to cooking, we set on our day trip.

Snaps @ Anchorage:
http://picasaweb.google.com/manasi.niranjan/VacationAlaskaAnchorage/photo?authkey=TW3BVheIqes#s5074664179257090914
Day 1: Our first stop was @ Girdwood, a small town 50 miles from Anchorage. The drive was beautiful with the coast on one side and snow laden or lush green mountains on the other. The sun wasn’t as bright and it was quite chilly.. but yet we enjoyed. We were yet digesting the fact that we were very much in Alaska. Stopped at the couple of spots on the way to embrace nature and take pics and reached Girdwood (35 miles from Anchorage along the Seward Highway). It sits on the northern shore of Turnagain Arm and is a town of 2000 people. The main highlight of this town is the Alyeska Resort nestled at the base of Chugach Mountains. We took a ski tram which in five minutes takes you 2300 feet above sea level and offers spectacular views of the Turnagain Arm & snow covered mountains. We could see enthusiastic skiers & snow boarders zipping through the snow and it was fun to watch them. We hiked uphill on the snow and after all the aah ooh…. Ouch, we had enough of it, hehe.. We tired skiing as well and it was worth the effort ;-). Well you have heard the saying all play, no chocolate makes a man dull and tired!! It was time for hot chocolate and from there we left for Portage Valley. It’s about 10 miles from Girdwood. We had made reservations on a one hour cruise to see the Portage Glacier which can be seen only via cruise. We didn’t have time to visit the Crow creek mine & try our luck for gold but we were ok with that. Coming back to the cruise, we were very excited as we were going to see the glacier for the 1st time.. It was really cold but that didn’t stop us from going on to the deck. The park ranger provided some history here and there and in a short while, what we saw was huge chunks of ice floating on the Portage lake followed by the huge glacier. The boat made its way past these chunks of ice and we could clearly listen to the crackling sound of the ice and see the cracks in the ice.. We maintained pin drop salience for sometime, it was an amazing experience and the joy, the surprise reflected on each & every tourists face was worth to be captured. The captain of the boat spotted us & asked “So are you from India?” and while we nodded, he said a famous personality from India had been on our boat for shooting in this Glacier. While we kept wondering he said, Do you know Madhuri Dixit, her movie Pukar was shot here.. We shook hands with him when he said he had shaken hands with Madhuri Dixit .. hehe that was a trivia!! It was interesting to note that only 10% of floating ice is above water while 90% is under water. You can imagine now what must have happened to Titanic when it crashed against an ice-berg.
The view from the boat was definitely mesmerizing and in order to continue to feel the same, we decided to take the one hour hike to Byron Glacier. A friend of mine had suggested we take bear bells as this was a bear area and they didn’t like being surprised… All along the walk we were kind of scared but being a group of 4, we chatted all the way with the bell ringing in background. When we reached the foot of the glacier, it was just beautiful, Ketaki & I did a bit of masti in the snow and while we were about to leave, we saw random footprints here and there. Niranjan tried to trace it but none of us had much knowledge of wild life, we couldn’t figure out which animal it could have been. But having seen the pug marks we didn’t venture too far and decided to head back. Later we happened to refer to the books and realized that the pug marks might have belonged to the Lynx (wild cat) or wolf & that was scary. After all the excitement, we decided to head back to Anchorage and enjoyed the drive. We had dinner at Thai Kitchen (which boasted of lots of veggie dishes) and headed back to the B&B. Although it was 9.30-10, there was no trace of sunset and it felt weird to have to go to bed, but we had to start early next morning and hence we forced ourselves to sleep.

Snaps @ Seward :
http://picasaweb.google.com/manasi.niranjan/VacationAlaskaSeward/photo?authkey=CzSCdFVf4uA#s5074665291653621154
Day 2: We had reserved a 6 hour cruise at Seward (11.30 – 5.30pm). Seward is located 125 miles south of Anchorage and is about 3 hours drive. We were told that the drive was very scenic and we had experienced some of it on the way to Girdwood, so we were prepared for many stops along the way. We reached Seward around 11.00, wandered around the place for sometime and checked in at Renown Travels office for the cruise. The cruise could accommodate 300 people but we were about 70 people, so it was quite spacious and everyone had a very good view. The cruise takes you into famous Kenai Fjords National Park which has abundant marine life and awesome glaciers. We got to see plenty of Humpback whales, a fin whale, sea lions, Orcas (killer whales), Puffins and many types of birds. But the highlight of the cruise was the massive Holgate Glacier. Everyone hoped to see Glacier Calving (process by which ice breaks off a glacier’s terminus, usually this term is reserved for tidewater glaciers or glaciers resulting in lakes). The captain mentioned that pieces of ice continuously break of the face of Holgate Glacier & crash into the sea like small explosions. As if our prayers were answered, we got to see the calving. It was mind-blowing experience. A huge chunk of ice broke off the glacier wall with a loud cracking noise and crashed into the water…The water just splashed everywhere and Glacier was in a way telling us, I am very much there…!!!
Niranjan recorded the calving just in time and you will get to see what its like. We had never been on a cruise for this long and the sea being rough that day, Ketaki & I experienced sea sickness. A tip here - take medicines before you board… So at least for us, it was gratifying & not so enjoyable experience at the same time. We had planned for sunset kayaking but we were not in our best health, so we postponed it to next day morning. We had reserved a B&B in Seward as well and this place was neat & tidy as well. It was a secluded log cabin with five bedrooms, a common room & kitchen. In addition to us, we found another family was staying as well. We decided to end the day by going to a bayside restaurant for dinner. On the way back to our B&B, we spotted a moose, it was walking by a creek in wilderness completely oblivious of our existence.. but the moment we whistled it ran away!! It was more of a donkey with a humpback, I would say!!

Day 3: The 3rd morning, we were all fresh after a good nights sleep and after a steaming cup of coffee, we were all set to do 3 hr kayaking at Lowell point Resurrection Bay, Seward. Sunny Cove adventures provided excellent gear which ensured that we would not get wet. The funny part of the gear was guys had to wear skirts as well. Before you start wondering, skirts?? Their purpose was to strap yourself against the kayak so that no water comes in!! We rented a 2 person kayak as none of us had ever kayaked before for that matter. The first & foremost question was what if the Kayak toppled over!! Hehe! With the excitement & energy & a bit of tension we rowed & rowed. The water was freezing cold and weather wasn’t all that great, when we started out. We took a ½ hr break after one hour at Sitka forest and then rowed back. We were not lucky enough to see sea otters against our Kayak as they show in pics, but on the whole the experience of rowing in the sea was quite challenging & refreshing. We were a group of 10 people including 2 guides. Towards the end of it, I lacked the stamina but it was only because of their motivation & my determination that I made it to the shore!! We cherished our experience. With a sense of achievement, we were all eager to hike to the Exit glacier. It is 3 miles from Seward. The amazing part about this glacier was that you could walk right up to the face of the glacier, almost within touching distance. We were awestruck at this enormous wall of ice and we seemed dwarfs in front of it. The glacier is active and calving, so they advised us to be careful. The one thing you can definitely note is the signs pointing out the glaciers reach in years past and keeps you wondering what would it looking like beyond 50 years from now. It was 9 mile long to begin with, but as of today, it’s a 3 mile stretch. At the base of the glacier, we could actually feel the dense blue ice and listen to the crackle. It just felt very peaceful. Few of pics have come out really well, Hats of to Niranjan!! The blue color, the melting can be distinctly seen in the snaps. After having spent quite some time over there, we headed back to Anchorage. We were really sick of eating bread, bread & bread :-), so we decided to cook an elaborate Indian meal!! Potato bhaji, Tomato soup, Patra, Chappatis & Rice!! This was followed by dessert that was provided by the B&B owner at anchorage. It was a tiring day and by now we had accepted to the fact that we are not going to see sunset/darkness during the entire trip. So without any further ado we went to sleep.

Back to Anchorage...
Day 4: We had planned nothing in particular for today and so didn’t have to get up early :-). We visited the Anchorage Heritage centre. If you have visited Polynesian cultural centre at Hawaii, this was very similar to that. It depicted the life of Alaskan natives from various regions of Alaska. Alaska's Native people are divided into eleven distinct cultures and speak twenty different languages; only four of these qualify as Eskimos. It reminded me of India as we come from the same country but we have so many dialects and the traditions, the living habits etc vary from region to region. Anyways coming back to Alaska, it was amazing to notice the innovative ideas that the natives of every region came up with to sustain themselves against the winter & wild life. Hunting was their main source for food, clothing, etc… it reminded me of Darwin’s theory - Survival of the Fittest!! :-). Totem poles is another interesting structure that they built. Totem poles are used to record family crests, document stories and legends, and to mark special events. The 30ft totem pole build at the center depicts a man who represents the Alaska Native Heritage Center opening the box of knowledge to be shared with the community. At the base of the cedar pole are a boy and girl representing the children and grandchildren of Alaska Native peoples; the child figures also represent the Eagle and Raven moieties of the Tlingit people. Toward the center of the pole is a young man standing over a bent wood box, he is opening the container of wisdom to share with the people. The figure at the top of the pole represents an elder or tradition bearer who instructs and teaches traditional values. You will see it in a pic. Amidst all this, I managed to borrow a native dress for a pic as well :-). Later, we decided to cover the Coastal Line trail along the coast of Anchorage, which starts from downtown. One of the “must do” trails but frankly we went 1/4th mile and found no good views, It seemed like a remote area with marshy land on one side and buildings on the other. May be had we walked a bit more, we would have seen something pleasant!! But it was really cold and a bit gloomy day on the whole so we headed back to downtown. It was good to see the town busting with people. Saw the famous street sign “Airways crossing” of Anchorage. Having found an Indian restaurant in Anchorage, we had dinner there… Please don’t order Malai Kofta, Navratan Kurma & Paneer Shahi, it really SUCKS!!

Snaps on the way to Denali & @ Denali :
http://picasaweb.google.com/manasi.niranjan/VacationAlaskaOnTheWayToDenaliDenali/photo?authkey=xNSx52Wx6pw#s5074680478657980578
Day 5: We planned to drive all the way to Denali National Forest. This was our last day in Anchorage. We left at about 9.30AM. We were tempted to land on the glacier and finally giving in to our temptations, we reserved a flight seeing tour with Talkeetna Air Taxi for the south face McKinley tour with glacier landing on the Ruth Glacier; an expensive affair but all of us had the same mindset - lets just do it this time!! The tour starts from the small town of Talkeetna115 miles from Anchorage. This is an ideal location for the flightseeing as you get to fly over lush green lands before heading up Mt. McKinley. Our plane, a 1957 Beaver, was really small, manually operated 5 seater. We were hyper excited and at the same time some of us had the feeling, what if the plane…. Reminds me of a line from the marathi play “Varadh nighala London la, aai he boong khali padla tar” :-). But it was too late to back off ;-). We started out by flying over the lush Susitna Valley and saw some very unique features… We got to see a stream bright orange in color due to bacteria and pools of water as black as granite amidst lush green trees. From there we flew up Mt McKinley along a glacier and headed into the Don Sheldon amphitheater which is surrounded by Granite peaks and cascading icefalls. Here we landed on one of the forks of the Ruth glacier… The Beaver was well equipped with sledge landing gear for snow landings. It was surprisingly very calm and quiet up there… just the five of us surrounded on all sides with snow covered mountains, standing on top of 4000 feet of ice :-) … On the way back we flew down the Ruth Glacier and spotted few campers on the glacier… We saw the captain had to control the beaver manually & that raised lots of concerns, yeah kya chal rah hai?? We asked the pilot, about the plain and when it was built and he said 1957!! Oh boss, we were relieved that we asked this question after we came back :). After the flightseeing, we spent some time in the town of Talkeetna… This is a very small beautiful laidback town. People were in no hurry to reach anywhere and everyone seemed to be relaxed. The town is also the main staging area for climbers waiting to start their Mt. McKinley ascents and also a sought after place for flight seeing. One of the oriental food place had something written on their specials and that caught our eye!! They had listed “Curd Rice (Yogurt)” as of one of their specials.. This brought a smile to our face and we were sure that lots of Indians had traveled in Alaska.. Yaha pe bhi apna stamp laga ke gaye!! :-). We left Talkeetna around 5 as our destination was Denali National Forest. We had reserved a cabin in Healy( 10 miles from Denali). The owner had built 3 cabins by himself and he was very proud of it. The cabins were clean and nice, nothing extraordinary, but the view from the windows was just too good. Girls being Girls headed straight into the kitchen after we reached and started cooking dinner. Made Paneer sabji, now don’t ask how well we were equipped!! :-) Alaska mein jane ke baad bhi paneer nahi choda!! Anyways it had been a long day and we had to catch an early bus next morning so we called it a day.

Day 6: We had reserved seats on the 7.00AM bus to take us around Denali National Forest. Denali meaning the “High one” is the name Athabascan native people have given Mt. McKinley as it crowns the 600-mile long Alaska Range. The bus journey inside the forest is 85 miles one way and begins at the Wildlife Activity Center (WAC) which surrounded by Spruce forest called Taiga (Russian word, meaning land of little sticks). You can drive by car for initial 15 miles but are not allowed beyond that. The only access into the forests is via their buses. This ensured that natural habitat for wildlife remains as is. All along our stay in Alaska, we were hoping to see a Bear; that was our number one attraction. Our bus driver cum guide had very good knowledge about the forest and all along the drive, he provided very good information. He mentioned at the beginning of the tour that very few people get to see the famous 6 which included wolf, bear, fox, caribou, moose & definitely last but not the least Mt Mckinley!! Mt Mckinley creates it own climate and only 20% of visitors generally get to see it in the first shot. We crossed our fingers and first thing we saw was the majestic Mt Mckinley. It was standing apart from the rest of the mountains and was completely covered with snow!! We were quite far but the view was very clear. Everyone was happy, to be in the lucky 20% and we proceeded ahead. All through the ride, we hoped to see a bear and of course what we saw next was a mamma & baby bear right in front of our bus. Baby bear was so cute and it kept following the mamma bear everywhere. The guide told us that he estimated the cub to be around one year old. Female bears don’t mate while they care for their cubs and usually chase the cub away after 3-4 years to mate once again. We were requested to keep quite and just observe them which everyone obeyed. Mahesh took awesome pictures of the bears. We moved ahead, all along the way, we spotted dall sheep standing high on the mountain slopes, squirrels & rabbits running here and there. Then we spotted a wolf but at a measurable distance, Our guide mentioned that spotting a wolf is rare in Denali compared to a bear. Then in line came the fox :-). We actually got to see it hunt for a squirrel. It reminded us of animal planet documentaries!! As we started going into interiors of the forest, the road began to climb out of taiga and into treeless expanse of the tundra. After we reached the last drop point (Fish Creek) we left the bus and spent some time walking in the Tundras (hehe… remember Geography in school??). Tundra is a fascinating world of dwarfed shrubs and miniaturized wildflowers adapted to a short growing season. More than 650 species of flowering plants grace the slopes and valleys of Denali. Walking on grasslands was like walking on a carpet. We couldn’t see a full bloom, but one can imagine how beautiful it would look then. It seemed like God fell in love with this place even before he made it!! This was also a perfect spot to view Mt Mckinley(70 miles into forest).Mt Mckinley is the highest peak in North America at a height of 20,320ft. and is the centre piece of Denali National park. The amazing thing about the Denali is you could hike to your hearts content and catch the bus whenever you felt like it. Of course provided the bus had some space :-), It is required for all the passengers to be seated. We hiked for about 5 miles that day and by the time we left the park, it was 8pm. The sun was shining brightly and it definitely had no intention of giving the moon a chance to rise!! We stopped by a café and had a nice cup of coffee and bagels, did a bit of window shopping and headed back to our cabins. It was indeed a tiring day, but we felt great because of the physical activity. We needed a good sleep and a bit of darkness for that :-), it was kind of irritating to see sky so bright at 11pm in the night. I don’t know who was the last person to crib, but one by one all of us went to sleep :-).

Day7: This was our final day in Denali & Alaska for that matter, It felt good to get back to Phoenix and did feel a bit sad to leave Denali. But then saying “jana to padega”, we left our cabin around 9am & left for Denali Park Head quarters to view the sled dog demonstration. The rangers and dogs work together to demonstrate a traditional Alaskan mode of travel. Thus unique 30 minute program includes an opportunity to tour the park kennels and visit Denali's Alaskan Huskies. The dogs were a beauty and although I am not much of a dog lover, I did attempt to pet one of them - An 8 year old Husky named Carlos who was soon to be adopted. The huskies are mixed breed that are selected for performance not looks. Husky breeders are looking for dogs with an instinctive desire to pull long and hard through the toughest conditions. The dogs are trained during summer so that they are all set for winter. It was fun & scary to watch them.
From there we drove to the Savage River point (one of the stops in park) and did a 3 mile hike. The day was perfect and so we so thought of burning few calories before our vacation came to an end. The trail was by a stream of water and the sound of water was very pleasant. We tried to record the sound, but it turned out ok.. It was almost 1pm and we were really hungry. Stopped by a café, had quick lunch and resumed our 6hr drive back to Anchorage. We stopped at Eklutna/ Thunderbird Falls (1/2hr drive from Anchorage) and did our last 2 miles hike there!! The falls are beautiful and so were the lush green trees and plants around it. It was perfect set from Hawaii. The only part that didn’t let us stand there for long was mosquitoes. Uff! Ye Machar!! 8 miles hiking in 2 days was an achievement for us and after realizing that it was 15 miles hiking during the whole week we were overjoyed!! We declared ourselves as serious hikers :-) hehe and drove to downtown Anchorage. We desperately wanted something hot to eat so we went back to the Indian restaurant in spite of all the junk we had there. We decided to go simple, rice & dal makhani. I guess that was indeed the best bet!! After all the hectic day, we attacked the food and finished it in no time. We reached Anchorage airport around 10, returned the car and were in time for boarding the 1AM plane. We were so sleepy that we didn’t realize that it was a 7 hr flight. We reached Phoenix around 9.30AM. I did get up once and took a sneak peak at the darkness and felt HURRAY!!! AFTER 7 days of daylight, this was a bliss for me!! I really missed it and I am sure everyone else felt the same.

The trip was geared towards outdoor activities and yet it allowed us ample time to relax and enjoy the vacation. Each day promised a new adventure and a first time ever activity. However personally I felt, may be later weeks of June or early July is a better time to visit Alaska, when the temperature would be in 60’s. Layered clothes, is not something I look forward to wearing :-(. One must definitely visit Alaska. The glaciers, wild life, the scenic beauty this place offers, hmm.. Alaska is definite a winner in terms of Gods creations!!

I realize that I have changed the definition of a blog :-) and have ended up writing a book but guess what I just couldn’t stop the flow of thoughts and had to pen them down!! I thoroughly enjoyed penning down everything as usual and it was re-living each and every moment again.

Hoping for many more of such vacations, I shall end my blog on this pleasant note,
:-) Ukudigada (That’s how Aluet people say good bye) :-).

Below are few links that might be useful,
Anchorage (Bed & Breakfast) : http://www.connerlake.com/
Seward (Bed & Breakfast) :
http://www.stoneycreekinn.net/
Healy cabins(5 miles from Denali) :
http://www.aksprucecabins.com/about.htm
Renown travels cruise @ Seward :
http://www.renowntours.com/contact-us.htm
Sunny Cove kayaks @ Seward : http://www.sunnycove.com/
For bus reservations, forest details : http://www.denali.national-park.com/
Portage Glacier cruise @ Portage Valley :
http://www.graylinealaska.com/sightseeingtours.cfm/mode/detail/product_id/1789
Info on various trails :
http://www.trails.com/activity.asp?area=11830 http://www.dnr.state.ak.us/parks/units/chugach/trails.htm
For other lodging details: Lodging @ Seward : http://www.alaskaone.com/seward/acmlst.html
Lodging @ anchorage: http://www.anchorage-bnb.com/inns.php?id=178 http://www.alaskaone.com/anchorage/acmlst.html http://www.anchorage.net/