Alaska: Final Thoughts...

At the end of the cruise, I had a few final thoughts--may as well share them here for the record. I hope you've enjoyed reading about our awesome experience!

From our deck to the dining room was 70 steps, to the cafeteria 120 and the top deck 138, and we didn’t use the elevators once the entire time we were on board. I wonder how many steps we climbed!

The service was exceptional—luggage delivered to the room within an hour of our being on board, spotless rooms with really friendly crew, amazing service in the dining room, and any concerns immediately addressed.

My favorite time of day to return to the room was in the evening, after supper: the beds were turned down, the overhead lights off and the individual reading lights on, the information for the next day was on the bed, along with chocolates and a friendly good night note, and best of all, the cutest little animals made of folded towels! Each night a different one, each one cute as the next! Apparently there’s a book with instructions on how to make them for sale (of course) and tomorrow there’s a class available where we can learn to do it (which, I’m sure, is designed to make us want to buy the book…)

Despite my relative success with Weight Watchers over the last few months, I have not yet learned the “not a diet, but a way of life” philosophy, at least not when confronted with the all-you-can-eat buffet concept, or the 4-course, already-paid-for meal. For the first few days, I did OK, but my eating habits got worse and worse as the time went on. Part of me is looking forward to having to actually pay for meals (with Alaska prices), so that I won’t be eating as much!

I wouldn’t have thought so, considering the amount of TV we watch, but it really is quite easy to live without TV where there are other things to do. Not that I’d like to do it on a permanent basis, but not knowing what’s going on in the world was really kind of refreshing!

Last Day; Fairbanks: El Dorado Mine Tour and a riverboat cruise on Discovery II

This last day of the trip, while interesting and informative (and also fun) was probably my least favorite. We had 2 scheduled events: a tour of the El Dorado Gold Mine, with a “Miner’s Lunch” and a riverboat cruise. But it was kind of a herd mentality—50 people on the bus to the mine, off the bus and onto the mining train, back onto the bus to go to the lunch, etc. The mining tour was actually pretty interesting—they took us underground to see the stratified rock and where they look for gold in the layers. Then we went to a dredge that actually worked until 1960, and explained the mining process, and we got to pan our own gold. I’m sure we never would have paid for that, but it was kind of fun, and we have a total of $18 worth of gold flakes to show for it. (Our flakes were the tiny ones in the pan--together they were worth about $18. One of the women in our group actually found a nugget!

The miner’s lunch was pretty tasty—a hearty beef stew and biscuits, and then we left for the riverboat. I think the entire tourism industry of Fairbanks is owned by the same family—they owned the mine, as well as the riverboats (2 of them, one holding 600 passengers and the other 900). Despite the large number of people, we had a nice seat on top, and the day was absolutely gorgeous, so the riverboat trip was great. There are some incredible homes along the river ( the upper, upper class of Fairbanks), many of them with seaplanes in their driveways!) One had been hired by the boat company to do a demo take-off and landing for us, and Yoram loved that. Amazing how quickly they can take off and land! 

We went past more homes, including one where Reagan and Nancy stayed when they were in Alaska and one built out of logs the way the pioneers built them. We stopped across from the home of Susan Butcher, 4 time Iditerod champion (she dies of cancer at age 51 a few years ago); her husband still lives there and has his kennels on the bank of the river. He also spoke to us (he and the pilot of the seaplane were wired with microphones so they could talk to us on the boat) and showed is the dogs—these much smaller and faster, and also did a sled run demo which we could see from the boat. 

Finally we stopped at the model of an Athabascan Village, where we were guided by native Athabascans/Eskimos through the village and got to see the pelts they hunt (grizzly, fox, caribou, moose) how they smoke the fish, their dwellings (both then and now) the native clothing made from the pelts, snowshoes, and other equipment. It was pretty fascinating, though it did have a bit of a contrived, artificial feel to it.

Last night we wandered a little along the Fairbanks riverwalk, but the city is pretty dead, and we didn’t spend long outside. We did visit the Land Lease Memorial. On the side was a replica of a cover from a Life magazine issue describing the Land Lease Agreement in WWII. Check out the 1940's version of Roni on the cover! I guess that American female pilots weren't permitted to fly combat missions in WWII, so they ferried many of the planes that the US leased to the Russians over to Russia, and there the Russian pilots took over.

We packed and got ready for the 5:00 AM wake-up to get to the plane on time for an 8:00 flight. In the Fairbanks Airport, Alaska gave us one more little taste of its glorious splendor--the most amazing sunrise, and 1 final glimpse of Denali!

All in all, the trip was everything we could have asked for, and more. The weather was fabulous just about the entire time, which enabled us to do and experience so many of the things we couldn’t have done and experienced had it not cooperated; the hikes to places of exquisite beauty, the sights both at sea (glaciers, mountains, the channels themselves) and on land, especially the foliage and the beauty of Denali, and all the other physical activity that made the trip so amazing. The luxury of the cruise was such a rare treat for us, and the fact that we could get off the ship and do our own thing was great. The food was far too good, everything was super well-organized, and I can’t imagine having a better experience in Alaska than we did.

Denali National Park

9/6

The day in Denali itself started early with the official “Denali Natural History Tour”. That’s the thing about being a part of these package groups—we probably would have loved to do a nice day hike, but the bus tour was part of the deal, and we needed to be ready to leave on the 4:00 train to Fairbanks anyway, so we did the tour. It really was quite interesting—our bus driver lives 6 months of the year in Alaska and 6 months outside of Palm Springs, and he really knew so much about the geology and history of the area that his tour was awesome. He not only told you the information, but told stories with humor and spoke about the area with a passion and love that really came through. The tour consisted of a really interesting film about the origin of the park and the park road, and then driving for about an hour or so into the park, stopping at viewpoints and other spots of interest. Once again, the weather was with us, and we had blue skies with some high clouds, so that we could see the mountain at some points, the rest of the range at others, and more of the exquisite foliage. 

The one thing we didn’t see much of at all was wildlife—kind of a constant theme running through this trip—not much sea life on the boat or wildlife on land. We did see one bull moose, but it was pretty far away and hard to see because it was kind of hiding in the underbrush. But everything else was magnificent. (See the antlers sticking up?)

After the tour we had about 3 hours until the train, and we had heard that the demonstration of the only working, active sled dog team and any of the National Parks was a must. So instead of taking the bus to the kennels, about 3 miles away., we walked along the trail with a view, giving us the chance to see the foliage again,  and stop as often as we wanted, and to enjoy the solitude and fresh air. The colors didn’t disappoint, and the hike was absolutely gorgeous. 

This also got us to the kennels before everyone else, so we got to pet the beautiful dogs and have a long chat with one of the rangers, a girl from Tufts who will be spending the winter patrolling the park with the dog sleds this winter. The park is huge (the size of New Hampshire) and must be patrolled in the winter, and with only 3 miles of the entrance road plowed in the winter, all the patrols are by sled dog teams. They breed their own dogs for size and strength (as well as other qualities) and use them to patrol the park. The demo was great—they harnessed 5 of the dogs and took them for a ride around the area. What raw power when those dogs were given the command to start and allowed to run free! And yet they stopped on a dime at the command. It was really awesome.

 

We decided to hike back the 2.5 miles to the depot, which was fine, except that about ½ mile away we heard the whistle signaling the incoming train and decided we’d better run the rest of the way, just in case. Everyone kept telling us the train waits for no man!  But we arrived with the train which did then wait 1/2 hour at the station, so we would have been fine had we walked. The train ride was shorter this time, only 4 hours, and was broken up by dinner down in the dining car—included in the package. I wouldn’t have believed you could get such delicious and wonderfully cooked food on a train!! A delicious salmon chowder, prime rib cooked to perfection, and “chocolate sensation” for dessert—all while rolling past more of the breathtaking scenery. We arrived in Fairbanks at around 8 and spent the evening in our very nice hotel, me catching up on work and then both of us relaxing.

Train Ride: Anchorage to Denali

9/5

A day I expected would be just a long train ride turned into a breathtaking experience of color and beauty. We set out from the Anchorage hotel to pretty cloudy skies. The train is made for sightseeing—the bottom floor is the dining car, and the second story has a domed roof with clear glass extending all the way from the seats up to the roof (the very top part is slightly tinted for those rare sunny days) giving us the opportunity to see everything so clearly. As we began the ride, one of the first things we saw was the majestic Denali rising above the layer of clouds.

The scenery was quite pretty, especially for us southern Californians—thick lush woods of Aspens, birch, spruce and beech trees with the occasional tinge of fall color on a tree or two or patches of fireweed. 

But as we got farther north, the colors got richer and richer. If you include the blue of the sky, the only color missing was purple! The bottom layer was a bright red carpet of red willow—the color of Burning Bush from the northeast, then moving up were the aspens with their bright white trunks and leaves anywhere from green (not turned yet) through the palest of yellow-green as they began to turn, through yellow, gold and even orange as they got higher up the hills. These were splashed in huge swaths and interspersed with a pale green (I’m not even sure what kind of trees they were) high up on the mountains, to the almost blue dark green of the Spruce trees, and all of it topped with the gray of the tundra. And in addition to all that, the sight that apparently only appears an average of 16 days out of the year, the majestic peaks of Denali, both the north and south peaks, jutting out above the tree line, covered with permanent ice—the highest mountain in the US. The closest anyone can get to Denali without actually being there (on a public road or transportation) is 46 miles away, and that’s from a certain point on the train. But because the air is so clean and clear, you can see the mountain (on a clear day) from both Anchorage and Fairbanks, and we had a number of amazing sightings from the train. I think we took about 200 photos from the train alone!

The ride was about 8 hours—it’s only 230 miles but at times the train goes very, very slowly. But the scenery was so incredible, and the train so comfortable, that the time went very quickly. We stayed right outside the park at a really nice lodge which had a .8 mile nature trail right on the campus. We walked it once to enjoy the beauty, and then ran it 3 times for exercise, before going out for the evening. We had heard that there was a place that sold amazing pizza and local beers, so we tried that, and the reports were correct. We had a fabulous chicken, pesto and sun-dried tomato pizza, Yoram got to try the local brew, “Beavertail Blonde” and we had a very enjoyable evening talking to a guy from outside Stuttgart who was hitchhiking his way around the state while his wife stayed home to study for her final exams…