Alaska activities

[Alex]

I lived in Kodiak for four months but otherwise have never been anywhere in Alaska.

Lani and I will be fixing that with a 10-day trip in August and I know some people around here have been. So if anybody has thoughts on things to do or see then I am open to suggestions.

I prefer to avoid things that require a lot of preplanning, reservations, etc. but say them anyway. About the only thing I'd rule out is fishing, since I have exactly interest.

The first part of the itinerary is arrive in Anchorage at midnight. Catch a 7a.m. puddlejumper to Homer (a 35 minute flight) in time to catch the 10a.m. ferry to Kodiak. This is as 12-hour ferry and supposedly has some very good wildlife viewing and is the only daytime trip during our visit which is why we're flying to Homer rather than driving . Spend at least a full day in Kodiak then fly back to Anchorage. Rent a car then do a road trip for four or five days ending up back in Anchorage.

Have at least one dinner with a college friend up there and maybe go to the Alaska State Fair with my sister and niece (can't imagine actually spending a full day in a one-on-one social situation with my sister as this has never happened before but I'll give it a shot). Then kill a few days in the immediate Anchorage area and head home.

[Ghoulish Delight]

We stayed in Anchorage, so everything we did was within about 1-2 hours drive from there. The only thing we did that required a reservation was rafting on the Kenai river. It's about as tame as it gets rapids-wise, but absolutely beautiful.

Portage glacier's worth a trip. You get about an hour's boat ride on the glacial lake, getting a good view of the glacier's face and a decent chance of witnessing some calving.

Right near Portage is the Big Game park. It's no San Diego Zoo, but you get some real up close views of Alaska's native large animals.

Matanuska Glacier, north of the city, is one where you can get down and walk right on the glacier.

We've got plenty of visual aids of what we did.

[wendybeth]

We did the cruise thing, so I only have info on the ports we visited. Moon had a great webpage up for his trip there- I would ask him!

[MouseWife]

The only thing I can add~

I am trying to get something planned up towards the mountains the weekend of August 12th for the meteor showers.

I'd reckon up there you might be able to get some great views.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/august...JEKqgN4Ias0NUE

{Sorry if this doesn't pertain to your area...never bothered to read exactly the best places...mostly I want to get up to the mountains and this is a great reason...}

[DreadPirateRoberts]

I spent some time doing killer whale research up in Whittier Alaska, it's on the Prince William sound. To get there, you traverse a 2.5 mile tunnel that alternates between cars and trains. When we did it, about 15 years ago, we drove the car onto a flatbed railcar and rode the train in, not sure how they do it now. Prince William Sound is beautiful, I didn't do this tour, but it looks pretty interesting.

[Alex]

Ooh, I really want to do this while in Kodiak, but they aren't doing a flight the day we could do it.

Maybe I can find something similar for Denali.

[Kevy Baby]

I've been meaning to post about this, but I have not been able to find anything on the web to point you to. In Ketchikan, Susan found this really cool cemetery in her wanderings. She was looking for another cemetery, (she thinks it was the Bayview Cemetery, but she is not sure), and found this other one instead (name unknown).

What she found interesting about this other cemetery was how it was buried back up in the hills with graves almost haphazardly strewn amongst the trees in a forest. I couldn't even begin to tell you how to find it, but I wanted to throw it in the mix if you were 1) going to be in Ketchikan, and 2) like to wander to find unique things.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Oh, and since you've been to Alaska this probably isn't news, but it's important to know the unofficial state motto: "Nothing's funnier than moose sh*t".

[Alex]

I don't know if they have moose on Kodiak so there wasn't much talking about them. Though a University of Alaska student was killed on campus by one when I was up there. That got a lot of talking (the student was drunk and harassing the moose;moose, for those who don't know, can be pretty mean).

Our trip will be based out of Anchorage so Ketchican and southeast Alaska are probably out of the question.

As a broad framework this is what we've put together (and I'm surprised I've even bothered to think about how many days we have at this stage of the game):

Friday, August 17 - Fly from SFO to Anchorage
Saturday, August 18 - Fly from Anchorage to Homer. Take ferry from Homer to Kodiak.
Sunday, August 19 - Kodiak.
Monday, August 20 - Fly from Kodiak to Anchorage. Rent car and begin road trip.
Tuesday, August 21 - Road trip
Wednesday, August 22 - Road trip
Thursday, August 23 - Road trip, return to Anchorage
Friday, August 24 - Anchorage
Saturday, August 25 - Anchorage (state fair?)
Sunday, August 26 - Anchorage in the morning, fly home at 2p.m.


For the road trip I'm thinking of heading to Fairbanks via Denali National Park and then looping back to Anchorage via some different route.

[katiesue]

I was only in Anchorage for three days. The glacier and animal park GC mentioned were definately worth it. We also went to the Alaska Native Heritage Center which was interesting. Besides Humpy's which was fun I can't think of much else we did.

I would love to go back for a longer stay. We were there mid September the week after the last cruise ship was done for the season so things were very quiet.