Alaska

Turning to Gold

It begins with a town called Chicken.  Crossing from Yukon into Alaska at the northernmost U.S. border checkpoint, the single road through the tundra starts its mountainous descent toward Chicken (with great anticipation on my part) and into the river valley beyond.  Chicken is a settlement of 17 year-round residents, swelling to around 35 in the summer, and is becoming increasingly traveled as road trips expand to include this connector in Alaska with the loop of Canada’s Klondike region.  Lore is that early miners wanted to call the camp Ptarmigan after the endemic bird of the north, commonly called “chicken.”  Ptarmigan is tough one to spell, so Chicken it became.

The big chicken in Downtown Chicken, Alaska

 In Chicken, there are all things chicken, including homemade chicken pot pie and chicken noodle soup.  A café in Downtown Chicken is famous for these dishes.  On a brisk day, sitting at a picnic table in the sunshine with a steaming bowl of homemade soup and a slice of buttery sourdough toast is sublime.  This chicken noodle soup is second only to my sister’s - she makes a cure-all - and maybe it was relishing the familiar that was so soothing.  It’s small moments like this in the whole of the travel experience that give us a chance to savor simple pleasures.  In a handful of café customers, we saw fellow travelers we’d met some 1,000 miles back.

Enough about Chicken…Alaska is huge in land area and natural features and there is much to explore from here.  We took our time meandering along the glacial Chugach Mountains route, with the occasional Alaska oil pipeline sighting, until we reached Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve.

Worthington Glacier

Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve is the largest of all the U.S. National Parks at over 13 million acres. It also holds the continent’s largest collection of peaks over 16,000 feet and the largest number of glaciers.  Wrangell is remote and accessible mostly by small plane (or not at all), but there are two roads into the park in different sections.  These offer free camping and are a good jumping off point from which to explore by foot or by paddle.  The park is as rugged and wild and peaceful as imagined with trails leading to prehistoric volcanoes, former mining settlements, along rocky rivers and through subalpine spruce forest.

Wrangell Mountains

A 10-inch Boreal Owl

 An oasis in the rugged and remote Wrangell is the McCarthy-Kennicott region. Historic sister mining towns, McCarthy and Kennicott can be reached on foot from the end of the park road. The towns are accessed by crossing the Kennicott River bridge, with a grand view of the Kennicott Glacier, and heading up a hill.  These towns are cultural gems with a few restaurants and live music in summertime and a storytelling festival and hikers and dogs.  They say dogs rule the town here, and a gentle spot like this is one I think many of us can get behind.

McCarthy, Alaska

A walk to lunch is good motivation (those simple pleasures again) and after our visit, The Potato was featured on CBS Saturday Morning’s “The Dish” (link to clip here).  You never know the surprises in store around the corner or at the end of a long dirt road.

 We lingered in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve.  It’s that kind of place.  When it was finally time to move on, we headed to the coast.  To Valdez, Alaska, with its glacial lakes and salmon spawning, and to the Kenai Peninsula along the turquoise Kenai River, and on down to Homer, the halibut fishing capital of the world.  These were more visited and active areas than we’d been to in a little while, with people touring, fishing both the sea and fast-moving rivers, rafting, sea kayaking, and flight-seeing.  We enjoyed the energy and scenery that Valdez and the Peninsula offered in abundance. 

Glacial lake with icebergs, Valdez, Alaska

Then, it was time for a bonus during our time in Alaska: Denali National Park.  We headed back up the coast, revisiting some new favorite spots - the campsite with the mother bear and cubs, the hidden lake, the Cabela’s parking lot in Anchorage.  (A note about the hidden life of parking lots…a few retailers allow campers to utilize their lots overnight and at this Cabela’s, there were about 50 other RVs, vans, and overland vehicles quietly tucking in for a night of free camping while tending to life maintenance needs, like browsing Cabela’s and Target and something called Smashburger).  Surprisingly, we ended up staying here a few times to take care of in-town things and again saw the same travelers from Chicken and beyond.  Mostly, we appreciated the dual purpose of what would be an otherwise empty paved lot.

On golden pond, Denali National Park

Finally, Denali. The high one. The clouds parted long enough to reveal North America’s highest peak (at 20,310 feet), allowing us to marvel at the crisp, snowcapped rock faces and sky-high north and south peaks.  This late August visit also meant seeing the taiga turn from green to gold.  Aspen, birch, willow, bearberry, huckleberry, fireweed, lichens, and mosses all showing of Fall.  The park has already experienced its first snowfall in what has been a cold summer. 

 The world is different in Denali, and one could spend a longtime exploring.  The landscape is again alpine and boreal with taiga turning to tundra.  Teeming with wildlife, we saw grizzlies, caribou, and moose, fattening up on blueberries before real winter. 

 In Denali, there are some designated trails, but most hiking is in the backcountry where you can pick up a game trail or follow a riverbed and forge your own path, spreading out to protect the tundra plants.  The park road is closed to vehicular traffic beyond 15 miles in, and a bus system is employed to move visitors to and fro.  The buses are school-bus style, painted green, and with a ticket in hand you can hop on or off at any point to go exploring.  The bus stops when a rider calls out a wildlife sighting, including a caribou buck we saw running down the road, full gallop, antlers blazing, straight toward the bus.  As though forgetting himself, the buck halted upon reaching the bus, shook his antlered head, and jauntily redirected to nibble some brush.  This bus ride system was a fun way to move around the park, giving plenty of opportunity for adventure while lessening the impact of individual vehicles and visitor pressure.

Caribou, Denali National Park

Alaska is a wonder.  From snowy peaks to rushing waterfalls to calving glaciers, we delighted in following the fireweed from pink bloom to scarlet stem, picking berries along the way, and taking in the sweet details of a grand landscape.

Thank you for reading!