Hiking, epic walks
We went to Whittier, AK for only one reason – and a really good one. Stan and Cyndee‘s daughter Carolyn and her husband Jay named their son Whit. As the story goes, the couple first met in Whittier and thought it was one of the prettiest places they’d ever seen. Wouldn’t you check it out, too?
Knowing how much Carolyn and Jay love to hike, we knew better than to just drive into town. We planned to hike the town’s signature trail – Portage Pass.
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Chugach State Park is the third largest State Park in the country. It features 6000-foot peaks within sight of sea level. And it’s right outside Anchorage, where the population is 300,000 fortunate souls. Although there are access points to hiking trails and other recreation opportunities all around the park perimeter, including within the Anchorage city limits, there are three main access areas to explore – Eklutna Lake, Eagle River and Girdwood and we’d been given suggestions for great hikes in all three.
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We made some good decisions, and we were lucky. What remained for us to explore in Alaska was the the Kenai Peninsula and Chugach Mountains south and east of Anchorage and a small area north of there that includes Denali State Park. The forecast for north of Anchorage was slightly better, so we headed that way.
Denali National Park protects the wilderness area around Denali, at 20,308 feet, the tallest mountain in North America. The smaller Denali State Park is just south of the National Park. There are three major attractions within the State Park – the Parks Highway with strategically situated view points, campgrounds and trailheads, the wide, braided, glacial Chulitna River, and the 37-mile long, open K’esugi Ridge – boasting views of Denali* from all three.
*But only on rare, clear days. We had two of them!
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Have you ever heard of Hatcher Pass? Neither had we. It’s the old (and only) mining road in the Talkeetna Mountains which are between the bigger and more well-known Alaska Range to the north and the Chugach Range to the south. It’s become a secret backcountry recreation area for outdoor enthusiasts of all kinds. Helen and Mike and Nick and JS thought we’d love it. Reason enough to head that way.
O. M. G. Exclamation point.
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Wrangell-St Elias National Park and Preserve is the most superlative and unique-est we’ve ever visited. It’s the largest National Park in the US. At 13 million acres, it’s roughly 6 times the size of Yellowstone. It is surrounded on 3 sides by other parks including Glacier Bay National Park (US), as well as Canada’s Kluane National Park and Tatshenshini-Alsek Provincial Park, creating an enormous international wilderness area. Mount St Elias is the tallest peak in the park at 18,008 ft and the second highest peak in the US (Denali is 20,308 ft). Mount St Elias is also 10 miles as the eagle or raven flies (we’ve not seen many crows in Alaska!) from the ocean, providing one of the highest reliefs in the world as well as a uniquely preserved ecosystem in its entirety. Established in 1980, Wrangell-St Elias is one of the most recent additions to the National Park Service.
Like most National Parks, WSE’s mission is to preserve and protect natural scenic beauty, wildlife populations and their habitats all while providing and balancing access and recreational opportunities by visitors. WSE also celebrates the region’s 20th century mining history. Unlike most National Parks, WSE also provides continued opportunities for the few small communities and the subsistence lifestyles of the people who live there – yes, people live deep in this wilderness, surrounded by the National Park.
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Our Arctic Ocean excursion took 4 long days of intense driving (there’re no public spaces or sightseeing spots in Deadhorse other than the shuttle, so we didn’t spend a whole day there), and we needed a brief respite before our re-provisioning stop back in Fairbanks.
Outstanding items on Nick’s list included a drive on the Steese Highway and a hike there. The Steese is an older road north of Fairbanks originally build to connect the city to the Yukon River where goods were shipped in. After the construction of the Alaska Highway, the port on the Yukon was less busy, though it is still in use today. There are also some mining operations along the way. Recreationally, the Steese is a beautiful drive to and through the tallest of the White Mountains. Since the road begins between the end of the Dalton Highway and the city of Fairbanks, it was a perfect opportunity for us.
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We’ve known Nick for a pretty long time. He was 2 months old when we first visited Stump Sprouts, the World’s Greatest B&B, owned by his parents Lloyd and Suzanne in the Berkshires. Little did we know at the time, that visit would evolve into a same-time-next-year, Memorial Day get-together with a group of close friends for over 30 years. Through the years, we got to know Nick initially as a little guy hanging around, then a kid who could come on some of our shorter bike rides, then as a teen who’d kick our butts on our longer bike rides. Then, he was off to college. Although we saw less of him, Lloyd and Suzanne kept us updated. As a young adult ready to take on the world as a nordic ski coach and continue living his outdoor adventure lifestyle, Nick moved around a bit, settling in Fairbanks.
We checked in with Nick. C’mon over!
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Denali is Athabascan for ‘The High One.’ That is an understatement. There is so much rich, fascinating history about Denali and its relationship with the history of Alaska, gold mining, environmentalism and national park development it’s hard to know where to start. So, I decided to start with an abbreviated, simplified history of the Park Road.
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We’ve been on the Alaska Highway for 10 days. Several times a day, we pause and note – ‘Wow, that’s amazing!’ or ‘Look at that!’ Soon after we left Whitehorse, we started to see what appeared to be snow-covered peaks on the horizon. ‘Whoa, what’s that?’ As we approached Haines Junction, we realized the Kluane Range was in our faces. Our jaws dropped. We had to stop!
Literally. Ok, there was a crossroads in town where you had to bear left, turn right, or crash into the mountains that were in your face. According to the staff at the visitor center, these towering peaks were the foothills to the Kluane Mountains, among which are the 15 tallest peaks in Canada, #1 being Mount Logan at 5,959 m (19,551 feet). And although the Kluane National Park is ginormous, the only day hiking trails are right near Haines Junction. So we had to stop!
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In an RV, hanging around somewhere is not really a big deal – we have everything we need to stay wherever we are, and it can be downright fun. Although we’d hoped to be closer to Alaska by now, we had to wait in Edmonton for at least another 2 days while our part made its way across Canada. Let’s check out the city!
Edmonton, North America’s northernmost city with a population over one million, is the capital of the Province of Alberta. Although it’s in the prairie and the surrounding areas are flat to slightly rolling, the North Saskatchewan River flows from southwest to northeast through the heart of the city in a tree-lined ravine. Two chains of 25 contiguous city parks link together to form the largest urban park in Canada, spanning both sides of the river. The epic walking, biking, roller blading, and x-c skiing paths go on for hundreds of kilometers throughout the city. People from Edmonton really know how to play outside!
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