Need some help with Alaska

[Wanderlust]

Hey Packers I need some advice here,

So in early to mid September I will be taking a very important trip. I will be heading to Alaska for 10 days, this is going to be the amazing and the of a very long journey for me. I will be turning 25 in December and Alaska is the last state that that I have not been to yet. Since high school I have been trying to get to all 50 states before I turned 25, so off to Alaska I go.

Now I hate being a tourist, I love to travel and see the places for what they really are and not for the tourist traps. I despise being a tourist and getting caught up buying expensive McD's just because its frequented by out-of-towners. I want to see the local side of everywhere I go to, hang out at the local watering holes, eat where they eat, in general experience the real culture of the area.

My plans are to fly into Anchorage and start from there. I am going to go check out Denali, I am a huge hiker so it would be amazing to just see it and maybe do some hiking on it. I would love to do some white water rafting, and check out a glacier (I've been to Glacier Nat'l Park and want to see AK glaciers). I would also love to do some fishing but I am not a huge fisherman.

Once I get to Alaska I don't have any concrete plans so I am just looking for some advice or some help with ideas of places to go. Maybe some great day hikes or a great place to go fishing, I don't have any of my own equipment tho. Or it would even be great if anybody wanted to meet me for a hike or rafting or any other type of adventure we can come up with.

Anybody have any advice? I am open to any and all thoughts. Since you Packers tend to get around I thought I would ask you. Thanks in advance.

 

[dirtpig67]

Alaskan here - fire away with any questions.

Denali is a tourist trap. If you are into hiking and backpacking and want to get away from the majority of tourists, hit the Wrangell St Elias Nat. Park. It is as spectacular as Denali but without the crowds. A good base of operations for that is McCarthy, which is a very cool place to visit in itself. You can do glacier hiking, multi-day backpacking, white-water rafting all out of McCarthy.

Mid-Sept you will start getting snow at higher elevations (3000+) so that may factor into your plans. It is generally a lot cooler and wetter at that time of year, but on the plus side there will be a lot less tourists. A lot of accommadations, resturants and other services are seasonal and 15 Sept is usually a big shut-down date for many. Denali Park starts shutting down operations on 16 Sept this year.

Overall I would advise against a trip at that time as weather and other factors may end up cancelling hiking plans and there is a possibility of just sitting in town for the entire trip. Hiking in adverse weather conditions is never advised unless you are a local and have in-depth knowledge of the area. You can get away with hiking in bad conditions in the lower-48 a lot of the times, but not up in AK. Every year people from out-of-state attempt to do so and end up dead.

There are plenty of cool adventures the locals only know about that are not in the tourist books or on the internet. Its just a matter of what specific area of the state you are headed to. I only have in-depth "local" knowledge of a few areas where I have lived.

 

[fixer]

i forget the name, but you can drink from a glass with a mummified miner's toe in it in Dawson! bonus points if you let the toe touch your lips!

i've known or read of people riding Alaska on dual sport motorcycles, but that's a mid-summer activity and probably not the thing to do in september... but you can find a bunch of ride reports on advrider.com

i'd love to make it up there for the Dust To Dawson but haven't been able to yet.

 

[dirtpig67]

i forget the name, but you can drink from a glass with a mummified miner's toe in it in Dawson! bonus points if you let the toe touch your lips!

i've known or read of people riding Alaska on dual sport motorcycles, but that's a mid-summer activity and probably not the thing to do in september... but you can find a bunch of ride reports on advrider.com

i'd love to make it up there for the Dust To Dawson but haven't been able to yet.

Dawson is an awesome town. I think you are referring to the Sour-toe Cocktail, best served with Yukon Jack. It is more pickled than mummified. An interesting side note is that it is not the original toe as the original was accidentally swallowed once

Along those same lines, the bar in Chicken will gladly shoot your underwear out of a cannon that they have at the bar. That is Alaskan culture at its finest!

The Taylor highway that leads to Dawson from AK is a mess this year. Lots of flooding has washed the road out a bunch of times.

Lots of those dual sport bikes in the summer on the roads, and lots of dual sport bike accidents. My wife used to volunteer for EMS and there was a bike accident every couple of days in our area.

 

[Wanderlust]

Dirtpig, thanks for the tip. I will be making my plans for a bit earlier then, I was in Glacier when it shut down so I get how that goes. Also Where did you live? I am always interested in some great places to check out, like I haven't heard of checking out McCarthy so I will be looking into that. Also despite it being a rough time of year to go, I will be making the trip. I will just make the most of it and enjoy the time, all part of the adventure right?

fixer unfortunetly I do not have a motorcycle license yet so that is out, and well it sounds like the road is bad anyways, but I do like the drink with a toe in it idea. It at least sounds interesting.

I do want to make one side note tho. Despite what all of my friends are saying about this trip, I am not trying to make it an "Into the Wild" thing. I am very experienced in back country wilderness settings, but I do know my limits and don't push it in unknown areas.

lets keep the ideas coming guys thanks!

 

[dirtpig67]

Dirtpig, thanks for the tip. I will be making my plans for a bit earlier then, I was in Glacier when it shut down so I get how that goes. Also Where did you live? I am always interested in some great places to check out, like I haven't heard of checking out McCarthy so I will be looking into that. Also despite it being a rough time of year to go, I will be making the trip. I will just make the most of it and enjoy the time, all part of the adventure right?

fixer unfortunetly I do not have a motorcycle license yet so that is out, and well it sounds like the road is bad anyways, but I do like the drink with a toe in it idea. It at least sounds interesting.

I do want to make one side note tho. Despite what all of my friends are saying about this trip, I am not trying to make it an "Into the Wild" thing. I am very experienced in back country wilderness settings, but I do know my limits and don't push it in unknown areas.

lets keep the ideas coming guys thanks!

If you are just coming up for 10 days, most of my good ideas are a little out of reach logistically and time wise for you. You will probably be best served to stick to the "tourist trail" for such a short visit and the time you are planning on coming.

For instance, taking a canoe down the Yukon from either Whitehorse or Eagle to Circle is a lot of fun, but resource intensive.

You might take a look at the state parks in addition to the national ones. Chugach State Park near Anchorage is pretty assessable to those bound to the road system.