Alaska 2009 - The Land of the Midnight Sun

This year in July 2009, we explored the beautiful Alaska. By far, the prettiest of all places we've travelled to date! 360 degree views of snow-capped mountains, intense green vegetation, silt-covered glacier melts all around. Simply put - It seemed like we were in a different world. Here's our story of our treks in this beautiful state.



Our Itinerary
July 2nd - Fly in to Anchorage, AK. There are hundreds of flights from seattle to alaska, pretty much every 30 mins. It's about a 4 hour trip to Anchorage. We stayed in Anchorage that night.

July 3rd - Drive to Denali National Park. The drive to the park on AK-3 is beautiful. Stop and breathe the fresh air in. Enjoy the panorama around you!

[Directions from Anchorage to Denali National Park]

July 4th, July 5th - Denali National Park. We had originally planned on spending 3 full days in Denali. Turns out that there were several wildfires in and around Denali that week. This left a smoky haze in the park spoiling the mountain view for us :(. So we decided to cut short our stay in Denali from 3 to 2 days. We were lucky to get a spectacular view of Mt. McKinley (aka Mt. Denali) the day we drove in to Denali. We stayed in a small town called Healy.

[More about Denali]

July 6th - Matanuska Glacier. We drove from Denali to east of Anchorage to the Matanuska Glacier. Here we did Ice Glacier hiking with a guide. The glacier walk simply superb! In the evening, we drove towards Anchorage and spend the night in Wasilla.

[More about Matanuska Glacier Directions from Denali to Matansuka Glacier]

July 7th - Portage Glacier. From Wasilla, we drove towards the Portage valley and there we took a cruise to the portage glaciers. There are several points of interest on the the portage glacier highway. We did all the hikes on the trails along this highway. The portage glacier cruise was fantastic and relaxing.

[More about Portage Glacier Directions from Matanuska Glacier to Portage Glacier]

July 8th & July 9th - Kenai Fjords National Park.

Pictures

Wildflowers	Wildlife

Video of Whale Spotting