Knocking on heaven's door at the final frontier - Alaska

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Alaska is a land of magnificent beauty and surreal experiences. Everything in Alaska is majestic: majestic mountains, majestic glaciers and majestic ocean. You feel small and insignificant in the presence of the majestic vastness. Alaska is the final frontier, a place where the urban mundane ends and magnificent wilderness begins. Four hardy souls embarked from Portland for ten adventure-filled days leaving behind the humdrum of our daily lives. Our eyes soaked in only a fraction of what Alaska has to offer, much lesser was captured by the lens and fewer words exist to describe what we experienced.Still, I'll try.

Denali national park

Ruth Glacier from the flight

We kicked off our adventure with a Denali flight-seeing tour with glacier landing from Talkeetna aero services. The town of Talkeetna is around 3 hours drive from Anchorage and is not impressive from the air. The brownish grey rivers carry too much glacial silt and gravel and the forests are an ordinary green. However, it was a totally different world once our flight entered the mountains of Denali national park.

Glacier Landing

It was an amazing hour, up above the clouds among the snow-covered peaks and valleys carved by majestic glaciers. We were awe-struck seeing the mountains up close and personal with breath taking views of Mt.Mckinley the highest peak in North America. Landing on the glacier was the icing on the cake. Surrounded by majestic mountains and breathtaking beauty, this was our first surreal experience in Alaska.

Mt.Denali - view from Eielsen center

Next stop was Denali national park by road. We took the shuttle into the park to Wonder Lake (driving your own car is not allowed). For us folks from Oregon and Washington, Denali NP failed to impress. Most of it is miles of tundra which is impressive at first but gets boring after a while. Wildlife sightings were too few and too distant. Wild flowers were practically non-existant. The 11 hour RT shuttle ride had way too many breaks and the views did not change much. We were lucky that Mt. McKinley graced us with her presence during most of the trip. Apparently Denali is visible only 30% of the days of the year due to dynamic weather. For future trips, I would recommend doing the flight-tour from Talkeetna and skipping Denali NP completely.

Valdez

Glacier Spotting from Denali hwy

We drove through the Denali Highway. This is a dirt road with panoramic views for miles in all directions. Rolling green hills dotted with glacier filled ponds and sunlight peeking through magnificent clouds made for a very scenic drive. In this drive we realized a fun pastime while driving in Alaska - glacier spotting :).

View from Richardson Hwy

We saw plenty of unnamed glaciers during all of our drives and the fact that we could spot them from the road is very surreal. From Denali hwy we continued onto Richardson hwy which is flanked by Wrangell St.Elias mountain range on one side making for spectacular views along the drive.

Stream banks laden with fireweed

 Meadows filled with wildflowers (fireweeds and forget-me-not's) really spruced up the views as the weather turned for the worse. Worthington glacier is just off the hwy. You can hike up-to the very edge of the glacier and this was our first up-close experience with a glacier. It was amazing to see the blue ice and crevasses, quite surreal, a wonderful introduction to glaciers and preview of better things to come.The rest of the drive to Valdez goes over the Chugach mountains crossing Keystone canyon on the way. Towering waterfalls thundering down huge cliffs was a beautiful sight, another respite from the weather.

Midnight stroll in Valdez

Valdez is a quaint harbor town surrounded by mountains. It rained the whole time we were there but mountains peeking in and out of the clouds made them look very heavenly and majestic. IMO made for better views than clear skies.

Picture perfect in Valdez harbor

The extremely long days in Alaska were amazing for taking in the scenery to our heart's content.  These pictures were taken during a midnight stroll in Valdez.

Icebergs near Columbia glacier

We did the day-long kayaking trip to Columbia glacier with Anadyr. Navigating the kayak through ice-cold waters dotted with huge icebergs and ice floes which break off the glacier was another surreal experience.

Navigating through ice

The whole experience is ironical; it feels like a moment frozen in time, so serene and so calm; just you, the kayak and the ice but in reality the environment is so dynamic; these icebergs melt within a day and some more huge chunks break off the glacier, the view appears different every day.

Sheep mountain lodge and Matanuska glacier

Forget-me-not (AK state flower)

Our next stop was Sheep mountain lodge near Sutton.We stayed in a charming log cabin on a pretty hillside filled with forget-me-not's (Alaska's state flower) and chirpy birds. We had beautiful views of snow-clad mountains from the bed. Quite a view to wake up to.

Matanuska glacier

Matanuska glacier is just a 15 min scenic drive from the lodge with views of the glacier along the way. Since the access to the glacier lies on private land, there is a 20$ fee per person. Sounds commercial but the glacier in itself is extremely pristine, untouched and surreal.

Chilling out

In the presence of majesty

With glorious blue skies we set off to explore the glacier. It was spectacular to be there; a feeling of overwhelming calmness takes over, the ice crunching under your feet, the towering cliffs of ice, the  deep crevasses, the magnificently blue ice. Everything around you feels majestic and huge. We spent a couple of gratifying hours on the ice only to realize what a tiny fraction of the glacier we had explored.

Seward

Seward Harbor

From there we drove onto Seward. We considered skipping Seward due to the poor weather forecast but good heavens we did not. It was the best part of the trip. Seward is a small town nestled in the foothill of Mt. Marathon, surrounded by majestic peaks and the Resurrection Bay. Seward is very crowded during 4th July week due to the race to top of Mt.Marathon.

Fireweed meadows

The Seward highway from Anchorage to Seward hugs the Cook's Inlet (off the Gulf of Alaska) for the initial part of the journey and is flanked by snow-clad mountains in all directions.This ensures panoramic views and a spectacular drive. The rest of the drive is through lush green valleys dotted with pristine lakes and strewn with wildflower meadows (fireweeds). We camped for a night along a picturesque stream just off the highway.

Exit glacier from the trail

Seward is the gateway to Kenai Fjords national park. Harding icefield is it's crowning feature a massive gigantic icefield measuring around 1100 square miles and an impressive forty glaciers spawn from it. One of them is Exit glacier which is easily accessible from the road. There is a hike from Exit glacier to a viewpoint of the Harding icefield.

Lupine meadows

This is a must-do tough hike gaining 3000 feet in 4.1 mi. It rained the entire time we were hiking, but still it was beautiful. After about an hour of being wet, you forget the weather and start enjoying the moment; hiking among the clouds in alpine meadows filled with lupine and such, crossing snow-fields with stunning views of the enormous exit glacier. It is dizzying to imagine how enormous this icefield is, to view just a fraction of it is humbling and very rewarding. Another reward for toughing it out was the wildlife sighting of a grizzly bear with 2 cubs on our return hike.

Stellar sea lions

Yosemite by the sea

We ended our trip with a bang - a day cruise in the Kenai Fjords NP. We cruised through breathtaking waters passing through serene coves filled with abundant wildlife. Tufted and horned puffins showing off their beautiful colors, harbor seals and stellar sea lions lazing on island rocks and ice chunks, shy sea otters quickly escaping under-water, a pod of porpoises (dolphin look-alike) playing in the water rushing off the bow of the boat, watching a black bear grazing on nearby island were some of the awe-inspiring wild-life we encountered.We saw waterfalls thundering down huge cliffs into the ocean in a cove named Yosemite by the sea by our ship captain.The highlight though was watching a humpback whale and its calf gracefully breach the water in sync and hearing their blow while silence fell over the ship.

Northwestern glacier calving

All this led up to our grand finale which was the Northwestern glacier - a river of blue ice stunningly beautiful flowing in ice-berg laden waters. Watching the glacier calve (gigantic chunks of snow and ice break off the glacier into the water) was breathtaking. A moment imprinted in our minds, we bore witness to history in the making and realization dawned upon us, the impact of mankind in this world, the effects of global warming, right in front of our eyes.

Icebergs from northwestern glacier

Alaska is a place of serene beauty and utmost wilderness, yet to watch the effects of mankind is unnerving. Glaciers retreating is the biggest impact of global warming. I felt like we were knocking on heaven's door at the final frontier - we got to view a slice of paradise while the sins of the world unfolded in front of our eyes.