Well, Drifter?
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Drifter,
Hope the delay in a trip report isn’t because your next post is coming from the belly of a napping bear. 😉
Looking forward to hearing about your AK journey.
Bryan
Sorry splitshot….I completely missed your post. We saw 42 bears that we would consider “close enough” and four that fall into the “too close” catagory. Bear spray was never deployed although the finger was on the trigger a few times. All in all, the grizzilies were well behaved. Here’s a quick writeup:
I flew out a week early to get in some sightseeing. After a night in Anchorage to recuperate from the long flight, I headed north on the Parks Highway toward Denali National Park. First stop was the neat little town of Talkeetna.
While in Talkeetna, I hitched a ride with Talkeetna Air Taxi for a glacier tour around Mt. McKinley (Denali)….tallest mountain in North America. This sidetrip is highly recommended!!
We saw part of Denali from about 8,000 feet.
We were told that only one in ten tourists actually gets to see the whole mountain due to clouds. The odds were not in our favor on this day. The best was yet to come though. The weather broke and we were able to land on Ruth Glacier at the base of Denali. This was UNBELIEVEABLE!
The flight back to Talkeetna was really neat as we flew over and between mountains and glaciers.
We flew through The Great Gorge and it seemed our wingtip was only a few feet from the rock walls.
After our return to Talkeetna, we headed up to Denali National Park. Private vehicles (with a few exceptions) are not allowed in the Park so we hopped the shuttle bus. On the way in, we had several glimpses of Denali minus the clouds. There was no doubt which one was The Mountain.
We saw mucho wildlife and great scenery.
After a short time in Denali we headed down to the Kenai Peninsula for some sightseeing and fishing. We spent a half day in Whittier, AK and toured Prince William Sound by boat.
We saw mucho glaciers.
Spent a few days at Trail Lake Lodge in Moose Pass. A great base of operation when fishing the Kenai. It’s centrally located to the Russian and Kenai Rivers as well as Quartz Creek, Resurrection Creek and the saltwater fishing in Seward.
While in Moose Pass, Fishmeister took a floatplane lesson in a Supercub.
We spent a day on Quartz Creek fishing egg patterns and caught a bunch of Dolly Varden (at least Frank did anyway).
We also drove over to the little town of Hope, AK to fish Resurrection Creek. The stream was sick with pinks!!
All for now……more later.
We saw 42 bears that we would consider “close enough” and four that fall into the “too close” catagory. Bear spray was never deployed although the finger was on the trigger a few times.
Holy cow.
Great stuff, Drifter. I’m looking forward to seeing the rest. Pictures, regardless of how well they are done, do not do justice to the immense size of Denali.
On a similar note, one thing about fishing for salmon that isn’t captured in the documentaries, pictures, or conveyed through the fishing shows is the awful stench that thousands of dead and dying fish produce.
Thanks for sharing.
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