Disembarking

We made it to Juneau overnight and will be disembarking just after breakfast. We’re scheduled on a flight to Seattle early afternoon, spend the night there tonight and then fly home to Houston tomorrow morning. Unfortunately, due to Hurricane Harvey, we already know our flight to Houston is cancelled. At this point, we’ll get to Seattle and then figure out what’s happening from there.

The last night of the cruise, Uncruise does a couple of nice things. First, at dinner, the Captain brings in all the staff and introduces them along with a bit of background info on them. Obviously we’ve met all of the guides and dining room staff (who also clean the rooms), but we didn’t get a chance to meet many of the behind the scenes staff.

After dinner, everyone gathers in the lounge and they show a slideshow with photos the crew has taken throughout the week. Some of the guides are excellent photographers with great cameras and so they have some really nice photos and also end up capturing photos of folks when we may not be able to take pictures (perhaps while trying not to capsize a kayak in frigid water?). The gallery below has all those photos.

Denali to Talkeetna to Knik River

We’re up, have eaten breakfast, and are on the bus by 6:30 AM and not that happy about it. Four people in our group have decided they don’t want to do the bus ride again and have elected to do sight-seeing flights to town to meet us before we get on the train. I’m quickly very jealous of these folks.

In truth, todays bus ride is much faster than earlier in the week. We spend much less time looking for wildlife and the focus is on a quick drive to town. That said, the weather is good and we do end up seeing bears, moose and quite a bit of other wildlife. It’s clear the driver is a bit stressed at stopping to take pictures as the train is not going to wait for us.

We make it to town in time and board another GoldStar domed train on our way to Talkeetna. This ends up being another lovely 4 hour train ride. When we get to Talkeetna, we meet our coach/driver for the rest of the land package. As it turns out, our driver is the husband of Cheri, who’s been our guide since Fairbanks. Apparently, this is one of the first times they’ve ever ended up on the same tour together despite working for the same company for years. We get dropped off in Talkeetna and have about an hour to explore the town.

Oddly, Collette, one of Travis’ friends from college is in Alaska this week seeing the sites with her Mom. They have been in Talkeetna and are headed to Denali this evening. We determine we don’t have time to catch up with them today but will see them on Friday night before they fly home from Anchorage

Back on the bus, we head out on a two hour drive to Knik River Lodge, our home for the next two nights. I think we’re all glad to get there. They have a beautiful view from their bar deck and we all meet there for a bit before dinner.

Dinner is delicious (the hotel has a very nice restaurant) but we make an early night of it and head to bed.

Doug - always willing to take an embarrassing photo!

…and sometimes Travis can be shamed into one also!

Free Day in Denali National Park

We get up Tuesday morning and head to breakfast in time to hear about “luggage drama”. One of the couples in the group didn’t find their luggage in their room last night. They (Dave and Mary) seem to be handling it better than we would - probably because Dave watched them load the luggage onto the bus so it’s at the lodge somewhere. Sometime before lunch it’s found in the one empty cabin at the lodge (apparently the folks looking last night didn’t know there was one empty cabin).

Happy that we have clean clothes, we head out for our Wonder Lake hike (while some opt for far more rigorous hikes). On clear days, you can get a great view of Denali behind the lake. In the picture below, just imagine all those clouds are a giant mountain and you’ll understand how beautiful a view that would be. Despite the clouds and drizzle, it’s a nice hike. Our lodge guide if informative and fun. He also seems to have the eyes of an eagle as he’s spotting small wild blackberries right and left. Even when he’s pointing directly at them, we have trouble seeing them. Doug decides he’s likely going to die quickly if he’s ever lost in the wilderness.

Travis at Wonder Lake

Our mighty climb at Wonder Lake

After the hike, we take a short tour of the lodge property. The area was an historic gold mining district. There are still a number of historical buildings onsite. The guides are knowledgable about the history and have lots of interesting tales. There are also a bunch of sled dogs onsite and a greenhouse where they grow a lot of the produce used for meals. I’m not convinced the sled dogs have much of a life here but non of them lucked unhappy. After lunch, we wade into Moose Creek to do some panning for gold. Each of us is given a pan and a bag of dirt from a nearby river that is far more likely to have gold in it. The guide gives us hints and tips on how to make our fortune and also give us more detail on the history and methods of mining in the area. Travis ends up being the only person in our group to find any gold at all. It’s a small flake of gold, but we’re sure it will pay for the full vacation. HA They laminate it in a drivers license sized piece of plastic so he doesn’t lose it. Everyone in our group is quite excited to see his windfall. Feeling flush, we head up the road to visit the Fannie Quigley Cabin. Fannie was a frontierswoman and miner during the Kantishna gold rush. While she never made a fortune, she was renowned for her independence and survival skills. It was great to see inside a gold rush cabin and get a glimpse of life during that time.

Recorders Cabin (1905) - The recorder registered miner discoveries

Original Kantishna Roadhouse - 1919

Hickory

James

We enjoy a nice dinner and then head to bed. We’ve got an early morning departure tomorrow so we can make it out of the park in time for our train.

Denali - here we come!

We all meet up in the morning and get on a bus to take us to our train. We’re taking GoldStar Dome service from Fairbanks to Denali Depot. This ends up being a really nice way to do it. The seats are great, views are good, meals and alcohol are included (we’re on vacation - we can start drinking before noon!). The railroad has a guide that explains what we’re seeing as we go (nicely summarized on their route page). We do get a glimpse of Mount Denali on the train which is nice. The trip also gives us a bit of time to start getting to know our fellow travelers better. Nobody drops out of the trip when we arrive at Denali Depot so I guess that’s a good thing. Had we known what was coming up next, there may have been some folks going AWOL. 😉

At this point we’re in the village just outside Denali National Park. For the next several nights, we’re staying at Kantishna Roadhouse, one of the few lodges that actually sits inside the park. There is one road in the park that’s just over 92 miles long. The roadhouse is essentially at the end of that road. We load up into a school bus (we learn that it’s a relatively new one) and start into the park. They call it a road, but given the location and harsh winters, it isn’t in the greatest of condition. Luckily we’re on a bus with excellent suspension (we wish). We only see other similar school buses on the road, so presume there are weight limits that essentially mandate the less than ideal transportation. Regardless, we get moving and have a fantastic driver who has done this for years. She clearly loves her job and the park and basically keeps up a non-stop description of what we seeing, history, and other interesting facts, all while searching for wildlife and keeping us safely on the road. We have about a 7 hour journey (between rest stops, stops for wildlife viewing, and times we’re waiting for oncoming vehicles to pass in narrow portions of the road). The first half is great. We’re excited, we’re seeing lots of wildlife and everyone is happy. At some point, though, it starts to rain and it becomes harder to see things (other people are breathing too much!). There is also a nice rest stop that has a very small museum that is quite nice. The last two hours ends up being quite uneventful and a bit boring as we really can’t see anything (the weather gods are not favoring us today).

We arrive at the Roadhouse and everyone is glad to get off of moving transportation. We head immediately into the dining room and have a nice dinner. While we’re doing that, our bags magically appear in our cabins. We finish dinner and head to bed - everyone hoping for good weather tomorrow.

Ready to board!

Fairbanks

We have a free day in Fairbanks before we meet up with the group we’ll be traveling with for the next six days. We have a meet/greet this afternoon at 4PM to meet everyone and discuss logistics for our Sunday departure.

We don’t have transportation today so we’ll be using rideshare for anything we do today. After a very slow start for the day, Travis does a quick search for a place to get breakfast/lunch and we’re off into the rainy, chilly day. The restaurant is a bit of a dive, but the food is quite good.

Feeling good and full, we get another Uber to The Museum of the North which is on the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus. It’s not a huge museum, but it does a good job of explaining the history and people of Alaska. We encounter our first bear.

Back at the hotel, we head to the conference room and meet our guide (Cheri) and the rest of our co-travelers for the week. This land package can be done before or after a number of different Uncruise Alaska itineraries and we discover that some people have finished their cruises and others will be moving on to various different cruises next Saturday. One couple, David and Mary, have the misfortune of being stuff with us for two weeks as they’re on our same cruise. All in all, it seems like a good group and Cheri seems really knowledgable and friendly. We head to dinner optimistic about the week ahead.

“Fairbanks is one of the hottest and coldest places in America. The hottest temperature ever recorded in the summer was 99 degrees on July 28, 1919 and the coldest temperature ever recorded in the winter was 66 degrees below zero on Jan. 14, 1934.”
— alaskatrain.com

We’re off to Alaska!

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We’re headed to Alaska for two weeks.  We are doing an Uncruise small ship cruise for the 2nd week. For the first week we’ll be doing a land package (also through Uncruise) that will take us to Denali national park.

Today is a long travel day with a flight to Chicago followed by a flight to Fairbanks.

All flights have been uneventful and we make it to Fairbanks with no problems. We get checked into our hotel and have a quick dinner before heading to bed.