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Most likely you have heard about Denali National Park in Alaska. It is home to the highest peak in North America, Mt McKinley, also called Denali. Although the park encompasses more than 6 million acres (24,500 km²), it only has one road, which roughly covers 150 km. The rest is pure wilderness with hardly any serviced hiking trails. The moment you step into this wilderness, you’re truly into the wild. Here are three tips for hiking and trailblazing Denali National Park and fully enjoy and embrace the wilderness of Alaska! Seeing a bear on your bucket list? Then you should consider Alaska or Canada as your next travel destination! Alaska offers fantastic chances to spot grizzly, brown and also black bears. "Travelling the roads less travelled in British Columbia and the Yukon in Canada we saw 16 black bears in two days", says Stuart from London. "This trip should be on everyone's bucket list!" Venturing into the wild in a converted school bus means you have more space and it is more like a “home” for everyone: Bigger windows, spacious seating, viewing platform on the roof, and tables to play cards or write your journals. Sometimes you are lucky... and you see a coastal brown bear fishing for salmon without going on a flight to Katmai or Lake Clark. There is no guarantee, but sometimes we are lucky. We had a perfect day hiking around Valdez and decided to go back to the fish hatchery where the Salmon was running since a few days. It was the second evening in a row and we were about to give up as we had been waiting already for a few hours... Time is always restricted when leading trips, but I would like to publish some of our early season pictures. We are very excited to have seen already so many bears, whales, sea otter and moose. Even the season is short, every months has a different appeal to it and the landscape is changing fast. Early season in Alaska also means: baby animals! For sure the highlight for the June Trip was the suckling moose calves. On our trip from Las Vegas to Seattle we visited Crater Lake. May is still early in the season as most of the roads are still closed. But it gives you the amazing opportunity to enjoy warm weather combined with some stunning snow landscape around the lake. We were able to drive our overland vehicle past the visitor centre to two of the main viewpoints and have lunch on top of our truck! Crater Lake has inspired people for thousands of years. No place else on earth combines a deep, pure lake, so blue in color and sheer surrounding cliffs, almost two thousand feet high. We had a great view on one of the two picturesque islands while enjoying the sun and a picknick on top of our overland vehicle Atka. Over the past years I have heard the same questions many times:
You want to run up a 3022 feet (921 m) mountain and make it back down in about 40 minutes? Well, then you should definitely join the race which is taking place in Seward every summer in July. If you are not that sporty and don’t want to break your neck on the way downhill, I have a few other suggestions for you what to do in Seward which is a small town located on the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska. Camping along the Kenai Fjord Wake up in a tent at the seaside and enjoy the fresh morning air and stunning view at the Kenai Fjord. The public campground is conveniently located at the shore just right next to town and costs only 10$ a night. Either small downtown or the harbor is around 10 minutes walking distance. A visit to Seward would not be complete without hiking alongside the picturesque Exit Glacier with a high probability seeing a few of the local black bear feeding on some berries. The 8.2-mile round trip up to the Harding Icefield is a spectacular day hike. Starting on the valley floor, the trail winds through cottonwood and alder forests, passes though heather filled meadows and ultimately climbs well above tree line to a breath-taking view of the Harding Icefield. The top of the trail is a window to past ice ages - a horizon of ice and snow that stretches as far as the eye can see! If you don’t feel prepared to do the full 8.2-mile roundtrip, there are shorter options with equally breathtaking views available. Have you ever slept out under the stars or in a place that everywhere you look has no roads and is surrounded by mountains, rivers and glaciers? This experience should not be missed. First you get a jet boat ride up the braided Maclaren River. Then, it’s time to venture through the bush and hop over creeks while being carefully watched by the local caribou. This hike leads to a great vantage point to view the Maclaren glacier and eat wild blueberries. |
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October 2023
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