Alaska trip advice

July 3, 2005 9:12 PM

One week in August to do a 5- to 7-day outdoor adventure in Alaska - what should we do?

Two guys in our thirties, experienced in the outdoors, looking for either a good solid backpacking trip (maybe with bush plane dropoff) or rafting trip (nothing over class III please), starting in Anchorage or Fairbanks. Any suggestions?

posted by gottabefunky to travel & transportation (5 comments total)

Be prepared for rain. Summer near the arctic circle is quite often cloudy with showers. And SE Alaska is always wet.
posted by ptm at 1:16 AM on July 4, 2005

Southeast Alaska is not always wet. I live there. We can go weeks without rain, although now it is raining. Things to do: Fairbanks--start at the Silver Gultch Brewery (Friday taste testing for most months) in Fox and then head to Granite Tors or Angel Rocks for a good day or two hike. Fairbanks is in a flat area, so you need to travel outside of the city for hiking.

Anchorage has more accessable trails. The Crow Creek trail starting in Eagle River to the Girdwood area is 25 miles long. This is just one trail, but there are many in the surrounding area. Just ask a local or look at a good map.

If you hike in the bush, make sure you know what to do in bear situations. Black bears and brown/Kodiak bears are treated differently, but most important is the proper storage of food. A good book to refer to is "Backcountry Bear Basics" by Dave Smith.
posted by FakeOutdoorsman at 4:01 AM on July 4, 2005

Wrangell-St. Elias is a 1/2-day drive from Anchorage and WELL worth it. It's the largest national park in the country, and can sustain any kind of 5-day hike you can throw at it; my brother and I drove to Chitina from Anchorage, then in to McCarthy on the McCarthy Road (also an awesome experience), and hiked from there. We spend about four days in the park, mostly around the Kennecott area. You can hike onto glaciers, and we saw plenty of people flying over in bush planes to get deeper into the park as well (there are a few little landing strips throughout the area). And don't miss Tailor Made Pizza in McCarthy!

Oh, and I second the bear advice; we saw quite a few black bears throughout that part of Wrangell-St. Elias.
posted by delfuego at 5:40 AM on July 4, 2005

I second the Wrangell St Elias suggestion. Get a dropoff from either McCarthy or Anchorage across the river,and look into hiking the Goat Trail, which runs through undeveloped wilderness but has various airstrips used by hikers and hunters. Call McCarthy Air and tell them how long you have and they can give you an itinerary. You're probably looking at $500+ for a fly-in. The weather is generally fantastic near there in summer (80+ ) but being lots of mosquito repellant! Lots. Seriously, I'm not kidding about the repellant.

Other good choices are: to go to Prince William Sound by train or road to Whittier and then rent kayaks and get a drop of up the bay and do a paddling trip, do a backpacking trip within a days drive of Anchorage, Ptarmigan Lake is nice, Crow Creek or the Seward trail. There will be more people on those. Or fly to Homer and head across Katchemak Bay there are several outfits in town than will drop you off at hiking trails or with kayaks or even arrange some kind of combo deal. Homer is more reasonably priced than Seward and the scenery is nicer, although there are less hikes near town as a lot of it is private land. If you like fishing you can easily combine hiking and fishing any number of places: just watch out for the bears.

The weather this time of year is generally pretty good (Anchorage is a long way south of the Arctic Circle) and I'd recommend starting there rather than Fairbanks. Denali has a first come first served hiking permit system and in August you're looking at wasting most of your trip waiting for a permit. There are some great hikes off the Richardson Highway in the foothills if you do decide to go from Fairbanks. About 2-3 hours south of Fairbanks and 3-5 hours north of Anchorage: any guide book will have them. Elsewhere in the Interior tends to be muggy and buggy in August.

There actually are buses that run to most of these places so try to track one down or consider flying to McCarthy or someplace like Homer as renting cars in AK is expensive in the summer.
posted by fshgrl at 2:18 AM on July 5, 2005

Btw McCarthy is a 9 hour drive from Anchorage and I believe the road washed out this winter so check that. Copper River ranger station should be able to tell you.
posted by fshgrl at 2:19 AM on July 5, 2005