Alaskan Adventure

On September 21 Layton and I left Chattanooga for DFW to meet up with Grandpa Tom where we would begin our week long adventure in Alaska. Shown here is a view of Lookout Mountain, the Tennessee River and downtown Chattanooga.

Saturday, September 22, we boarded a AA 757 bound for Anchorage. The 6 1/2 hr flight was pretty empty since there are a lot more people trying to leave Alaska, rather than get there, this time of year.

First view of the coastal mountains in AK.

We're guessing that this is Wrangell-St Elias Area. Where ever it is, the mountains looked huge, very snowy and very remote.

View from the plane after landing at ANC.

View from the B terminal. You are really IN the mountains in Anchorage.

For our first outing in AK we stopped at Potter Marsh which is just a few minutes south of town. A long boardwalk provides great views of wildlife and access into a beautiful spot.

We had the whole place to ourselves, an uncommon occurrence on a Sunday morning in the summer, but in the fall almost all the tourists are gone.

Trumpeter Swans are frequent visitors to the marsh. We also saw Bald Eagles, Jays, Chickadees, a Shrike, Woodepeckers, lots of ducks, river otters and moose.

It rained quite a bit but Layton was a good sport.

Grandpa walking in Kincaid Park, a large park near the airport.

Layton and I soaking in fall color and constant drizzle.

Devils Club.

Didn't see much in here except a few small songbirds but it was still a neat spot.

Moose at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center, a several hundred acre park, at the beginning of Turnagain Arm about an hour south of Anchorage. This was a perfect place to familiarize us with the locals.

Baby Moose

Musk Ox

Perhaps the best way to see a Grizzly is from the safety of your car, on the other side of large fence.

Black Bear. We also saw other Alaska natives like Caribou, Lynx, Elk, Sitka Black Tail Deer, a Porcupine named Snickers, plus a few birds that weren't part of the tour like the American Widgeon and a Northern Harrier.

Grandpa takes a photo op on the way to Seward.

In Seward it had been raining for almost two weeks straight so the road the Exit Glacier, something I'd hoped to see, was closed because of flooding.

View of Seward from Nash Road.

Layton displays a feather on the shore of Resurrection Bay.

Resurrection Bay

Lots of boats in the Seward harbor.

Leaving the harbor for Kenai Fjords National Park on our wildlife cruise with Major Marine in Seward.

Sea Otter chillaxin' in Resurrection Bay.

All the whales had left the area a few weeks earlier but the scenery was spectacular and we still saw some wildlife.

Psyche was high despite the 40 degree wet conditions.

Stellar Sea Lions are on the decline so it's great to able to still seem them.

These puppies get over 500 lbs!

Iceberg floating in a lake at the base of a glacier we couldn't see because of the low clouds.

Down time at the Best Western.

Coastal rain forest above Seward.

Lush furry trees.

Horned Puffin at the Alaska Sea Life Center. This was a perfect place to learn about the marine locals.

Pakak and Mitir are baby Walrus that were rescued somewhere up north in July.

We learned all about the native fish and birds at the Sea Life Center. Layton says this was one of his favorite parts of the trip. Here he plays in the touch tank with more species of Stars than I've ever seen.

Tern Lake, between Anchorage and Seward.

Torrential runoff in a stream outside Whittier.

First view of Denali (Mt. McKinley 20,320 ft.) in the Alaska Range. 

Our spirits were pretty high since the temps were nice and it was the first time we'd seen the sun since arriving in Alaska.

We felt pretty lucky that we could actually see the summit since the weather had been pretty dismal thus far.

Laeser Boys

Always smiling.

It's a long drive from Anchorage to the Denali Park entrance... We drove about 1200 miles during our week long trip.

The park HQ was a ghost town and all the hotels/services were closed for the winter.

In comparison to Southeast Alaska the trees in Denali are short, because it's much drier. It's an almost desolate landscape.

At the end of the season a 30 mile section of the park road is still open until snow closes it. In the summer you can ride a tour bus for the full 80 mile trip. We enjoyed having the whole place, almost, to ourselves even if we couldnt drive the full length. The only people we ran into where from Huntsville, AL, of all places...

We saw almost no wildlife except a few Gray Jays, Magpies, Northwest Crows, Ravens and Boreal Chickadees.

When Denali does appear from behind the clouds you can see how really massive of a mountain it is.

Grandpa looking for squirrel and moose.

At Savage Creek Layton and I found a craggy outcrop that had a few nice looking boulders, some with chalk.  We scrambled to the summit of a neat tower feature for a brief climbing experience.

Back in the Anchorage area we went back to birding. Hay Flats near Wasila (Sarah Palin's hometown) had some great scenery.

In the forest above Palmer Hay Flats.

Layton kept a journal and had to do some homework while out of school for the week.

Hatcher Pass above Palmer 

We opted NOT to take a hike here...

The scenic Little Susitna River which runs along the Hatcher Pass Road.

Jim Lake

Alaskan Cottonwood

This Golden Eagle let me walk about 40 feet from him, close enough to take this photo with my unpowerful-zoom lens. This is a very cool bird. He was far more interested in the Coho Salmon in the lake behind me. We were able to identify 60 species of birds, 30 new to me, during our trip.

At the Eagle River Nature Center...

Layton being a good sport at the Eagle River Nature Center. Here we saw some Coho Salmon, learned about the Alaskan native animal tracks and scat.

On our last day we awoke to an inch of fresh snow at the Golden Lion Best Western but...

...by 10am the skies cleared and we took a hike above the Turnagain Arm in the Chugach Mountains south of Anchorage at McHugh Creek.

The fall colors in the sun were amazing in the Chugach.

View of the Kenai Peninsula looking across the Turnagain Arm from the Chugach's McHugh Creek trail.

Moose scat, maybe, with a BIG brown bear footprint in it. Gross but kind of cool...

This State Park is the third largest in America with over 1/2 million acres. That's a pretty nice backyard.

Layton scrambling over some neat glacially carved slopes.

Low tide at Turnagain Arm.

Final visit to Potter Marsh. On September 29 we headed back to the ANC airport to board our red eye flight home. Full airplanes had us change our original plans to connect through ORD on Alaska Airlines (using a ZedFare) instead of DFW on AA. It worked out perfectly, Grandpa made it back to ABQ easily as did Layton and I to CHA. It was a fantastic trip to Alaska and hope that we can return again!