Alaska

Josh and I have been planning to had to Alaska for our 5 year anniversary. I realized yesterday we are half way there! :yikes:

So, those of you who have been/ lived there, where must we visit? We are very outdoorsy. Like rustic camping/hiking and Josh loves hunting and fishing.

Side note, small thought in our head that after I graduate we may move there short or long term depending on feels once we get there, so this may be a scouting trip as well.

I've been twice. I love it there!

First time we did interior Alaska and second time we cruised. I don't recommend the cruise unless you cruised in then did interior Alaska. I'm... just not a cruise person. I had a lot more fun hiking. On the plus side we saw tonnns of whales and sea life on the cruise. We did not see any whales on our first Alaska trip and then on our second we did not see any grizzlies. Plus going back in the fjords is awesome. We only cruised because we were taking my grandma who was turning 75 to Alaska for her birthday. She could not hike.

The first time we started at Denali and stayed at the backcountry lodge. It really is way back there... I recommend it though. We went on some great hikes and had a lot of fun doing excursions. We panned for gold, fished, etc. We did not see as much wildlife as I anticipated (year before we did Yellowstone and that has way more wildlife). We rode the bus in and it's a full day drive really. On the way out we flew and it was like 1.5 hours and we flew over Mt Denali.

The rest of the time we spent mostly in Kenai Penns. We stayed in Cooper's Landing. It was a good spot- just a little bed and breakfast where we were the only people staying. It was just out of a couple's house. There's basically nothing in Cooper's landing but it is halfway from each side of kenai. We took day trips to Seward and Homer, etc from there. Definitely recommend it. And we saw tons of grizzlies in Cooper's Landing. We also did some salmon and trout fishing on Kenai which was great fun (we almost ran over a bear in our boat!) There's some small trails around there too. Our host family showed us a few great ones and we hiked out to see the salmon run. I'd definitely recommend bringing a gun though (we did not). There were bears everywhere and bear poop everywhere. We ended up tagging along with a group of people that had a gun and decided if we ever go back and hike like that... definitely aren't going unarmed.

Yeah I'd love to go back. We did spend a bit of time in Anchorage but nothing too exciting there. Mostly just day of travel kind of time killing.

Here's some pics because.





^ Yeah they tore up this guy's stuff.








Denali ^

^ Actually now that I think about it, this is in British Columbia. We stopped there on the cruise.










So yeah... everyone should go.

Katmai is nice. A less visited park, TONS of bears and a good salmon run if you go at the right time. Also has the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes if you want backpacking to volcanoes.

Denali is pretty common, and should be easier than the southeast without a boat.

My grandma really liked Fairbanks. I don't know much about it but thought I would mention it so you could check it out if interested.

Awesome!

Thanks guys!