TJ & EA in Alaska
Denali Wilderness
Our current adventure is an Alaskan cruise tour. We fly into Anchorage
and spend the day and the next morning take a tour bus to the Princess Denali
Lodge in the Denali National Park. We were staying two nights in Denali, this
would be our best chance of seeing the Northern Lights. They have a wake up
service that if they see the lights, they text you. At two am the the first
night we got a text, by the time we got dressed and got our bearings we only
got a fleeting glance of the Northern Lights. What I was able to see was a Erie
green glow off in the distance, it had a wavy curve to it. It didn’t last very
long and was gone, not to be seen again.
On our first day, we took a photo workshop in the Denali wilderness and were able to sharpen our camera skills and get a few good photos. We mainly learned to shoot using aperture priority and use the histogram feature to adjust camera settings. We spent some time at a beaver dam and saw 4 beavers working and playing around the dam.
On our second day, Elizabeth took a Denali wildlife tour where she saw Dall Sheep, Caribou and Bears. They were not very close so we didn’t get any breath taking shots, but she did see them.
While Elizabeth was stalking wildlife, I took a walking tour around Horseshoe Lake, it was a nice walk around the lake and to a nearby river. The river runs along the highway and you can see the lodge above the river.
Our next stop was the Princess McKinley Lodge, it was nice and spaciousness lodge laid out in the Alaskan Wilderness. It was less commercialized than the Princess Denali Lodge. There was a tree house built by The Animal Planets Tree House Masters. It sits about 300’ above the lodge and it’s a moderately strenuous walk up the trail. It is a very nice structure, it had to have a steel foundation due to the lack of suitable trees, unusual terrain, permafrost and load bearing concerns. It was decorated very nicely, I would love to know what it cost.
To get to the ship at Whittier we had to take a coach to the train station at Talkeetna. The train station was a open field adjacent to the tracks. It looks like they brought in 100 dump truck loads of railroad ballast and spread it around to make an area large enough for 10 buses. It was complete with porta potties, so we waited 30 minutes for the train in the wilderness.
It was about five and a half hours by train to Whittier where we would catch the Golden Princess ship to begin our cruise. The train was all observation cars, wide open and large glass windows. It seemed like a long train ride, along the way there was some interesting scenery, but the “open” style cars were extremely noisy, when people talked and servers worked getting lunch together.
One of the most interesting experiences is walking on tundra. It looks a lot like typical forest ground cover but squishy. Maybe rubbery is a better description, as it tends to return to it's original shape after you pick up your feet.
When we arrived at the ship it was a quick process of boarding because they pre-boarded us on the train, that was the first thing I think they got right.
TJ & EA in Alaska
Our current adventure is an Alaskan cruise tour. We fly into Anchorage
and spend the day and the next morning take a tour bus to the Princess Denali
Lodge in the Denali National Park. We were staying two nights in Denali, this
would be our best chance of seeing the Northern Lights. They have a wake up
service that if they see the lights, they text you. At two am the the first
night we got a text, by the time we got dressed and got our bearings we only
got a fleeting glance of the Northern Lights. What I was able to see was a Erie
green glow off in the distance, it had a wavy curve to it. It didn’t last very
long and was gone, not to be seen again.
On our first day, we took a photo workshop in the Denali wilderness and were able to sharpen our camera skills and get a few good photos. We mainly learned to shoot using aperture priority and use the histogram feature to adjust camera settings. We spent some time at a beaver dam and saw 4 beavers working and playing around the dam.
On our second day, Elizabeth took a Denali wildlife tour where she saw Dall Sheep, Caribou and Bears. They were not very close so we didn’t get any breath taking shots, but she did see them.
While Elizabeth was stalking wildlife, I took a walking tour around Horseshoe Lake, it was a nice walk around the lake and to a nearby river. The river runs along the highway and you can see the lodge above the river.
Our next stop was the Princess McKinley Lodge, it was nice and spaciousness lodge laid out in the Alaskan Wilderness. It was less commercialized than the Princess Denali Lodge. There was a tree house built by The Animal Planets Tree House Masters. It sits about 300’ above the lodge and it’s a moderately strenuous walk up the trail. It is a very nice structure, it had to have a steel foundation due to the lack of suitable trees, unusual terrain, permafrost and load bearing concerns. It was decorated very nicely, I would love to know what it cost.
To get to the ship at Whittier we had to take a coach to the train station at Talkeetna. The train station was a open field adjacent to the tracks. It looks like they brought in 100 dump truck loads of railroad ballast and spread it around to make an area large enough for 10 buses. It was complete with porta potties, so we waited 30 minutes for the train in the wilderness.
It was about five and a half hours by train to Whittier where we would catch the Golden Princess ship to begin our cruise. The train was all observation cars, wide open and large glass windows. It seemed like a long train ride, along the way there was some interesting scenery, but the “open” style cars were extremely noisy, when people talked and servers worked getting lunch together.
One of the most interesting experiences is walking on tundra. It looks a lot like typical forest ground cover but squishy. Maybe rubbery is a better description, as it tends to return to it's original shape after you pick up your feet.
When we arrived at the ship it was a quick process of boarding because they pre-boarded us on the train, that was the first thing I think they got right.
TJ & EA in Alaska
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