Cruisetour – Alaska (Part 2)

This is a continuation of Part 1 of the Cruisetour in Alaska, which was posted yesterday. In this video, you will see more of Hotel Alyeska, as well as the other three hotels that I stayed in: Talkeetna Lodge, McKinley Village Lodge, and Pikes Waterfront Lodge. Here you will see Mount McKinley in all it’s glory – did you know that I am part of the 30% club? That means only 30% of the people who visit Mount McKinley get to see it, as often it is shrouded in clouds or fog – yet on this occasion, Mount McKinley was clearly visible. Also, you will see Denali Park, and footage of the Grizzly Bear sighting.

Now, I will add further comments about Day 2 through Day 4 of the cruisetour right here, instead of listing all the days out one by one.  As you know, I stayed at the Alyeska Resort & Hotel on Day 1, and when I awoke the next morning, I went on the tram to take a look at where the skiing takes place in this wonderful resort.  I already showed you the pictures in a previous post, and many more are included on the videos than what I can enclose here in this post.  Therefore, I will start with what happened when we left Alyeska.  We went to the Conservation Center, which is where I saw the Black Bear, and other animals.  From there, we went to Anchorage, and the most notable thing about Anchorage from what I remembered was that it is a city with a lot more choices of shopping and restaurants than you will find in other places such as Skagway, Juneau, Ketchikan, Talkeetna, etc.  There was a market that had really good salmon quesadillas, and I would highly recommend trying one of these if you ever get chance to visit.  Here are some of my pictures of Anchorage:

Market in Anchorage, Alaska

Dogs of Alaska – Anchorage

Anchorage, Alaska

We then left Anchorage after about three hours or so, and headed for Talkeetna Lodge which overlooks Mount McKinley.

Talkeetna Lodge, Alaska

Talkeetna Lodge

Restaurant at Talkeetna Lodge

Talkeetna Lodge

Weddings at Talkeetna

I am pretty sure that the tour guides or someone told us that Mount McKinley is the tallest mountain from base to the top (the peak) – so it is pretty spectacular.  However, it was sad to hear that just before the day  we were there, someone had a fatal fall from it.  Something so spectacular can also be so dangerous, unfortunately.

Mount McKinley

Mount McKinley

Mount McKinley

I took the photo below with my I-Phone, and at times it is really hard to distinguish which is Mount McKinley, but it looks as though it’s where the third bump is (more towards the right of the picture).  With my regular camera, I took the other pictures below of sunset in the vicinity, but they weren’t directly over Mount McKinley, but sunset is sunset I guess, and it doesn’t really matter where it is as long as it’s enjoyed.  What is notable to mention is that sunset started at about 11:30 pm, and lasted until 2 am or so.  It stays light until very late in certain parts of Alaska, and this seemed to vary as we traveled from place to place.  Also, it was light very early in the morning too, so there were very few hours of darkness, especially at Talkeetna Lodge.  It was so unusual to see sunset so late at night, and who can go to sleep when you can stay up until 2 am just appreciating the sunset over Mount McKinley?

Sunset over Mount McKinley

You can take a flightseeing excursion over Mount McKinley, and you can actually even land on it.  We saw so many flightseeing tours, and here are some pictures of planes flying close by:

Leaving Talkeetna, I took this picture:

near Denali

We arrived at our next stop, where we would spend the night prior to visiting Denali National Park

McKinley Village Lodge

McKinley Village Lodge

McKinley Village Lodge

McKinley Village Lodge

That’s me (Davinder) at McKinley Village Lodge

McKinley Village Lodge

Then we set off in the morning really early at 5:30 am or so for Denali National Park.  This meant that I had to wake up at approximately 4am – another early morning!  I barely had time to grab something from the coffee shop in the lobby.  They gave us lunch boxes on the bus as there are no cafes or restaurants in Denali, and you have to be very careful with food.  You even have to make sure that you don’t put anything in the trash cans that has any trace of food, this is for the benefit of the animals – so that they don’t associate food with humans.  All food has to be consumed on the bus, and disposed of in special trash containers within the bus, and then the bus personnel see to the proper disposal of it.  I think our sandwiches were reindeer meat, and there was some type of crackers and raisins, and a bottle of water.

Our tour of Denali, which was a 7 hour tour because it was the upgraded Denali Park Tour, cost an additional $58.25.  The included Denali Park Tour does not go deep into Denali, and I believe it only lasts about two and a half hours.  However, it was highly recommended to get the upgraded tour, and I’m glad that I did.

Here are some pictures, I’m not going to show too many as again, you can see them in my video or a previous post.  The first picture shows you the bus that takes you into Denali National Park.  My most personal prized picture of Denali is that of the Grizzly Bear, and I also got it on video.

The bus – Denali Park

Grizzly Bear

Dall Sheep of Alaska

This is some of the landscape within Denali:

Denali National Park landscape

Denali National Park

near Denali National Park

Now, I should give you a little background on Denali.  This park was put into place after much lobbying to Congress from the efforts of early conservationists such as Charles Sheldon, who fought to preserve Denali.  Did you know that some people refer to Mount McKinley as Denali, while others just wish to call it Mount McKinley?  The native name for it is Denali.  In fact, the park was first named Mount McKinley National Park, but it was renamed Denali National Park and Preserve.    Did you know that cars cannot go deep into the park?  I believe only a certain number are given a permit to enter the park, but they are only allowed to go up to a certain point.  By riding the tour bus, we are all helping to protect Denali’s wilderness ecosystem.  Denali is an important park, because the animals within it are respected, and have a safe area to roam around.   I like bears and appreciate the idea that there is a place for them where they are protected, and won’t be hunted or slaughtered, but I guess the same goes for all the other animals there who are all important to one another’s existence.  Anyway, I didn’t mean to go off into talking about something that I don’t know a lot about, but I do appreciate what they are doing in Denali.

After we finished our tour of Denali, we headed to Fairbanks, and the Pikes Waterfront Lodge.  This was to be our last stop and our last night in Alaska.

Pikes Waterfront Lodge

Pikes Waterfront Lodge

Pikes Waterfront Lodge

Sunset at Pikes Waterfront Lodge

I have finally finished the posts and videos on Alaska.  Well, until next time……I wish you a very pleasant week ahead, and a happy summer!