These past couple of months have been crazy busy between travel, re-doing my business website as well as moving and re-designing our blog from WordPress.com to WordPress.org, training for our Crater Lake Century bike ride among other things. I’m finally trying to get my bearings down and write again.

One of our closest friends had been to all 49 states and waiting for us to plan a trip to Alaska so he could cross the finish line so to speak (there is a friendly competition between him and his sister so as to who gets to all 50 first). So it was truly a trip to the Last Frontier at least for him. Another couple joined us on  so we were a group of 5 (J, A&B, and us two).  S and I have been to more countries than state-side and just about scratched the surface with 11 states, not counting California, our home state. We wanted to go before the summer crowds and mosquitoes so decided to go early May just before the summer season started.

Alaska in 10 days

We were on a National Park spree start of this year, having been to a couple already prior to Alaska, we were hoping to scratch two more off the list on our this trip but that didn’t pan out to our disappointment. Well at least it gives us an excuse to go back and tick them off our list.

Things to Do (early May): Glacier Hiking, Rock climbing, Hiking, Whale Watching, Cycling, Nature Walks

As I finished writing this post, the word count was close to 6000 + pictures! which made me realize no one was going to scroll thru my rant. So I broke it up into sub-posts by home-base locations.

General things about Alaska

  • If you plan to go in early May, be sure to pack winter/snow as well as rain gear even if there’s no snow in the forecast as you never know.
  • If you go off-season, stores/rental places might be closed so be prepared and bring crampons/ice cleats if you can. They came in handy to walk on multiple glaciers and hikes.
  • We’re on T-mobile back home but cell reception throughout Alaska was on GCI network (automatic switch without turning on roaming). In some parts like Denali, Healy, and between, our phones got on AT&T. The data was so bad while on AT&T that maps wouldn’t load and I got an auto-text saying I’d reached my roaming limit of 250MB (which wasn’t true as I didn’t turn on roaming). Good thing J had Verizon which had better coverage.

Accommodation

We mostly stayed in short-term vacation rentals as we were 5 people and with longer trips, one needs the convenience of home like a full kitchen, laundry… expect for Denali where we rented separate rooms in a lodge. 

Transportation

We flew into Anchorage and rented a Ford Expedition (the last 3 trips we’ve been with J have all been either a Ford Expedition or Explorer rental). The SUV was super roomy for 5 adults with room for 6+ suitcases, bags, food, water and the works. We got pretty good gas mileage considering we put 1695 miles on it. 

Our ride for the trip!

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