An Alaska National Parks Trip with Sonja Jackson (Alaska Traveler Series)

Sonja joins Jennie for another episode in our Alaska Stories Series - this time visiting Alaska’s National Parks and why she decided to skip two and how she felt about it.

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Transcript

 Welcome to the Alaska Uncovered Podcast with me, your host, Jennie Thwing Flaming, my occasional co-host and full-time husband, Jay, and I bring you accurate, helpful, and entertaining information about Alaska Travel and life in Alaska. Before we jump in, we want to take a moment to thank our Patreon supporters for making this podcast possible.

You can join them at the link in the show notes. Enjoy the show. I.

 Today we're talking about Sonja's visit to Alaska National Parks.



So, Sonja, thank you for being here. Welcome to Alaska Uncovered. 

Yeah. Thank you, Jennie. Thanks for having me. So to start off with, can you tell everybody why you planned this particular trip at this particular time? Yeah. We have been interested in visiting as many of the US National parks as we can, and that idea kind of started for us in about 2016.

 Grandma Joy's road trip kind of was becoming big at that time. Yeah. If listeners aren't familiar with that, they can look up news articles about that. But basically it's a grandmother and grandson duo that we're on a mission to visit all the parks, which they have completed now. And so that was my first introduction to this idea and I thought That is so cool.

So, uh, so we've been working on. Visiting as many of them as possible. And after our Alaska trip last year, we're now at 26, US National Parks visited. Nice.  And, but even if we hadn't been on that mission, we still would've been interested in visiting Alaska. It's just so unique. It has unique history compared to other states.

The lifestyle of the people there is different. So it's an interesting place no matter what. Yeah, for sure. So who was on this trip? Who were you traveling with? It was just me and my husband, Mike. Okay, cool. Awesome. And uh, one other thing I was wondering about is,  when did you start planning the Alaska portion of your trip?

And then when did you actually take your trip and how long was it? 

the idea was kind of conceptualized in like probably mid 2023. Okay. And in December, 2023 is when I actually started booking things. Yep. Uh, and then the trip itself was August,  17th. 2024 to September 1st, 2024. Cool. Awesome. So mostly August.

Okay, cool. Late season.  Yes. So Sonja, you know, lots and lots of people are wanting to plan a trip like this  and we talked about on email, you know, once you get into planning going to Alaska Parks. It gets really complicated, really fast. Mm-hmm. I agree. So can you tell, yeah, we'll talk more about that, like throughout the episode.

 I'd love to know how many days you spent in each park that you went to. So could you just run through maybe just like the basics of your itinerary. What was your first park? How many days was it? What was your second one? How many days? That kind of thing. Yeah, sure. Um, so we, we visited six u, uh, six national parks in Alaska in order they were Glacier Bay, lake Clark, Kamai, Kenai Fjords, Denali, and Wrangell-Saint Elias.

And we did this trip in 16 days, which is pretty much the fastest you can do it. Yeah. I mean, maybe you could squeak it out in 14 days, but if we had more time, if we would've been able to take more time off of work and stay longer, we definitely would have, um, with a trip this short, you're definitely at risk of a weather cancellation causing you to not be able to visit a park at all.

Yeah. Um, but, but it, it worked out for us. Um, we, we had 13 flights total on this trip that, that includes our flights from the east coast to Alaska.  It's awesome that you got all green lights as far as weather, for a trip like this, you've gotta have travel insurance because there's just so many.

Things that's from a scheduling standpoint, that can get screwed up, like you said, Sonia. Yeah. Anyway, so continue.   Yes, and we did have trip insurance for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We also, we drove, um, like 1,245 miles in, in this amount of time too. Yeah. So, um, as far as how much time we spent in each park, uh, in Glacier Bay, we spent one night, two days basically, uh, and then in Lake Clark.

We stayed in Lake Clark four nights and we did a day trip from there, to Kamai. We stayed in the town of Port Alsworth and Lake Clark National Park. Yep. Um, so we kind of just have a day trip to Katmai and then we spent, um. Uh, kind of two full days in Lake Clark National Park. One was at Dick Prennecke's Cabin on Twin Upper Twin Lake.

Um, and the other one was just in the town of Port Als Worth. Um, and then, uh, Kenai Fjords. We spent two nights in that area, two days, Denali. Two days. Two nights. And then, uh, wrangle St. Elias. We spent,  we stayed outside of the park one night, drove into the park, spent. Spent the rest of the day there.

Stayed one night in the  spent most of the next day in the park, and then drove out of the park that same day. So like, kind of like kind of roughly two full days, one night in Wrinkle Saint Elias. Yep. Yep. Yep. Great. Okay. Well, I, I would love to focus especially on late Clark and Wrangle Saint Elias because those ones are harder to visit.

 Now that you've planned and done this trip, what advice would you have for someone who's thinking about doing the same thing?

Visiting as many parks in as short a time as possible.  What would be your sort of big piece of advice for people?  I feel like I have little snippets of advice, kind of that's along the way. 

there are also two other very remote parks in the Arctic. Gates of the Arctic National Park and Cobe Valley National Park. And you did not visit those. So I would love to have you share with everybody why you didn't go to those two, and then how you feel about that decision looking back on it now.

Yeah, that's a great question. I think especially because we went to six and so we almost had them all. Yeah. Why didn't we do the last two? Uh, a lot of it was we just didn't have the time. Um, yeah, we squeezed as many in as we could and we just didn't have the time to do more, but also the cost  and lastly, those two parks are so much farther north.

They pair well together. Yes. Uh, I think most people that visit one do the other one at the same time. It makes sense. Yeah. And so I think in the future, if we ever had an opportunity to go back to Alaska, we might do those parks, but honestly we might not. Yeah. We talked to a couple of people while we were on our trip who were on a mission to see all eight of the parks.

And some people were doing that in one trip, in, in like three or four weeks timeframe. Yep. Yep. Um, but you know, they just said things like.  Valley had a lot of rain this year, so we weren't actually able to land. We just did a flyover and, um, another couple told us that they did land in both parks, but only for about 20 minutes each time.

And,  so to me, I'm not sure,  that it makes sense for us to spend the money and the time,  to visit something that it is kind of so brief. You know, I'm sure the views are fantastic, but,  we had a really good time doing all the variety of things that we did in the other parks. Yeah. Yep. I, I'm so glad that you talked about that, Sonya, because I think, you know, those parks and, and Lake Clark and Kame are also very remote and challenging to get to.

 But I, yeah, I think it's, it's hard. You could spend a lot of money for. Not a lot of actually time to just be, which to me is one of the magical things about visiting national parks.  My husband Jay, who's the, the co-host of the podcast,  sometimes he, uh, worked in Gates for three seasons as an archeologist.

And so I've spent quite a bit of time there and, you know, it's a beautiful place, but it is really different from other. National parks and, and, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I, I would say that tough. It's tough to visit. Mm-hmm. We, in, we initially kind of had the, we, we did have the goal of visiting all the national parks and we might do what we might not, but, uh, for me.

I don't wanna go somewhere just to check a box, you know, on the list. Yeah. I mean the list of national parks, it just happens to be the way it is. It just happens to be that these parks got designated national parks, but there's lots of other fantastic places to go. Yes. And so I, I think for me at this point, being several years into our quest to visit as many national parks as possible, my goals have just kind of shifted to what interests me and what speaks to me.

Let's go there. Yes. Yes. I love that. I think that's amazing.  So, let's dig into,  late Clark and Wrangle scene Elias a little bit more. To figure out as late Clark Cat, my and wrangle Saint Elias. So let's start with late Clark.   Yes. Well, I had contacted you, Jennie, actually, about how, how best to do this.

'cause I was having a hard time figuring it out on my own. And, and I should have said that I did plan our whole trip by myself. I didn't use a dedicated travel agent or Yeah. Uh, a company or anything. So I was just doing a lot of research hours and hours on my own. Yes. And so you, you had recommended to book with.

The farm Lodge, and I think that was a great decision. They were very easy to work with because they're the whole package. They provide your transportation from Anchorage to Port Als Worth, which is in Lake Clark National Park. And then they also provide all your meals while you're there, so you don't have to bring all that stuff with you.

Um, the, the, uh, accommodations were fabulous. It's. Practically like a a luxury wilderness resort compared to the kind of places I usually book. 

Alaska doesn't have super nice hotel properties. That's, that's for the most part, not a thing there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then what I really liked about it was just, you know, if you look on a map going from Anchorage to Lake Clark. To cat my, they're kind of more or less in a line. And so it made sense to me to our, if we're already in Lake Clark, how can we go from there just onto CATME instead of having to go back to Anchorage like a lot of people do.

Yes. And so it works out very well with the farm lodge that you're already there and then they can just take you on a day trip to capm. Especially because getting logic in CAT is so difficult with the lottery system and everything Hard. Yeah. Yeah. So we had, we had a full day trip there and it was fantastic.

Um, I will say. The only time on our trip that we had an extra day of flexibility for weather was in the, the Lake Clark cat, my part of the trip. And I'm glad that we did that because the first day we were supposed to go to Cat, my, and they canceled the flight because of weather. Yeah. Um, and, and that was, you know, one piece of advice is just if your pilot says.

It's not safe to go, you absolutely just say, okay. You know , obviously they wanna take you in safeties first. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's so important.  What do you mean we're not gonna go? And I'm like, friend, if the pilot is saying no to this.

That's, that's what's happening. Yep. Yeah. Yep. So, just I would say to people, one piece of advice is just to try to be grateful for anything you get to do. Like your plans are probably gonna get changed a little bit. Yep.  If something gets canceled, that's just the way it is. Nobody can control the weather.

There's other circumstances that might be happening that are out of everybody's control. So, um, we just tried to come into this trip with a, with an attitude of being grateful for whatever. We got to do. Absolutely. Yeah. Did get to go to, to Kamai. We landed, um, at Brooks Falls and we got to see the bears there.

We were at the end of the salmon run, so, um, yep. But it was still great. We saw five bears at the falls. We saw them catch fish. For me, that was like the right number of wild bears to see. I didn't need to see 25 at one time. Yeah. Oh man. And then we also had the good fortune of being able to fly over the valley of 10,000 smokes.

Ah, yes. And I didn't realize that. Not only do you need. Good flying weather in terms of like not too much rain or not too many clouds and that kind of thing. But also, it can't be too windy there for your pilot to be able to fly, because then that kicks up the dust from the volcanic ash. So we were just really fortunate to be able to fly over that area too.

Yes. And you know. That, that getting to fly over the valley of 10,000 smokes and those volcanoes in kamai is such a unicorn experience. 

It's very cool. Yeah, for sure. Um, cool. Okay, so what else did you do? What did, tell me a little more about the Lake Clark part of your time at the Farm Lodge. Yeah, so the, the first day since our flight to Kamai got canceled. The first day we had our extra day, so we did that then where we just stayed in the town of Port Als Worth.

 There's a visitor center there for the national park in the town of Port Als Worth. So we went to that. It's pretty small. Farm Lodge also has kayaks that you can use that's included with your stay. So we kayak on Lake Clark a little bit. That was a little bit interesting because the young man that gave us the kayaks and the life jackets, he was like, now listen, this waterway is an active runway for sea plane.

So pay attention, stay outta the way. Oh yeah, that's always a fun time. Yeah. And, and then we also did a hike. Uh, there's a couple hiking trails from the town of Port Als worth into, uh, the forest areas around it. Um, one of them is a hike to Tenalia and falls, which is about a four mile loop. And just a little bit of a funny story on that.

Um, we, I wanted, I wanted to do this hike and I had been reading about bear safety before we went on this trip. Um, just for a little context, in New York, we don't have brown bears, obviously. We just have black bears and they Yes. You know, nobody hikes with bear spray. They, they kind of stay outta your way.

I've never seen a wild black bear in New York and all the times, so I've lived here. So, um. To go hiking in Alaska with brown bears. It was intimidating for us. Yeah. We got bear spray from the farm lodge. You can't fly with bear spray. So they provide it for you. Yep. Once you're in Port Als worth. And, uh, so we had our bear spray and we went to the trailhead.

And at the trailhead there's this sign that was talking about. Bears charging people and what to do to avoid a bear encounter and what to do if you see a bear. And I'm standing there with my husband, like, I don't know if we should go on this hike. This seems a little sketchy. And he's like, yeah, Sonia, they have that, that sign's probably up all the time.

Like, it'll be fine. And I was like, Michael, that sign is a piece of printer paper, laminated duct tapes to a post this.

So we were a little nervous about it, but we went on the hike. One of the recommendations was to sing or talk the whole time you're hiking. And so I did that and we did not see any wildlife, which at that point was my preference. Yes, for sure. We committed to the waterfall and made it back safely, so, oh, love it.

I love that. That's wonderful. Cool. Okay. Um, anything else kind of about Lake Clark? Uh, our last day there we flew to, um. To Dick Prey's Cabin on Upper Twin Lakes. Yep. Um, and that was an adventure getting there too. If I can just share that story real quick. Yeah. Tell him. Um, so we were supposed to leave at 9:00 AM and they told us in the morning while we were having our breakfast that uh, the weather wasn't great, the clouds were really low, and so they were gonna delay it to 10.

And, um, this was our last day. So if we didn't get to go to Dick's, we. Miss it. Yeah. Um, so at 10 o'clock we go down to where the float planes are, and it was actually Glenn Ellsworth Jr. Who owns the Farm Lodge, who was gonna be our pilot that day. Yeah, yeah. And so he said, you know, the weather's improved a little bit, but the clouds are still pretty low.

We'll give it a try, but if the visibility's not good, we'll just have to turn around and come back. And we were like, all right, that's fine. So we get in the plane and we're, so, we're in a little sea plane. It's just me and my husband, our guide for the day, who was a young lady, and. Glen, uh, flying the plane.

And so the four of us take off and behind us is another sea plane that took off right after us and we have headsets on. Um, we could talk to our pilot if we wanted to, but we were just quiet the whole time because the plane behind us was actually Glen's son. He was supposed to fly and pick up back country hikers that day.

Okay? And so the whole ride there, we're listening to Glen talk to his son about the visibility and the conditions and make sure you give yourself enough room to turn around and all that kind of stuff. As we're flying through this mountain pass and uh, about halfway through the flight, we hear Glen's sun say, you know what, dad?

I'm not comfortable. I'm gonna just go ahead and land on one of these ponds and Glen's like, all right, that's fine. Just in a very calm voicey, he is like, I'm still comfortable. I'm gonna keep going and I'll come back for you. So it was a little, a little harrowing, a little, uh, heart pumping for us. Um, you know, at one point we're, we're pretty low.

I mean, I'm not gonna give a distance 'cause I, I can't really tell, but, um. We were very low and we did make it to Upper Twin Lake. Fine. Glen dropped us off. We were the first plane there for the day. Unsurprisingly, yes. So Glen took off and went back to help his son,  I'm watching him go and I'm like, man, hopefully he's able to come back  at us.

 We spent the day with our guide at Dick Carnegie's cabin. The Ranger was there to talk to us about it. We hiked up to Teetering Rock, which is.  It's a big boulder that you can kind of wiggle a little bit.  So that was kind of neat.  We had our lunch there and then Glen did come back and he was able to pick us up the weather.

Yay. Good job, Glen. Substantially. And so the flight back was actually much faster. It was 30 minutes instead of 60 to get back 'cause we could fly over the mountains. Love it. That's awesome. One other thing I just wanna mention about the farm lodge and, and the way that like you booked this part of your trip, Sonia, is that especially when you're doing a trip like yours that's really complicated with lots of moving parts.

For this part, once you're booked with them, they kind of manage things in the way that you're saying, right? So you're out there, it's like, well, the weather isn't great for Cat. My today we're gonna do this instead. Or This isn't gonna be a fly day. You know, they can, they're kind of moving things around for you once you're booked with them for that time.

And that's a huge advantage with like Alaska's really unpredictable weather. So I just wanted to throw that in there too. Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad you said that. 'cause when I was looking at other options, there are other places to stay in Port Als Worth, but they don't provide your air transportation. You have to book that separately.

And so I thought, what if we get stuck in Port Als Worth? Yeah. And we're supposed to leave and they don't have room for us to stay like, so yeah, it's great. Have the. Yeah, it all, even the food. Yes. And food is important because a remote community off the road system

 It's not that you can't get food, but it's like, it's challenging in remote communities, so it's, it's really nice to have that part taken care of as well. Yes. Yeah. Wonderful. Okay. We're gonna take a short break and when we come back we will talk more with Sonya about  her national parks trip.

Hey everyone. Jennie here. I hope you're enjoying this episode so far. It's the summer season 2025 this is a great opportunity for you to get into my shop and get some of those itineraries planners,  get our 2025 stickers that are beautiful and designed by Jay.

Just a reminder that you can always save 10% as a podcast listener in my shop with the code. Podcast. And in addition to that, you can find the shop@shop.ordinaryadventures.com and the link will also be in the show notes.

Alright, back to the show. I.

All right, we are back with Sonia Jackson. She and her husband Mike, traveled from New York to Alaska in August of 2024 to bus visit six of the eight national parks. In Alaska. So Sonia,  I'd love to hear a little bit about Wrangle Saint Elias and how you decided to do that part of your trip. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Yes.  And this is another part of our trip that I was really grateful for you, Jennie, for your advice because, a lot of people fly into Wrangle St. Elias National Park because it is such a huge park.  And there's only two roadways into it. They're both dirt. They're really rough. You can't drive a rental car on it.

There's all these other logistical challenges.  We really wanted to go to Kennecott and that was the only place that we had time to go. But by this point in the trip. We were kind of, I expected us to be kind of, uh, tired of flying. And also the cost of flying was, was an issue as well. Yeah. Yeah. And so you had recommended the Kennecott shuttle and I didn't really find information on that anywhere else other than from you.

But it's a legitimate business. They did a great job. They picked us up at the bed and breakfast that we stayed at in the town of Copper Center, which is just outside the park. Yep. And they drove us all the way down the McCarthy Road to the town of McCarthy. And, and I think that was a fantastic way to go because.

First of all, we didn't have to get special permission to drive a rental vehicle or book with a certain company that would allow us to drive that road. We didn't have to worry about flat tires.  The people that drive the shuttle, they do it all the time. They know how to just swerve just right to miss the potholes and everything, and, and they move right along, you know?

Yeah.  I think it was a great way to go. It did take like three hours or so, so flying definitely would've been a lot faster. And, we talked to several people that flew in on the mail plane. Yes. Yep.  If your schedule works that way, 'cause the mail plane doesn't fly every day, I think that's a great option, but it just didn't work out for us for the day we wanted to be there.

Yep. And that's another place where weather can interfere with your timeline, you know, which isn't, isn't true if you drive. That's another thing to Good point, keep in mind too. Yeah. Awesome. Okay. So,  where did you stay in Wrangle St. Elias. And what did you do while you were there? We stayed one night at the Kennecott Glacier Lodge and one little piece of advice I have there, they have two different kinds of rooms, or at least  I just recall, two different kinds.

One's glacier view and one's forest view. And the glacier view rooms are more expensive.  The Kennecott Glacier is not what you would think of as a typical glacier. It's rock covered and so it's not really that scenic.  We the money and booked the cheaper room and I have no regrets about that.

 So when we arrived, um, we arrived in the town of McCarthy. Took the little footbridge across from there.

You either have to walk or, or use a shuttle.  The Kennecott Glacier Lodge provides a shuttle. To get you the five miles from the town of McCarthy to the town of Kennecott.  But first we stopped in McCarthy at the,  McCarthy Kennecott Historical Museum that's there. So that was a nice little stop.

Nice. And we also had lunch at the potato at your recommendation, Jennie, the potato the best. Yeah. Yes.  But then  we got on our shuttle and went to the town, Kennecott. We did a self-guided walking tour there. You can get a map from the. From the visitor center that's there and many of the buildings have been restored and are now basically museums.

And so that took us several hours. And so I would say people should plan on several hours to go into those different buildings and check out all the artifacts.  And then at three 30 we went on a guided tour of the Copper Mill, which is the big 14 story building. Everybody sees pictures of there. The only way to go into that building is on a tour with.

St. Elias Alpine Guides. It's actually not a park ranger that takes you in.  So that was a great tour, very informative and very cool.

Yeah, love it. So then did you take the shuttle back to Copper Center? Yeah, we did.  After we spent our one night at the Kennecott Glacier Lodge, uh, the next morning we had a guided hike to Root Glacier, which is. From the town of Kennecott and uh, so we were able to walk on a glacier there.

And so that was, that was a very cool thing to do. And the hike wasn't too bad. It was like, I would say kind of rolling hills, like mostly flat. The last part that was steep, that goes down to the glacier on uneven. Terrain and like gravel. That was a little bit challenging. But other than that, I think it was very doable.

There were a variety of people of ages and, and abilities on that tour, so, yeah.  So after we finished that tour, then we, yes, we got back on the Kennecott shuttle and went back to Copper Center. 

 Listeners, in May 20, 24, episode 66 was also about Ringle Saint Elias,  national Park with one of the guides from Kennecott Wilderness Guides who leads the,  hikes to Root Glacier and other places. So if you're intrigued by wrangle Saint Elias, definitely go back and listen to that episode as well.

Alright. Anything else about Ringle Saint Elias that you wanna share? Sonya? Um, no, I don't think so. I think that covers it. Okay. Alright, cool. So before we move on to a few superlatives and a few other questions, I do wanna quickly touch on, you know, glacier Bay Key knife yards and Denali. Is there anything that jumps out about any of those parks that you'd really like to share

yeah, sure. I'll start with Glacier Bay.  We decided since we weren't on an Alaskan cruise already anyway, we decided we wanted to be really immersed in the park and so we flew from Juno to the town of Gustav and stayed one night at the Glacier Bay Lodge. There's,  as far as I know, two flight services for that.

Alaska Airlines offers flights from Juneau to Gustavus, but we actually flew with Alaska Seaplanes because they fly more often Yes. To Gustav. So that gave us more flexibility for how long we could be,  in Gustav and in Glacier Bay. Yep.  And then,  I just wanna say that,  when we went on the day boat tour out of,  Gustavus.

Through the Glacier Bay Lodge.  We had a great time on that tour. We saw a ton of wildlife and we actually saw a wolf and a bear on that tour. Wow. A wolf. That's awesome. Yes. We were so lucky to have this other passenger on the ship that had,  like a foot long zoom on his camera and like these very fancy binoculars, and he stood outside the whole time, even in the rain.

And he spotted both of those things. The pilot, sorry, the captain and the ranger. We're not the ones to see them. So we were just really lucky to have an eagle eye passenger. Yeah.  So, once we, you know, did everything in Glacier Bay, we flew with Alaska Sea Paints back to Juneau.

Yep. Spent the night there, and then the next morning we flew from Juneau to Anchorage on an Alaska Airlines flight. Yep. And one bit of advice is I looked on the map of. Where that flight was going to go, which is right near WR Saint Elia. A I booked,  my husband and I window seats on the right side of the plane.

Yes.  I was like, I don't know exactly where the park is, but the park's like the size of Switzerland, so if it's a clear day, we should see it. And it was a clear day,  and you know what, even if it's not a clear day, you often see Mount St.

Elias and Mount Logan anyway, because they're so high. They're often up above the clouds. Yes. And we also saw. Denali from that flight. Yes. That was the only time that we saw Denali. Such a relatable story.  Yeah. And, and honestly, I'm so lucky that I listened to so many of your podcasts before we went, because otherwise I wouldn't have.

I would've assumed that Denali was not visible from the Anchorage area being so far away on a map. Yeah. But I knew from the podcast that you can see it from the top of Flat top Mountain. So as we're coming into land, I'm looking out in the distance, and there's not a cloud in the sky over Alaska that day, and there's this massive mountain.

I'm like, well, that's gotta be it. I mean, everything else looks flat in comparison. Yes. Love that. Okay, so, so then did you go to Denali or Kenai Fjords first, once you got to Anchorage?  Once we got to Anchorage, we went onto Lake Clark and Kamai. We did all flying the first week.  And then once we returned,  from Lake Clark into Anchorage, then we rented a vehicle and drove, drove to,  Kenai Fjords.

Denali and then Copper Center to go on to,  wringle St. And just a little tip about the rental vehicle situation. This, this kind of worked out strangely for us. Obviously it's pretty expensive to rent a vehicle in Alaska. Their tourism season is so short.  And normally my husband and I would rent a sedan 'cause they're cheapest and the best on gas mileage and stuff like that.

But then I thought even though we are not gonna take it on a dirt road because we can't. We might end up in places where we need a little more ground clearance or mm-hmm. I also felt on the rabbit hole of like, what happens if you hit a moose in a sedan and all that. Yeah. So, and I knew we'd be doing a lot of driving, so then I was looking at SUVs, which were ranging about 2000 to $2,400 for a week, um, for rental.

And that was. That was really pushing the budget for us. Yeah. And so I was looking around all kinds of different options over the course of a couple days. And I happened to be on Enterprise's website and at the after I put in my search parameters at the bottom, it said, based on your search, you might also like, and the first thing was a three quarter ton pickup truck.

Oh. And it was $560 for the week. Wow. Yeah. That's an amazing deal. Uh, yeah. And so I booked it and then I called them the next day. I called the local office the next day just to verify that, that it was legit and everything was good with my reservation. Yeah. Because it was so much cheaper. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, so, and, and then when we got there, it was just funny because the, the guy at the.

Office was like, oh, so you guys going fishing? And we were like, no, we're just driving around. Love it. But yeah, so, so I guess that's just a bit of advice there is like, consider all of your options. I was searching for SUVs, but Yep. A minivan would've been fine. You know, a truck was fine, so. Yep, yep. Love that.

That's great.  Okay. So is there anything you wanna share about Denali or Kenai fjords kind of advice or key things for folks to think about? Yeah, I'll start with Kenai Fjords and my advice there is to get out on a boat for sure. Yes, absolutely.  There is one road accessible part of Kenai Fjords National Park, which is Exit Glacier.

Yep.  But the glacier's been receding. Very quickly for many years. And so at this point, you're driving along the road and you're seeing all these signs with dates on them for where the face of the glacier used to be. Yeah. I know it's the parking lot and you hike a mile or two and it's still even as far as you can hike up close to it.

It's still in the distance. And there were a lot of people that we saw on the trail that were disappointed with the distance to the glacier. They thought they'd get a much closer view. And so yeah, you can only do one thing or the other. Get on either on a big tour boat that's motorized, or we talked to some people that did a kayak tour of fjords.

Yep. And also the Alaska Sea Life Center in Seward was great. We were, yeah, we were lucky to have time to do that. And it's a really nice stop. Yeah. I love that. Okay. How about Denali? Any, you know, we, I will also tell everybody if you haven't listened to it already in January, 2024, we had an episode that was all about visiting Denali on your own.

 Not as part of a tour or a cruise tour, which is the way the majority of people like 90% see Denali. So if you're planning a trip on your own, like Sonia and Mike did.  Definitely go back and listen to that episode,  from last January. Sonia.  Any advice for Denali for folks like you? Yeah,  I'm sure this is covered previously, but you know, you really need to schedule a bus tour there.

You can only drive the first 15 miles if you have a rental vehicle. So we did that, we did the bus tour and,  half of the Denali Road's been closed for several years because of the Pretty Rocks landslide. It's closed at about mile 42. Yep. And so. I think that's something for folks to consider is not to be too discouraged about that.

 I agree. I I think there's always, if you're planning a trip to Alaska, it's gonna be a big trip. There's gonna be a lot to see, and there's always gonna be a reason not to go. Yep. Whether it's your personal reasons, like your health, your finances, inability to get time off of work, whatever. And there's.

Also things in Alaska going on, whether it be like natural disasters, maintenance. Yep. Um, you know, stuff like that. And then we just went through a global pandemic too, so like, there's always gonna be roadblocks. So we didn't let this stop us from going to Denali, and I have no regrets about that. It was a long bus tour just to see half the road.

So,  you know, you can wait, you know, they're working on a bridge to kind of go around that area there. But, um. You could wait a few years for that to be done, but you don't have to. Yeah, it's a good time to go still. I absolutely agree with that for sure. And it gave us more time to do other things.

So yes, we did the bus tour one day.  It is a little bit tricky to schedule because you sign up for a day, but they don't give you the time until like Right. 24 or 48 hours before. Beforehand. Yep.  But the visitor center there is huge. They have the dog sled,  kennel tour that you can go on. Yes. And so there's other things you can fill in on around your bus tour.

But,  our second day in the Denali area, we booked a river raft tour. Fun in the morning. That's a really fun tour. Yeah. It. 

 I think my favorites are tied,  for Glacier Bay and, uh, lake  Uhhuh. We just saw so much wildlife in Glacier Bay. That was a huge highlight for me. Yeah. And it was just a really informative boat tour, so that was great. And then Lake Clark was just so beautiful and just to, yeah, to be there for days and to really be immersed in it.

It was very cool. My husband's favorite, though, was Wrangle St. Elias. He really liked. Industrial history and mining and stuff like that. So he loved Kaco. That's awesome. Glacier Bay is my favorite too. 

This is potentially the same answer, so if it is, that's fine. But I'm, I'm curious about like a highlight, like a particular experience that really stood out to you as like, if you could go back and have one of these experiences again, maybe it was a hike or maybe a tour.  What really jumps out as like, wow, that was just extra.

That is a harder question, I think.  Uh, gosh. I mean the, the top are probably the boat tour in Glacier Bay. Yes. Flying to Dick Prey's cabin, um, flying over the valley, 10,000 smokes and going to Brooks Falls and Kamai.   Yeah, those, I guess those would be the top three for me. My husband would definitely say that the mill tour in Kennecott was his probably number one.

Yeah. That is also a really cool, it's way cooler tour than people think it's gonna be. 

So, Sonia, is there anything now that you planned your trip, now that you've done it, now that you're thinking back on it a few months later, is there anything that you would've done differently if you had it to do over again? No, there's really not. We, I love it.

We're just so fortunate to have good weather so that we could do pretty much everything we wanted to do.  So that was just a little bit of luck on our part.  The only thing I could say is if we had more time, we would've spent more time there. Yes. Is it where, out of the different places you went, where would you have spent more time if you had it?

I think maybe glacier. Actually definitely wrangle Saint Elias. Because it's such a big park and we only saw a very small part of it. So I think that's top of the list that Yeah, we could have spent more time there. Yep. Yep. For sure. Awesome. Okay, Sonia, finally what was the best meal that you had in Alaska?

The food at the farm lodge, definitely. Mm. Everything was fantastic there. They served us breakfast, lunch, and dinner every time we were there. The best salmon I've ever had was, was there. Yeah, that was incredible. I love that. That is amazing. Okay, well before we go, anything else you wanna tell folks? Any advice you have for other travelers that you wanna say before we sign off?

Um, one bit of travel insurance advice potentially.  I had never bought travel insurance before actually. But this trip was just so much, it was longer and it was much more expensive than any other trip we've ever been on. Yeah. So, um, I used your advice and went to insure my trip. And got a policy there.

And, uh, when you get trip insurance, you have to buy it before you actually. Do all your bookings. And so I had a detailed estimate of how much I thought the trip was gonna cost and I kind of encroached travel insurance like I would any other type of insurance. So like I have to make sure I have enough insurance.

Yeah. So I went with the high side of my estimate, but my trip ended up not costing. Quite that much. Yeah. Um, and so I would've saved some money on the premium if I would've gone with a lower insurance amount. 'cause I'm sure that I could have contacted the company and like, Hey, can I get more coverage?

But like, obviously they're not gonna refund me for less coverage. Yeah. Yeah. That's a, that's a good point. Yeah. And you know, another thing I would say about that too is like. One thing people often don't think about when it comes to travel insurance is, um, medical, which is actually like, you know, you said this is a super expensive trip and lots of opportunity for things to change.

So that's important. But the other thing is, in these remote locations, you know, even if you have a minor health problem, like a broken. Ankle or something, you know, you're gonna have to fly to get medical care most of the time, and that's really expensive. So that's another, um, big benefit of travel insurance is like the whole medical side.

Yes, definitely. And we did see that on our trip when we hiked Saru Glacier in Kennecott. There was, um, an older man who fell on the glacier and either broke or dislocated his finger, and it was Labor Day weekend. So, uh, the, we heard the guides talking a lot about, well, what do we do? How urgent is this? Do we fly him out?

Do we drive him out? Where, where is the medical, where's the nearest medical facility that's going to be open on a holiday weekend? Yeah, so it was quite a logistical. Thing for them. Yeah, definitely. And we also do have an episode, uh, specifically about travel insurance, which was April of 2024. Episode 60 is all about travel insurance and that kind of thing.

Boring topic, but not so boring if you end up needing it.  The link for Insure My Trip, which is the, the travel insurance that I like to use and that Sonya used. There are of course, many other options.  What I like about them is that they are a broker, so they're, they're selling,  travel insurance plans from all the different companies.

So you kind of more options than you would going through just one,  insurance company. But anyway, that's good.  Sonya, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing with everyone all your hard-earned wisdom from your amazing  📍 Alaska Parks trip. Thank you so much. Thank you, Jennie. I hope that this information is helpful to somebody else.

I'm sure it will be.