ALASKA ADVENTURE 2024: Copper River - July 6 & 7

Mount Drum

Have you ever heard of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park? Before we began planning our trip to Alaska, Debbie and I hadn't. We did know that there are A LOT of national parks in the vast 49th state, but we were unaware of this one. It turns out that Wrangell-St. Elias is the largest national park in the system at 13.2 million acres. It's six times bigger than Yellowstone. It's even larger than Switzerland - and has taller mountains!

Debbie and I stayed two nights near the park's Visitor Center at one of the Alaskan hotels operated by Princess: Copper River Wilderness Lodge.

Copper River is the smallest of Princess' Wilderness Lodges as not too many people venture here. But we found it to be incredibly scenic and fun to explore. The lodge has its own naturalist (Adam?) who took us on a guided hike during our first evening there after dinner.  We had just gotten off our cruise ship eleven hours earlier, and here we were deep in the state of Alaska.

Mount Drum is the closest mountain to this Copper River region, and visible in the background. Our nature hike explored some of the trees and flowers of the area. We didn't get to see any wildlife up close, but you could say we had a brush with a moose as we found "evidence" of its presence.

Moose scat

We also came across many examples of the "national bird" of Alaska, the very ferocious mosquito. The below picture is only a slight exaggeration. I believe the northern climate makes the bugs that much hardier and more aggressive.

On Sunday morning, Debbie and I got up and enjoyed a simple breakfast. We picked up our boxed lunches from the front desk that we had ordered the night before. Then we took the shuttle from the wilderness lodge to the Wrangell-St. Elias Visitor Center. We watched the movie, toured the various buildings, took a guided hike from a park ranger, and enjoyed our picnic lunch with a beautiful view of Mount Drum.

 

ALASKA ADVENTURE 2024: All Aboard the Chugach Express! - July 6

Departing the Royal Princess on early Saturday morning was bittersweet. We had had a great time aboard our cruise ship and hated to go, especially leaving all that food! But we also knew that we had another exciting leg of our trip to look forward to - the interior Alaska land portion. We had booked a tour called "Off The Beaten Path" because we wanted to see a few less-visited sites that went beyond Denali. With the closure of the park, it's a good thing we did.

We ate breakfast and went to our tour's meeting place for our 7:30 a.m. check-in. We were then directed to exit the ship and then leave the main group and go through a crack in the fence to board another vessel, a catamaran called the Chugach Express which would take us on a four hour ride to Valdez. The Chugach Express looked a lot like this:

The Chugach Express took good care of us. "Chugach" is a reference to a mountain range in southern Alaska. We made a stop at the Beloit Glacier for a close-up look.

We continued on for the remainder of our scenic journey through Prince William Sound in our journey from Whittier to Valdez. Once we got there, we loaded up onto our motor coach with our driver/guide Wendy who would be with us for a few days. Before we got too far, we stopped in the town of Valdez for lunch. Debbie and I chose to go with Wendy's recommendation to eat at the Fat Mermaid.

After lunch, we made a quick pit stop at the Safeway grocery store and loaded up on some food since our meals were NOT included on the land portion of the tour. We bought tea, pretzels, M&Ms, mint Oreo's - you know, the essentials.

Back on the bus, we started our three-hour journey to the Princess Copper River Wilderness Lodge. Along the way, Wendy pulled over for a couple of stops, including this stunning waterfall:

As they say, getting there is half the fun!
 

ALASKA ADVENTURE 2024: College Fjord - July 5

Among our glacial-viewing experiences at Glacier Bay National Park on July 4 and College Fjord on the last night of our trip on July 5, Debbie and I were treated to a number of quality shows aboard the Royal Princess. On Thursday evening, we saw an Elton John tribute band ("Bennie and the Rest") that was quite good. On Friday afternoon, I went to a comedy/magic show that contained tricks I had seen before, but put together in a new way to make an entertaining routine. Finally, Debbie and I enjoyed the regular cast of ship's singers and dancers in a Motown show on Friday night.

It was sad to know that our cruise portion of the tour was coming to a close, but we ended it with some majestic glaciers in an area known as College Fjord, not far from our destination of Whittier. Here are some of the sights of glaciers in the Fjord - as well as some of the wildlife we were able to spot nearby:

ALASKA ADVENTURE 2024: Glacier Bay National Park - July 4

Thursday was a very special day aboard the Royal Princess, and not just because it was Independence Day. On July 4th, we were blessed to celebrate our country's birthday by exploring one of its most beautiful and unique areas: Glacier Bay National Park!

Glacier Bay is indeed an official National Park, and one of the cool experiences of the day was having three rangers and some support personnel come aboard our cruise ship for a day of talks and programs. They even brought the Glacier Bay stamp along with them. Here is Debbie stamping our National Park passport:

The day began early with an explanation by Ranger Mariah, outlining what glaciers we would see and approximately when. This was a day we were very thankful to have a balcony.

Here we are, entering Glacier Bay National Park and approaching the first glacier.

Lamplugh Glacier is very blue!

A close up of Lamplugh Glacier.

This picture shows some interesting geological markings and the blue water from glacial flour.

Debbie taking some pictures from our balcony.

Margerie Glacier is very active. Unfortunately we didn't get to witness any calving.

A close up of Margerie Glacier.

Time to head back out of Glacier Bay National Park for our next adventure!

ALASKA ADVENTURE 2024: Skagway - July 3

Wednesday was our Skagway day. We didn't know much about it beforehand, but Skagway is famous for its connection with the Gold Rush to the Yukon in 1898. So much so, in fact, that the town is an official National Historical Park and its buildings are maintained in turn-of-the-century style as a living history exhibit for the tourists. Pretty cool place to visit!

Debbie took these next two interesting pictures - the most photographed building in Alaska (the exterior is fashioned out of driftwood) and a "billboard" painted on the side of the cliff back from the town's gold rush heyday.

Debbie absolutely loves waterfalls, so our shore excursion in Skagway was a waterfall tour that took us along the White Pass trail (which was used during the gold rush to White Horse), up the Yukon Highway, and into Canada.

Pitchfork Falls, with a hydro-electric pipe built nearby.

Close-up of Pitchfork Falls.

Bridal Veil Falls.

Near the summit of the highway.

Reid Falls.

I bet a bear lives in this cave near Reid Falls!

In the afternoon, we were pretty hungry. Debbie stopped and got a Coke and popcorn. Popcorn never tasted so good! Meanwhile, Jon's opportunity to eat a Klondike Bar near the actual Klondike was just too good to pass up!