ALASKA BEAR WATCH ITINERARY
Alaska is special in more ways than just one. We were scheduled to set out for Alaska the morning after my PhD defense. It was also the start of our National Park counting journey. While looking at all these parks on the map and reading up about them, I realized that Alaska housed 8 of America’s 59 (the count is up to 61 in 2019) National Parks. The parks in southern Alaska look very close on a map, and it was only when we started planning, we found out that many of these parks weren’t even approachable by road. The idea of this remote untouched beauty filled us with excitement.
Day 0: We flew from New York to Anchorage and arrived at 11 PM in the night.
Day 1: Picked up our rental car early morning. We were a little early for the pick up, so we decided to walk into this diner, Village Inn, for breakfast. It was a wonderful find, and we ate here again a week later, before flying out of Anchorage! We drove to Matanuska Glacier for glacier hiking. After a few hours treading ice, we drove to Denali National Park.
Day 2 &3: We spent the next two days at Denali National Park. At the end of Day 3, we headed back to Anchorage. We stayed at a beautiful AirBnb, where we discovered that our host was a Rutgers University alum! I had just defended my PhD at the same school!
Day 4 & 5: We took an early morning flight to Lake Clark National Park via Clark Air.
Day 6: This was the day to visit Katmai National Park.
Day 7: We drove early to Seward to visit the last National Park on this trip – Kenai Fjords National Park. The drive is one of the best in the country and truly splendid! After a five-hour cruise, we drove back to Anchorage.
Day 8: Breakfast at Village Inn, again! Flew back to EWR at Noon.