Dates: August 18 – 22
Trip type: 4 Adventures Men
Disclaimer #1 None of us are into professional photography so any pictures shared here are very basic from our phones (some are screenshots from longer videos)
Disclaimer #2 I'm far from a writer, the TR is written over the course of 3 weeks so please mind grammar errors or typos,
Alaska has been on my bucket list for a few years without even knowing what specific I would do once I actually get there,
So when I found good rewards tickets back in Feb I went for it and booked Sunday Aug 18 EWR-ANC for 15k UA points & Thursday Aug 22 ANC-EWR for 29k UA points, this should give me 4 full days on the ground ( I wasn’t able to stay over Shabes)
When May June came around and I started getting serious on making plans on a detailed itinerary I noticed that this will be extremely challenging, because A, attractions are so vast and so far geographically from each other B, prices seemed to be way more than I have budgeted for ( I simply didn’t know this before I booked) that’s when my research when into overdrive because we had to keep the budget below 3k PP while still check to boxes and get to see what AK has to offer (quite a challenge) shoutout to ddf member
@TravelMoshe who did his trip same time and was very helpful,
I’m not going to go thru all the different plans that were drafted and then scrapped all for different reasons but ill share the final itinerary we adopted (what we thought was final until we got to Newark airport )
We decided we must do the 3 following excursions,
1. visit the remote town of Barrow in Northern Alaska.
(Barrow is a Eskimo tribal native town with a very rough lifestyle they hunt whales for food and there are polar bears in the area, it is accessible only by plane and is beyond the artic circle i wont do a full wiki on them here but definitely a very exotic but time consuming destination for a AK trip, highly recommend if you want something really exotic)
2. A bearviewning tour into Lake Clark National Park.
3. We had to do something glacier related.
So based on the above must do's, this was the detailed itinerary we finalized on,
Sunday 8/18
3:40 united flight with a
7:30 PM arrival to ANC, rent a car and pickup order at Walmart then head straight out 3 hours to Soldotna for the overnight
Monday 8/199:00 AM Talon air to Lake Clark National Park for 6 hour fishing & bear viewing trip
3:00 PM head to Portage Glacier hike
7:00 PM head to Wasila for overnight
Tuesday 8/209:00 AM 7 hour Knik Glacier ATV & Packrafting
4:00 PM head towards Talkeetna for the overnight
Wednesday 8/21 9:00 AM chill in town then head to ANC return car for a 2:00 flight to Barrow
4:30 PM arrive to Barrow take a tour around town and overnight at local inn
Thursday 8/22 10:00 AM take a 4x4 tour that takes you to the northern most tip on the USA and perhaps get lucky with polar bears sighting
5:00 take flight back to ANC
8:30 flight back to EWR
However things changed and here is my actual TR - enjoy
Motza Shabes (8/17) I see an email from United that bad weather might impact our departure and they're offering free rescheduling, but naturally I didn’t take it seriously and moved on with the plans,
8/18 Sunday
We arrive to Newark and check in the Home Depot box full of food including frozen marinated ready to grill meat etc. and head to the gate for an on-time departure, we even caught a Mincha at the gate (little did I know ill be davening Mariv & Shachris there too)
Plane departs the gate and starts taxiing then comes to holding position and I hear the engines shutting down (alarms in my head instantly go off)
It Isn’t before long that the caption gets on the PA system and announces, bad weather up in Toronto area on our flight path and heading in our direction, we’ll be sitting there for max 2 hours to see if it clears up or we'll have to head back to gate due to restrictions on max hours the crew can operate (taking a longer detour route to avoid the weather system wasn’t an option either because it was a 737 and it uses the max fuel already to get us to all the way to ANC)
Siting there on the tarmac i instantly booked with UA points (fully refundable) the next days fight out of EWR because i knew once this is canceled they’ll rebook everyone on the next day flight and we wanted to secure our seats, and in the same time i started planning contingency plans as I knew we we'll be delayed and it'll absolutely impact our itinerary if we don't leave EWR by midnight,
I immediately contacted Talon Air and started working with them to get my 9am tour pushed off to at least 3pm (figured ill head directly from ANC airport to the tour) I also called and cancelled my lodging for the first night and got a full refund,
After 2 hours we ended up turning back to the gate and for the next 17 hours United kept on adding 1 hour, 3 hours, and on and on .. by 3 AM they updated the departure to 7:30AM
We grabbed some cots we discovered behind a wall and turned the gate and surrounding areas into a shelter type of setting
finally, after a long sleepless night by 8:30am we were airborne with an updated 11:30am arrival time,
Sitting there in seat 28A I activated my little situation room using Wi-Fi and WhatsApp, the task was to rearrange the entire trip because with the 17hr delay everything got messed up all tours needed to be contacted and see availability and replan the entire itinerary accordingly, luckily a good friend of mine in what I called ground control was making the calls while I was guiding him thru WhatsApp, canceling Airbnb’s changing dates for tours, canceling Talon Air in its entirety because they couldn't accommodate another date (luckily they refunded me minus the credit card fee) and rebooking with some other company for another day,
we finally landed in ANC around 11:45am and went straight into action mode and decided to make a move and restructure the entire trip,
We immediately split up in 4
1 of us went to rent the car so we can use it as storage for anything we don’t need on our Barrow trip
1 stayed with the bags at the curb,
1 headed to Walmart with Uber to buy quickly ice box and other essentials
and 1 went to Alaska Air desk to change our tickets to Barrow from the original planed Wednesday flight to today’s 2:30 flight (less than 3 hours after we landed)
We quickly met up in the parking garage with our rented car, we left almost everything (too much stuff) in the car and quickly filled up the backpacks with basic essentials for the next 24 hours, and in the rush with most of our focus on warm clothes we forgot about the food and headed straight to the gate,
Flight to Barrow was clam and quiet, 80% of passengers were local natives traveling home after a day in the city, 10% looked like researchers or scientists on assignments and the rest like us were tourist,
The seat I selected was calculated based on the flight path and i intended to be able to see the Denali as we would fly directly over it on the way up north, however the clouds were thick so that didn’t work out on this flight,
We Finaly landed in Barrow AK, around 5:30 Monday afternoon
Was interesting to observe the checked bags being off loaded from this flight, it contained bags of rice, towel paper, water bottles and other basic products you don’t usually see on the conveyer belt anywhere else, as locals fly to Anchorage to stock up on basic essentials,
Upon exiting down the stairs, a freezing wind with snow flurries woke me up from my 24hr+ long trip when I realized that I’m finally in Alaska!!
The terminal is a warehouse type of setup with TSA check-in in and baggage claim all cramped into one big room you can’t believe that you are in a USA airport
We exited what they call terminal and we find ourselves on a muddy unpaved road with ATV’s heavy Pickup trucks and tractors zooming by on the road surrounded by old huts and rundown houses, my friends turn to me and ask me where are we going from here ?! And I’m like “I have no clue” ….
I pull up my reservation confirmation email and ask a local where is King Eider Inn, he points me to the house opposite the airport right there he says..
We walked over removed our shoes upon entry (due to the mud allover town they have this rule) and checked into a very cozy decent clean place,
Finaly after 30 hours of travel, we had a decent place to collect ourselves …
Then one of us mentioned the word we avoided till now…. FOOD… and we all looked at each other’s and literally started laughing for 5 mins nonstop… We unpacked all our backpacks and noticed we were very short on food (in the rush while packing up at the car we left most food behind in ANC while focusing mainly on warm clothes)
Here is a list of what we did end up bringing along more less, 4 sesame sticks breads, 5 noodle soups, pack of cheese, some chocolate, small pack of pastries, 2 tuna cans & some crackers,
first, we immediately cut the sticks in half, so we right there had 8 bread sticks instead of 4 😊
2 of us volunteered to walk over to the local market and got a jar of peanut butter $6.29, jar of Olives $4.89 Lay's potato chips bag for $9.19
this is what you do when you have no plates
We ate and finally went to bed 9 pm local time (closing the shades tight as the sun only goes under partially from 12-3am)
We were up every 2 hours and at 1:30 AM took a picture of how night sky looks in Barrow in mid-August.
8/20 Tuesday
7:00 AM
We woke up bright and early to a freezing 30 degrees and pretty constant snow but no accumulations, we strolled with coffee on the road, but it was freezing, and we were also a bit afraid of bears because the inn we stayed had warnings about polar bears (which we mainly took as a tourist trap) but still felt uncomfortable
We drank lots of black coffee hung around in lobby where we got to meet some interesting people, 2 pilots of a Canadian ice braker ship, a researcher returning from a 2 week assignment in a remote outpost & A helicopter pilot that taxies researchers around the area.
10:00 AM
To our good luck the day cleared out and warmed up remarkably,
We were picked up at our place by the tour guide of the only official tour in town that can take you all the way to Point Barrow with a huge 4x4 type of 10 passenger truck for a tour all the way to the northern tip of the USA to the artic ocean (only accessible with a Native Eskimo & a 4x4)
The tour first traveled thru town passing Eskimo town in its full glory, he gave us full rundown of life in this remote town pretty fascinating to hear and see it firsthand, then on the edge of town we hit the stony beach filled with whale bones skulls and whale carcass (the locals hunt whales twice a year and dump the remains out of town on the beach so the Polar bears get attracted to them and not to town)
It wasn’t long before the driver stopped and said, there you have a mom and 2 cubs.. and yes, there the mighty white polar bears where out in the wild feeding on some type of marine life … then another one and another one.. we ended up seeing 5 polar bears in pretty close proximity in the safety of our big truck that had a gun on board,
As the truck got closer to them, they took a swim in the ocean… after a short time they reappeared from the ocean it was a surreal feeling being able to be so close to 5 polar bears (3 adults & 2 cubs) in the wild we also spent some time looking at those mighty piles of whale carcass all over the beach,
bear tracks visible in the sand
12:00 pm
we were back at our motel and had noodle soup, lounged relaxed and chatted with other tourists
Walked around town again and walked over to airport for our 5:00 flight back to ANC
So, we had nothing to check in but our beloved precious and expensive peanut butter was still halfway full and I wasn’t going to throw it away …
So I head over to the check in and ask I would like to check in this jar of peanut butter… the whole room was rolling and smiling… first they said it’s not possible then someone form TSA showed up with a huge empty box and offered me to package it for us and so we did I would assume we were the first in history to check in a box with a peanut butter on a flight 😊
On our flight back I again took the seat that will give me clear view of the Denali and this time we were lucky as the skies were clear and we passed the denial at 37000’ with a clear view of her majestic beauty (a paid plane tour like this can cost $500+)
7:00 PM
we arrived back to ANC headed straight to our YUKON DENALI storage container by AVIS to continue our trip (while eating whatever we can nosh on till dinner )
Right when we opened the door of the vehicle we knew that our meat is spoiled (this was 17 hours on a hot plane in EWR + 8 hours in Flight + 30 hours in a ice box in a car (was 55 degrees outside) hit the road towards Wasilla AK, stopped in Walmart bought fruits, salmon fish, Frozen Ezekiel bread, veggies pots and more and headed to our Airbnb where we cooked the fish and had the first full meal in a few days,
A little about our Airbnb
Its a retired DC-9 cargo plane converted into the most exotic stay I’ve ever been to, even more exciting was that its located right on a bush plane runway surrounded by beautiful mountains views, we had one plane come in while we were sitting on the wind turned into deck firepit
Wednesday 8/21
6:00 AM
early morning as we need to be 8:30 in Palmer for our 7 Hour ATV + packrafting tour in Knik glacier lake
We did Shachris on the plane wing packed up some omelet sandwiches and hit the road
9:00
we hit the ATV trial in UTV’s & ATV’s was only the 4 us with a guide so we were able to go on our own pace
The weather was a steady light rain and cool but given that we were provided full head to toe rain gear it was actually fun riding in the rain (I fi needed to choose a day for rain this was it)
After 2+ hours of the wildest ATV I’ve done, we reached the Knik glacier river where we stopped our guide started a small campfire gave us hot coffee, noshed and then inflated our rafts and headed out to kayak surrounded by floating ice from the glacier … this is out of NatGeo scene in every sense a unreal nature experience,
On the way back given the amount of rain and the intense trial I flipped over with my UTV I was able to free myself out and found myself alone on a trial without phone service, was only after 15 mins that they noticed I’m missing and came back to rescue me
Luckily, no injuries or damage to the UTV we were able to get back without issues
4:00
After visiting a local stream full of salmon heading upstream, we headed out for a long drive to Soldotna
What should’ve been a beautiful drive was rainy tired and boring, we finally arrived in town by 8:00 did some more Walmart shopping and arrived at our ocean front Airbnb, cooked some more fish and went to bed
Thursday 8/22
5:00 AM
early morning wakeup Daven and made avocado sandwiches and headed to the nearby airport for a 7:00 AM 6 hours Seaplane / Boat / Bearviewng tour to lake Clark National Park
All ill say is that from 7:45 to 1:00 I was in a surreal environment
A beautiful sunny warm day on a huge pristine lake on small rowboat type of craft with a small engine no cell phone service surrounded by majestic snow top mountains and bears galore fishing on salmon nonstop the bears got as close as 5 feet from our boat but kept to their business of eating thre are no wards to describe this wild relaxing environment
We witnessed 2 adults bears chasing each other’s and get into a fight what we saw exceeded our expectations by far
1:00 PM
we were back at our car and started to make our way towards Anchorage this time around the way was beautiful and sunny we stopped at few nice spots on the way and even at a local roadside
Kretchma for a beer
4:00
we arrived at the Portage Glacier where we ate more fish from a can and some bread then headed out on a nice easy hike to the glacier very easy and enjoyable
from there we drove right back to ANC for our 8:30 flight back home, where on the flight we were treated midflight with a view of the northern lights as a bonus 😊 ( I guess united wanted to make up on their flight mess)
Many people we met on the flight back to EWR where the same people who were on the delayed flight on Monday, the only difference was that now everyone was smiling and happy and sharing exciting stories of their trip experiences, as a bonus i also got to bump into
@Something Fishy who was on our flight.
What I learned is that when you travel, as much as you plan ahead you always have to travel with the mindset of being able to adopt easily to any events that might happen, this can make all the difference between a successful trip and a disastrous trip.
We ended up doing everything that was on our original itinerary and stayed within our budget too despite facing additional unforeseen charges as result of the delay, the delay also saved us one night of lodging (what we did end up losing was some weight)
Over the years I’ve done a nice number of adventures trips always using DDF as main source, but never yet did a TR,
because Alaska planning was difficult for me i figured as a giving back to the DDF community for all I’ve learned from them over the years I’ll do a detailed TR so it can perhaps help someone down the road.
here is a detailed cost breakdown PP
Links to TR mentioned tours and lodging
Barrow INN
https://www.kingeider.net/Barrow Tour
https://71northtours.com/Wasilla airplane Airbnb
https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/908681227751910215?guests=1&adults=1&s=67&unique_share_id=f876adbe-898b-4fba-88e5-6c4f5f6f7c62Palmer ATV -
https://goalaska907.com/Airbnb Soldotna area
https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/617240424153759455?viralityEntryPoint=1&s=76Bearview seaplance tour -
https://riverrocklodge.net/ I hope you guys enjoy it and are able to use it for future travel planning.
