Alaska 8 Day Road Trip: Anchorage, Fairbanks, Glaciers, Wildlife & Denali over 1,000 Miles

the state of alaska also known as the last frontier is a wild and wonderful place full of snow-covered mountains rugged backcountry adventures and tons of different wildlife a trip to the state is one that you'll certainly never forget both my dad and i have had alaska on our bucket list so in june of 2021 exactly two years after our route 66 journey we found ourselves road tripping the state over the course of eight days during that time we saw the largest peak in the united states in denali national park drove the beautiful route from anchorage to seward soaked in the midnight sun and saw more wildlife than we could comprehend it was a magical experience and here's the full two hour video on that adventure be sure to let me know what you think in the comments and let's dive into it our journey to alaska began with our arrival at lax to board our flight to anchorage the flight left at 8 15 was around 5 hours long had a time change and we got into anchorage at around 12 30 just in time to grab our rental car and go to the hotel to end the first day we made it to our hotel it's one o'clock in the morning right now and it is still a little bit light outside for our first day in alaska we decided to spend the entire day exploring anchorage i made a video on some of my favorite spots in anchorage you can see in the description and here's how we spent the day our first stop brought us to resolution park as we were waiting for our turn to eat it snow city cafe you guys remember pops we just made it to anchorage last night and today we're exploring the city before starting our road trip north this area has a bronze statue of captain cook who explored what is now known as the cook inlet in 1778. [Music] look at someone put googly eyes on that statue from there we walked the coastal trail down to elderberry park and the oscar anderson house museum the museum wasn't open when we were there but i heard it's a great stop in the city so anchorage has a planet walk this is mars and you can actually walk and see all of the different planets and how far they are in relation to each other on a very condensed scale if you want to do this trail you can actually walk or bike from the sun to pluto and it takes about five and a half hours it says to walk there we just drove to a few of the closer ones take a walk through the solar system we are at stop number one the sun this is a fun little thing to do if you're traveling with kids in anchorage land of the midnight sun we are here in june which means almost 24 hours of daylight from the sun we went to venus and to earth on our way to snow city cafe by the time we made it back our table was ready do note that it's pretty expensive to park in downtown anchorage if you rent a car snow city cafe has been a staple in the city since 1998. it came highly recommended and i have to say it easily lived up to the hype they specialized in benedicts here but everything we had was good and we even wanted to go back for a second time crab cake benedict this is the kodiak the crab cake makes it crack cake is excellent this is the crab omelet look at this that is legit piece of crap just finished eating at snow city cafe huge recommendation in the city very good now we read an article that said we could see a moose within one hour so we're gonna try to see if we can find a moose find a booze from there our next stop was at the ship creek overlook where you can see massive salmon swimming in the water it's a really unique part of the city as it has world-class fishing and it's basically right in the middle of downtown anchorage when we were there the water was pretty murky so you couldn't see the salmon that great but you could tell how massive these fish truly were we went back a couple times to see if the water cleared up but it never really cleared up so this is pretty much the best view we got i can't even believe how big these fish were and i would love to see it in clear water just a little ways down from the ship's creek overlook is the king's landing area which is really popular for fishing and home to the ulu factory when you visit the ulu factory you can see them making ulu knives ulu knives are a traditional alaskan knife that were created by the indigenous people of alaska and have been used for thousands of years the knife shape makes it great for many different types of cutting applications and people from all over the world now use ulu knives my dad actually had one at his house so he was excited to see the factory when we went on our way to our next stop we decided to get some bear spray got a good bear spray man i guess if you've seen our other videos you know we like to stop at bass pros when we get a chance and it was fun to be able to see this massive one in alaska as well this stuff is pretty pricey but one don't want to meet a bear without it and two usually like the hotel lobby receptionist person can help me give it to somebody when i get on the airplane so that it's not a waste of money after getting our bear spray which we thankfully never had to use we made our way to the alaska native heritage center the alaska native heritage center is a living cultural center that's dedicated to the different people groups from alaska i had no idea what to expect when i visited this spot but my dad and i both said it was a highlight for our time in anchorage the interior didn't have a lot going on when we were there but the outside has a beautiful trail that takes you around to many different life-sized villages that they made showcasing what the many different cultural groups would have traditionally lived in there are six of these life-sized dwellings situated around the lake and you can take a walk to see all of them or you can actually take a guided tour at multiple times during the day my dad and i weren't there when a tour was being offered so we just walked around and saw them for ourselves and this is the dog sled the deep hole that goes with the dog sled help to guide it the more you know that's right this is the bones of a gray whale the last of these dwellings that we went in was the most impressive as it had a large interior and four different totem poles sitting around the center area the totem poles were incredibly intricate and they had a plaque telling you about each one after leaving the heritage center we made our way back into anchorage and stopped at the anchorage museum this museum is a well-known stop in the heart of anchorage and according to its website it's dedicated to studying and exploring the land people's art and history of alaska one of the best exhibits in the museum was an area dedicated to each of the different people groups and some of the artifacts from those groups there was a lot of stuff to see in this area and it was laid out beautifully there was also a pretty big and interactive kids area which would make it fun for families as well [Music] from the museum we made our way over to the co-book which you could walk to and which is famous for its tea and its donuts inside the store you'll find all sorts of alaskan gifts that you can buy as well as a samovar tea which the store is known for i took a bag of the tea home with me in the back of the store you'll find a donut shop which makes multiple types of old-fashioned donuts and some have even called this the best donuts in the state of alaska [Music] all right so we found this place that's supposedly the best donuts in america and that's a fire weed donut fireweed salmon bar and vanilla i'm going with fire weed to start with very fruity bit of an edge to it like a sour almost taste to it it's very nice never had a fireweed donut before all right so pops went with the fireweed this is the fresh out of the oven original vanilla though nice and warm that's where it's at but that is so good enough for popsicles getting donuts at that shop was one of the first unexpected highlights on this trip definitely do it after walking around downtown a little bit more we found this alaska sign which was pretty cool and then we decided to head over to dinner at moose's tooth pub and pizzeria moose's tooth is always busy as it's a favorite spot for residents and visitors alike in 2015 trip advisor said it was the third best pizza place in america the pizza menu has all sorts of crazy stuff on it ranging from reindeer sausage and mushrooms to roma tomatoes and prosciutto my dad and i both loved what we got and it's a fun spot in the city they have good beer here as well another hidden anchorage that was a great spot for food and pizza now we're back on the trail to try to see if we can find a moose going to get a moose picture right now it's funny to watch this back as we saw so many moose over our trip to alaska but we didn't see any on this first day we did head out towards earthquake park and the airport area which is where moose are normally at this area we're walking into definitely looks like it could be good for moose sighting while we didn't see any moose in earthquake park we did introduce to the alaska state bird the mosquito this area commemorates the crazy earthquake that they had in the 60s one of the biggest earthquakes in the united states history earthquake park is situated where an entire neighborhood used to be that slid into the ocean during the earthquake supposedly it was a 9.2 earthquake and it lasted almost 4 minutes there's a lot of plaques and information that tell you more about the earthquake plus there's some great views out towards the water [Music] we saw no moose but we got our first sighting of the alaskan mosquito that is exciting to see as you leave earthquake park be sure to keep your eyes peeled on the right as there's another turn off and that gives you a great view of downtown anchorage denali would be right there [Music] unfortunately there was too many clouds to see denali but we got spoiled later on on the trip this is a great quick stop for a photo of anchorage though [Music] from there we headed on to the end of the road which was at point warren's off park this ended up being one of my favorite spots in anchorage as it's a beautiful beach and the planes go right over you as they're landing at the airport we made it to the end of the drive super cool beach out here plus you can watch the planes come in it's cloudy but it's a nice view the plains are landing constantly as you're here basically every few minutes there's another plane landing when you make it down to the beach you'll see this old water tower that's been painted on and you can walk past it and get to another portion of the beach i don't know what this crazy graffiti thing is behind me but walking down this way you can get some pretty good views of anchorage out in the distance [Music] my dad and i walked all over the beach and explored for about 45 minutes while watching the planes land and just soaking it all in it was an awesome way to end our first day in anchorage you can't tell by the sky but it is 7 p.m right now it's not getting dark until 11 30 or 12 tonight but we've been going pretty hard today got the road trip starting tomorrow so that's the end of day one [Music] day two began with the first of our mini visits to fire island rustic bake shop this place was a great breakfast spot before heading out on our road trip they had all sorts of breakfast sandwiches and pastries that we could take along for the ride we got the breakfast sandwich and the focaccia and fire island rustic bake shop looks pretty sweet way to start the day looks pretty amazing [Music] the road trip is now officially starting as we set out on our journey it was a cloudy but nice day in anchorage our first stop was about 30 minutes away [Music] just following a seaplane on our drive our first stop on the road trip brought us to aklutna historical park this area has both russian orthodox history and denying a cultural history the denia were an early indigenous group in the inclutina area when we went you could walk around the outside of the church and take a short trail around the spirit houses in the back so this church right here is from the mid to late 1800s and it's the oldest standing building in the anchorage area after our short stop it was back on the road towards hatcher pass also just so you know in this video i'm trying my hardest with pronunciation i'm researching all of this online but in case i get something wrong i'm trying as we were driving i saw this beautiful old bridge with these massive peaks all around it so i decided to fly the drone a little bit before continuing on [Music] i mean how do you beat this view this is only 30 minutes outside of anchorage it just keeps getting better as we continue our drive as we continued our drive towards hatcher pass our goal was to get to the independence mine state historic park hatcher pass wasn't open this early in the season but the mine was so we wanted to go see it pops and i are up on hatcher pass and we're going to independence mine state historic park look at this amazing the old mining area is right below the mountains there one mile to the park because of when we went in the middle of june they hadn't opened the road all the way up to the park itself so you had to walk a mile along the road to get there that wasn't bad though as this was one of the most beautiful views we saw in the first few days of our time in alaska we are almost there look at these views behind us that's what i pictured when i thought of alaska pops why can't we drive up here exactly [Music] we've made it to the town i think that this parking lot is where you should be able to drive but for some reason we couldn't drive up here [Music] this is the visitor center but it is closed you guys check this out look at this city there's a waterfall back there oh my gosh mining operations in this area began in 1897 and it was mined all the way until the 1950s according to the history of this area they planned to actually reopen it again but then never did which is why the area is so well preserved with a lot of mining equipment and buildings still there i didn't expect there to be snow up here i got my trail running shoes on look at the remains of the mining town out in the distance wow there's like a waterfall and all sorts of crazy stuff this is really cool this area became a state park in the 1980s and it's one of the best preserved old ghost towns i've seen look at pop strolling down the center of the snow-covered mining town this area is called the hard rock trail which takes you out there [Music] look who we found our first alaskan wildlife looks like a marmot not a bad place to be a marmot if you make the drive up here from anchorage you definitely want to plan to spend some time here the views that you get of the surrounding mountains and down into the valley below you is just stunning what do you think pops this is amazing these ruins are are awesome you look at this because behind and then the background is just incredible and think that people actually up here mining and stuff just amazing to look at there's the assay office you take what you mind in there and they tell you whether it's worth anything or not can you even believe this spot it's insane the views right here after exploring the town for a while we started the one mile hike back to the car and on to our next spot so we could have stayed up here all day because i mean look at this it's incredible but we got more spots to see so we're heading on if you come in the summer you can also drive hatcher pass which takes you over towards tulkina where we're going tonight but unfortunately it's not open until july 1st usually so we have to go back down to the main road in order to continue on i'd love to come back and drive hatcher pass one of these days but it's only open for a few months out of the entire year it worked out all right for us because we had a few spots we wanted to hit in town anyway made it to the town of waselia i think it's called there's a museum we're gonna see and there's a lunch right there for lunch we stopped at crazy moose subs it was a good sandwich spot right in the middle of the town [Music] alaska chip company sour cream and chives tuna sandwich turkey sandwich that's where we had lunch right there and there's a museum we're going to visit right here the wasilla museum and visitor center was under renovations when we went so the inside didn't have a lot going on but they did have a cool outside area to see this is the independence mine area that we were at earlier today so they're actually in the process of moving from that museum this one behind me not a lot you can see right now but you can go see the historic old town site which is over there so let me check that out this town site was an effort by local historians to preserve many of the historic buildings that were being demolished around the area it features buildings that date back to 1917 including a one-room schoolhouse and a couple different cabins none of these buildings appeared to be open most of them have a bunch of stuff in them so i don't think they're open ever probably it looks like they have a time capsule that you can open in 2067. it's a good quick stop in the town especially if you're interested in the area's history after exploring for about 15 minutes we headed on to the next stop made it to our next stop in the town of westalia we are at the iditarod trail race headquarters the iditarod is one of the most famous races in the world so it was high on our list to visit while we were in the city it's the last great race on earth inside the headquarters they have a merchandise area where you can pick up shirts and hats and other souvenirs and there's a small museum which features different plaques and information on the winners and the race itself [Music] so at the museum they have a trophy room and they have a 30 minute video you can watch but the best part is that they have tickets and you can actually go on your own dog sled ride outside being able to ride on a summer training dog sled was a huge highlight for this museum plus the guy who has given us the ride had been in many iditarods himself so we got to talk to him all about the race and we got to interact with the dogs and learn how they pick the best dogs for the race [Music] i'm excited to go riding with the sled dogs [Music] after the ride they had some puppies that you could interact with as well this is this is josh and sunflower sunflowers on the left [Applause] [Music] so here is the root actually starts right around here and then they go all the way up to gnome that was a blast plus the guy whose father started the race was the one who took us on the ride with the dog sled now we're on our way to taukina from the museum it was about an hour ride to the turn-off for talkeetna in case anyone wonders what the official road trip song is for uh this trip the gambler it is not that good song although my son keeps singing it you gotta know when to hold them and you got no one to fold them yeah know when to run away and know when to walk hold this song let us know in the comments whether you're a fan of kenny rogers the gambler this is our first stop on the way to taukitna we're gonna have birch syrup i'm looking forward to trying this syrup there's birch mustard birch caramel really different than maple syrup if you're interested in learning about how they make birch syrup this is definitely the spot for you they have a 10 minute tour that'll walk you through the entire process with a video and a guide to answer questions plus at the end they do a tasting which is fun as well this is what like 70 of people want to put straight on their breakfast there's the entire process from sap to syrup before i came here i'd never even heard of birch syrup but i left with my own bottle [Music] this place is awesome definitely come grab some syrup to take home with you plus you can just try them all right here so why not we're on our way to taukida we've been looking for a moose for a couple days now i found a moose right here i don't know [Applause] this is what it looks like when they actually tap the tree and then the sap drains into it it's fun to see all the trees on display outside after learning about the birch syrup process from there we headed about a hundred feet up the road to a brewery about one minute away from the syrup place is denali brewing company originally located in downtown talkeetna they expanded operations here as the brewery grew they still have a brew pub in the city though and you'll see that later when we go there for dinner so we're at denali brewing company in taking alaska they have five different ipas that's what we're gonna try it was a fun brewery with some great beers and it's a good stop on the way to talkeetna talkeetna is a popular area to take a flight tour of denali national park so you'll see tons of planes taking off while you're there booked into our hotel the talkeetna inn it's a pretty tiny room but two minutes walk to downtown take what you can get first stop riverview park after leaving our hotel we headed over to riverview park just in case we get a view of denali [Music] the lady that checked us into the hotel said that one out of three visitors who come to alaska ever see denali so we probably won't see it either but it's out there somewhere we don't know what we're looking at we don't know if that could be mckinley denali in the clouds it's probably not bad that looks too small maybe it's that one they said you could see it from here that's the river park that we were just at and then that's downtown talkeetna right there so when we came up to alaska a bunch of people told us to come here so this is our first stop in talking to get some spinach bread if you research talkina you'll come across this spot don't worry it lives up to expectations all right pops is trying the famous spinach bread spinach bread it looks incredible wow as i would say you need to come here right now yeah is it two thumbs up this is excellent really good it's like a really good backspin i also give it two thumbs up i'd like to try it after trying the spinach bread we set out to explore the small town we thought about taking a flight to her but it was supposed to be cloudy the next few days so we figured it wouldn't be worth it [Music] you guys know i like to have pop stand and weird stuff this is one of the best one we've ever seen pizza wings this is a fun little art town with all sorts of shops and a lot of history [Music] nagaly's store is one of the most known spots in talkeetna it's been here since the 1920s fox wolverine wolf and a seal the store is pretty small but there are a few things to see pups would fit in that sled you gotta run behind it this town definitely has a little bit of everything even in antler outpost [Music] hey pops look there's another thing for you to stick your head in pops you can be auroradora you kinda look like a dora to me oh look it's aurora dora [Music] in every video josh makes me do this dopey thing of standing behind the cutout so i think it's your turn to stand behind a cut out here i found the perfect one here's your josh's moose girlfriend giving him a smooch nice the historic district there's the main street in the 16 1916 1960s wow just tense after exploring the town we headed over to the denali brewing company brew pub for dinner it was around 8 pm but it doesn't look like that with the light it's the kind of food you'd expect from an alaskan brew pub with halibut fish and chips and a prime rib sandwich it was definitely a good dinner riverfront park was on our walk back to the hotel so we headed over there again just in case there was a clear view of denali unfortunately there wasn't but it was still beautiful [Music] just finished dinner it is 9 30 at night the sun is still that high in the sky that's it for day number two so pops and i got one of the tiniest rooms we've had on our hotel on our road trips but it did come with the mosquito zapper so right there right here no right here it's right by your head there it is right here [Music] it's right by your head again mosquito hunting in our room nice you got two i think oh here's the third one and it turns out that's one of the greatest inventions ever we've killed about six in here i want to go outside and go mosquito hunting oh my gosh mosquito hunting in alaska all right that's really the end of day two morning day three we're doing our check before we leave talking to see if we can see denali here's our daily check i think we thought it's been every mountain because of the clouds but i think it must be right here [Applause] not too bad you can see a little bit definitely not as cloudy as it was yesterday no after soaking in the views of the river and some of the lower peaks we left talking and made our way towards denali national park [Music] our breakfast spot for today flying squirrel bakery and cafe talkeetna has a few good breakfast spots but people recommended flying squirrel which was halfway back to the main road so that's where we went fueling up for our drive to denali national park breakfast of champions intel keepna making our way towards denali and eventually healy tonight from talkeetna it's about two and a half hours drive to denali national park and there's not a lot going on here so fuel up when you get the chance on the way we saw this crazy looking shop called wall mics so we stopped for a few minutes to walk around this is about as eclectic as a shop can come and it was a fun little stop for a few minutes along our drive we just saw pop's favorite place in the whole trip wall mics oh mike's and now we're on to the next spot 122 miles to denali we just got gas not a lot to see on this ride so far but we're about 20 minutes from denali views south so hopefully we'll get lucky and maybe we'll be able to see the mountain during this portion of the drive it's relatively uneventful as the trees block your view most of the way we made it to the mckinley view lodge and shop which we thought was denali view south but it wasn't this is the view from denali south it would be right here but it's covered in clouds nice view of the rest of the alaska range though but no denali for us no denali today at least not yet uh we thought where we were stopping at was the viewpoint but it wasn't so here's the actual denali viewpoint south now that we've seen the sign denali is actually right here but so right there but you definitely can't see anything not a bad day though other than that we actually got a really clear day and i thought that maybe we'd be able to see it but that far in the distance it was completely covered in clouds this is a great turnout though there's lots of information about the mountains that you're looking at and some great views and even some things that let you zoom in on the mountains as well [Music] we got a beautiful day can't complain but no denali as we left the viewpoint the road continued to be covered in trees with just brief glimpses out towards the mountains another possible viewpoint of denali another strikeout this is a veterans memorial and the actual memorial is out there but there's a lot of information on alaska and how it played a part in the war effort so it's kind of cool to read this area is the alaska veterans memorial and if you get a chance to stop here you definitely should the memorial here is really stunning and it has a ton of information about the war that i never knew before i came my dad and i were the only ones here and i would have spent more time in this area as supposedly there was a trail to a historic cabin and a lake but we were heading to denali national park so i didn't want to waste any time getting there [Music] we made it to denali view north alas no denali for us today but still pretty incredible there's no denying denali but denali can deny you denali view north was our last major opportunity to see the mountain before heading into the national park [Music] as we made our way north we stumbled on the hurricane gulch bridge and we pulled off to take some photos this bridge was built in 1921 and it sits 290 feet above the creek below if you want to take some pictures of the bridge there's a turnout on the left as you go across it right after we crossed over the hurricane gulch bridge there's an awesome little path down to this viewpoint creating some iphone gold right here at this we're coming across this bridge right here i happen to look to the left tell me that's not the definition of alaska right there something you'll quickly realize about alaska is that when the tree line starts to break you get incredible views and there's not even turnouts for these views because they're so normal next we stumbled on igloo city which was supposed to be a hotel in the 1970s but it was never completed i wasn't able to explore a lot here as there was construction going on during the second half of the drive to denali national park the views were absolutely stunning the valley that you were in allowed you to see the mountains that surrounded you and it was a lot more of what i expected on the alaska drive plus this is also where we started to see a lot of wildlife right along the side of the road on the way to denali we got a moose sighting pops was the first to see it so he wins five dollars that was our bet i think it should be ten dollars because there's two yeah i'm not going to ruin this with my talking here's some shots of the moose pops and i are on a moose high that was so cool we're just sitting on the side of the road didn't even have to get out of the car or anything with a zoom lens and they just hung out for probably what five ten minutes easily that was really cool another moose sighting and there were two babies but babies went into the weeds there's the baby moose in the woods right there oh here they both come awesome wow oh look at he's got his one head sticking out over there in the weeds every single one of these shots was us just sitting in our car on the side of the road i was using a 70 to 300 lens so we were very far away from the moose and we didn't interfere with them at all it was pretty incredible as we sat here for about 20 minutes just watching the two babies interact with the mom i guess this is pretty normal for alaska as it was just my dad and i and one or two other cars sitting on the side of the road and everybody else was just going right by [Music] some of the louder cars did scare the small babies though eventually we said goodbye and we headed on to denali turning off on denali park road here's the slime welcome to denali we have made it two hour suggestions visitor center and sled dogs half day mountain vista drive the first 15 miles do some hiking full day take a bus ride or go on a hike denali baby all right we made it [Music] bob's did you ever think you were going to make it to denali national park oh my gosh never in my life but i think i'd be here i'm so excited we made it to the park now we're going gonna go explore my dad and i were ecstatic to be here this was a bucket list item for both of us and it was so cool to finally be in this famous park first stop denali visitor center the visitor center was closed because the pandemic but we were able to talk to a ranger and grab a map and brochure resting grizzly of denali national park yeah there you go this life-sized bear sculpture is famous in the park and there's even a webcam pointed out at 24 7 so you can see people interact with it near the visitor center there's also a store but our next order of business was to get ourselves tickets for the bus tour the following day i got a magnet pop's got a denali shirt if you're coming into the park to get a ticket you can go to the mercantile if the bus station is closed but the best thing to do is to get a ticket online because they do sell out we got the last available bus tickets that are going to take us out to the end of the park so tomorrow we're going official denali all the way up after getting lucky with the bus tickets we began the 15 miles that private cars can drive into the park this is our first stop in the park we're going to meet the sled dogs and then we're going out to the end which is savage river and we're gonna do a hike there if you see a wolf you have to get tough i don't know if you know how to get tough go away sled dog kennels to the right [Applause] this sled dog area is only open in the summer usually from june to september there's a training cart that they use for training the dogs when you visit here you can talk to the rangers interact with the dogs and understand the work that the dogs do to protect the wilderness area of denali [Music] this shows all the parks mushing trails during the winter [Music] hey donkey don't like me you don't like me i give you a nice pet now if you're interested in why they still use sled dogs in denali national park there's a ton of information about this on the national park website basically it boils down to tradition reliability and access and you should definitely read about it online i'll leave a link in the description you may ask why are some dogs and pens it's good management to have a variety of housing options available depending on the needs of the dogs they are rotated so there you go it's the canine rangers for the park after spending time with the sled dogs we continued our way into the park you'll see how amazing the views get as you get deeper into the park on the bus tour that we take but if you can only do the first 15 miles it's a great introduction to denali national park eventually we made it to the end of where we could drive in the park which was the savage river area there's a few popular hiking trails out here that we decided to do [Music] this is our last stop of the day in denali and definitely only our second stop in the park but we are going out on the savage river loop and the savage alpine trail up there this is the end of where you can drive so after that spot you have to take a bus [Music] crossing paths of the locals cheap marmay ground squirrel and however you say that tarmacan so there's the savage river loop the savage alpine and then there's actually the savage bar trail so if you have a wheelchair there is a trail here for you the savage alpine trail is four miles to where it ends at another bus stop but because the shuttle buses weren't running we decided we weren't going to go the entire way pop's climbing in denali national park we figured we'd just go up as far as we wanted and then we just turned around when we were ready to go back [Music] awesome views out over savage river feels like some rain might be coming in though this trail gains elevation quickly on a set of steep stone stairs that take you basically right up the mountain [Music] so definitely this hike is to go up over the ridge and then down the other side and then you take the shuttle back where we started but there's no shuttle right now so you'd have to walk the road for like three miles so we're basically just going up a little ways to get some views and heading back down i think we made it to snow level so right there is the official high point that's where we're gonna go but it's already starting to rain on us and you can see that that's dark so this is the official high point for us on the savage river trail we're gonna go back down to the loop and then head out of the park pops already has a bad knee so he's a trooper for getting up this far especially going downhill on the steep rocks in the rain i hope to one day come back and do this trail and many other trails in the park after doing this small amount it looked like it'd be pretty amazing to be able to get up high and to see some real views out over the park if you're deciding between this trail and the mount healey trail the ranger told us that this trail is better because the mount healy trail only allows you to see for like the last third of it so it's basically walking through the forest where this trail gives you views right from the beginning there's the bus that we're taking tomorrow [Music] got a little bit of rain on the way down [Music] finish the savage alpine trail now we're having now on the savage river loop heading out on the savage river trail in the rain pops is getting ready for a legit thunderstorm right now the savage river loop is the most popular trail in denali national park it is basically no elevation and lots of nice views so note that the parking is often full here [Music] this trail we're doing is a loop so we go out this way and then there's a bridge and then we get to come back on the other side this part is really pretty starting to narrow a little bit as we head back i've never been to scotland but every time i've seen the highlands it kind of looks like this so if you're from scotland let me know if this looks like scotland in the comments still got a little snow on the trail still heading back into the canyon it's getting wet 100 worth it you got no wind to hold them knowing is running away the cannon continues to narrow and eventually you'll get to the bridge that takes you across the other side and back towards your car this is the official halfway point of the savage river trail beautiful trail not hard but beautiful it really is a stunning trail with the river flowing right next to you and the mountains all around you it's great for an entire family as there's no elevation and you can take it as fast or slow as you like pops and i both agree that this is a pretty random trail it's uh just walking along a river to a bridge and then you walk back but that being said a random trail and denali it's more beautiful than most trails in other parks as we began the hike back the sun finally started to come out for us and got rid of the rain it was nice to see some of these views with a little bit of sun you can't really hear my dad because of the wind but he's basically saying that this is a good wheelchair accessible portion of the trail but if you have kind of an off-road chair a little bit with the bigger tires you could probably go a lot further down this trail eventually we made it back to the second parking area and then walked along the road to get back to where we parked our car [Music] made it back from our savage river hike now we're heading out to healy which is where we're staying for the night there are not any big towns near the national park and so once you make it out to the entrance it's about 15 miles to healy which is one of the best places to stay while you're here there are a few hotels restaurants and gift shops right outside of the national park if you want to stay closer as well on the way to our hotel in healy we found this awesome bridge you guys know how much i like bridges so we had to stop if only a train was going through here right now that would be awesome our last stop tonight is in the town of healy where they have the replica of the inhale wild bus after 10 more minutes of driving we made it to 49th state brewing [Music] there it is the bus from into the wild this is not the actual bus but it's the replica that they made for the movie what's cool about this is that you can actually go in it too you're free to walk into the bus explore it there's lots of information inside of it and it's designed to look like what it would have looked like in the movie i'd read the book a few years before this so i was really interested in seeing the bus when we were in alaska the original bus was removed from the trail and supposedly it's going to be in a museum in fairbanks sometime in the future but it wasn't there when we were there [Music] if you've read the book or you've seen the movie and you like it this is definitely something that's really fun to see here my dad and i also decided that this would be a pretty good place for dinner as it was massive and there was tons of people there they make their own beer and they have lots of fun pub food and it was definitely one of the better dinners we had after we left anchorage you're going big tonight absolutely i told you i wanted a burger it looks like smashed potatoes that's a killer burger right there [Music] pop's eating another burger on our trip it's a win never had a broker with mashed potatoes and it's nice this is a fun spot really good food awesome vibe here there's the old bus that you can see there's darts and disc golf and fires cool way to end the day if you're in the area check it out that is the end of day three it's six am we're checking out of our hotel and we're heading to denali to do the eight hour bus ride we stayed in the town of healey the night before which is about a 15 minute drive from the entrance to denali national park we got up early for our tour and then grabbed coffee at black bear coffee before heading in if you're planning on doing this as part of your alaska trip i would definitely recommend booking in advance we grabbed tickets the day before and got lucky to get the last two tickets for the entire day so don't be like us and book in advance [Music] don't know what to expect from this bus tour but it is eight hours long so we're gonna spend the full day eight hours maybe a few animals while these look like school buses they were actually relatively comfortable i mean as comfortable as anything can be when you're in it all day the tour started with a few empty spots but by the second stop we were completely full our adventure is about to begin eight hours buses are wheelchair accessible as well back of the bus has good leg room but it's very noisy there are a few different types of buses you can take to get into the park the green bus is basically just a transit bus that takes you all the way out to mile 66 in the visitor center at the end that's what most of the other buses do as well but some of them have narrated tours and they give you snacks and things like that so if you're interested in something that provides food you can go with one of those but we really enjoyed our green bus tour and definitely didn't feel like we missed out on anything the first 15 miles of the tour is anticlimactic as this is the part that private vehicles can drive and my dad and i drove it the day before once you pass the savage river trailhead the entire rest of the drive is only accessible by these tour buses the next 15 miles provided an introduction to the beautiful landscape with sparse foliage and some rivers that you crossed we didn't stop as there was no wildlife to see on this section which means we are halfway no animals yet the bus stops twice on the way out for rest stops at bathrooms where you can get out and look around this one's at mile 30 and then the second one's at mile 53. it was nice to get out and stretch our legs and take some photos but believe me when i say that this drive just keeps getting better and better as you go further back make sure you note the bus stop schedule if you get off these buses are technically hop on and hop off so if you wanted to stay longer at a certain area then you can get off the bus our driver told us that because they're pretty packed though it can be a few hours and a few different buses that you have to wait in order to find a spot they recommend you go all the way to the end and then if there's a spot you want to spend more time at you can get off on the way back it stops at the same two rest stops on the way back during this section we had our first wildlife viewing experience a bear the bear was just walking down the center of the road so all the buses approached them very slowly he definitely didn't care that we were there at all and he walked down the center of the road for probably 10 minutes what's funny is that they call it wildlife sharing where each bus takes a turn getting close to the animal so that the people on that bus can take photos as we said goodbye to the bear we headed over the sable pass and started to get great views of the alaskan range the road is basically 1.5 lanes the entire way so we have to pull over in order to let other buses pass i honestly expected the area to be a lot more forested but you had amazing views pretty much the entire drive during this section we saw a lone caribou and a lone moose [Music] as you leave this area and start heading up to the polychrome overlook the drive gets a little bit more sketchy and it definitely scared my dad as he doesn't like drops on the edge you're basically just driving a dirt road with a good drop on one side and amazing views of the alaskan range [Music] eventually you reach the polychrome overlook at mile 46 and the bus stops for a 5 to 10 minute walk around to take in the views big pups this is amazing i love it i love the colors out there it's beautiful the polychrome overlook is one of my favorite places we saw on the drive it's impossible to do it justice in this video but the views here are incredible i was basically running around as fast as i could to try to make the most of my 10 minutes i climbed to a little overlook to get some different views and just soaked it all in i'm sure there's probably some great hiking opportunities here if you wanted to stop but again you never know when you're going to get the next bus back the hop-on and hop-off comments are just about the green bus i don't know how the other tour buses handle this quick stop at the polychrome overlook now we're getting back on the bus as we left we saw some sheep walking on the hillside and then as we came around the other side of the hill we got some great views of them walking out on the ledge my dad and i talked to a lot of people who had done this trip during our time in alaska and most people talked about how good the wildlife was obviously you never know what you're gonna get but it seems like you usually get a pretty good experience almost immediately after we left the sheep we were greeted with our first view of denali we were blown away and so excited but just wait the footage is about to get a lot better [Music] coming down the hill to mile 53 in the second rest stop the whole bus was really excited with anticipation about potentially seeing a great view of denali after the stop this is our second rest stop for bathroom break and a couple photos not gonna try to pronounce it there's even a small shop here and there's some animal horns you can take pictures with this is so cool out here it feels incredibly remote and the mountains are just stunning it's a long ride but it has been worth it our driver rushed us through this rest stop but no one was complaining as he promised us the denali was going to be worth it surprisingly it's actually pretty difficult to see denali because of how high it is and how many clouds surround the mountain peak just the chance that we might be able to get a good shot of it was enough for everybody to go fast and get back on the bus this section as you head up towards stony hill overlook at mile 62 and then down to the visitor center at mile 66 is easily the best of the entire trip denali wow best view incredible it's hard to overstate how epic this is only one third of all people who go to denali get to see the mountain this view is probably one of the top five most beautiful places i've ever photographed in my life pops see in denali this is incredible how could you get a better pay than this my gosh it's incredible i don't think the bus normally stops to get out here but our driver let us get out since the view was so good that day pops and i got incredibly lucky only a third of all people who come get to see this and we got this view man incredible after piling back in the bus we only had four miles left to drive to mile 66 in the eilson visitor center [Music] along the way we got greeted by another friend it was pretty incredible as we were the only bus there and we got to see the bear interact with the surroundings and the road including pooping on it as we made our way forward we got to sit and watch this bear for a good 7 to 10 minutes and it was a highlight on the trip for sure [Music] just check out how remote the landscape is in this last shot and the sense of scale with the bear in it [Music] from there we rounded the bend and made it to the eilson visitor center what do you think pups crazy even with a little bit of clouds it's still incredibly beautiful yeah you're complaining about this view a little bit of clouds look at the look at the where our clouds anywhere [Music] less is more at this visitor center and that is a hundred percent true what do you need a visitor center for when you got this view the visitor center had all the normal stuff at it plaques information there was a ranger you could talk to bathrooms you can use but we only had 30 minutes that we could explore before we had to be back on the bus so we decided to head out on a few of the short trails that they have near the visitor center [Music] tundra trail loop pops and i are heading out on the trail quarter of a mile if i came out here again i'd find a way to spend more time here pops is heading off to hike denali here he goes on his way to denali the trail was just a short little path that took you to a few different viewpoints but i mean look at the area what do you want anchorage and elsewhere there were clouds everywhere we didn't know whether we should do it but i'm glad we uh jumped in and did it because we get this incredible view this is probably one of the best views i've ever seen in a national park if not the best view i've ever seen [Music] in the 15 minutes it took us to get here denali was already getting clouds again so you can see how quickly the clouds roll in and change your view here's just some more shots looking out over this stunning landscape [Music] there's the visitor center nestled in that little cliff right there [Music] [Music] do remember that when you load up on the bus you got three and a half hours to get back to your car and definitely make sure you bring some food for the ride as there was no food or water sold at the visitor center [Music] a bunch of champions right here but for some reason pop's got cookies with this i ain't got no cookies oh man you got more crackers or something the ride back was long with two brief breaks at the same rest stops we saw a few animals on the way back but basically just drove all the way back to the bus depot my dad and i weren't planning on doing this when we set up the initial trip and it was easily a top three highlight for both of us during our time in alaska saying goodbye to our bus and it is on to fairbanks so pops and i both agree that was an absolutely incredible experience one of the best you can have in a national park but it's hard to know whether you're gonna have the same experience as us so just if you see it's going to be a clear day or something like that you have to do that almost like a life-changing national park experience yeah and and maybe you'll get lucky like we were i mean they say one in three people see denali and you know we took a chance and went out there and just a huge payoff fairbanks from denali national park it's about two hours to get to fairbanks we didn't do a lot of stops because we were pretty tired from the day already we did stop in the town of ninana because we wanted to see the railroad museum but unfortunately it was still under construction and it wasn't really open yet there's a few other things to see in the town as well like a replica boat and a statue of the alaska territorial guard this is the famous tripod in the town they actually put it in the river when it's frozen over and then they take bets on the wind it's gonna fall into the river each year so it's what the town's known for it's kind of fun correction they put it on the ice and then they take bets on when it's gonna thaw and fall into the river from there we just push forward the rest of the way to fairbanks pops and i just made it to fairbanks and someone on our trip told us that we needed to check out the great alaskan salmon bake so that's our first stop salmon bake a true alaskan experience awaits you [Music] this is already a cool start to the experience we're in like an old mine or something this salmon bake brings locals and visitors alike to pioneer park where they make all sorts of crazy food and you can just sit and hang out in the open air [Music] this is the first round it's a salad any salad you wanted to make and then we have a crazy thing called the mother lode that we are splitting so we got halibut cod alaskan fried chicken baked salmon and prime rib what could it be better than that this is a crazy dinner we always have crazy dinners though oh yeah let's dig in don't worry it also came with a side of mac and cheese and baked beans as well you know pops and i go big on these trips after finishing dinner we explored the pioneer park area which has a lot to see hey look pops is gonna climb up on the wooden trout [Laughter] that's a true cowboy right there the first area we were in had a lot of information on gold and mining history from there we headed over to the small replica town that had a pioneer museum pops has been reading books on pioneers and gold mining so we're going to the pioneer museum we only had 30 minutes before this place closed and pops basically closed it down by talking to the docents the entire time we were there like i said he's been super interested in the history of this area and i'm sure he'll leave some book recommendations in the comments if you're interested as well it is a pretty great museum and they do have a lot of stuff for you to see ranging from pioneer women to the history of the town to all sorts of gold mining stuff on the way out you can also see the ss na nana which is a famous boat from fairbanks history [Music] we explored a little bit more of pioneer park and then we headed back to our hotel and that was the end of day four [Music] day five began with a trip to the cookie jar a well-loved breakfast spot in fairbanks it started as a small bakery over 30 years ago and it's been making amazing food and pastries since then even being featured on diners drive-ins and dives tell me you have seen a bigger cinnamon roll than that i think it's gigantic it's bigger than pop's head it is literally as big as your head we went with the cinnamon roll and some traditional breakfast plates and it was a great way to start our day in fairbanks fun little diner spot in the city now we're going to explore fairbanks our first stop on our day of exploring brought us to the university of alaska fairbanks the sign says that denali's out there somewhere but not for us at least we got to see it yesterday the reason we went to the university was to visit the museum of the north once you pull up you'll notice that the museum has stunning architecture from the outside this is one of the best museums in alaska and according to its website its mission is to collect natural artistic and cultural heritage items from alaska check out this boulder it's jade that is a huge thing of jade when you enter the main exhibit area you'll be greeted by a large bear and a lot of information on all the different wildlife you can see in alaska please touch crazy polar bear skull the exhibit is broken down into different regions of alaska each region showcases its cultural history wildlife art and anything else of note this is an animal bladder or stomach that was used to hold drinking water this shows the climbing history of denali all the different routes that people take you can see that most often each year only 50 percent of people who try to climax succeed the other major exhibit in the museum focuses on alaskan art honestly you could spend a lot of time in this museum if you're interested in this type of thing that was a great museum if you're interested in alaska history now we're heading out to view the pipeline maybe do some gold panning [Music] we're about 15 minutes north of fairbanks at a viewpoint for the alaskan pipeline the trans-alaska pipeline goes from northern alaska all the way down to the port of valdez it's 800 miles in length this is one of the best areas to view it from close to a major city you'll see that when we drove back to anchorage we saw the pipeline many times along that drive as well but most people don't drive that way when they're going between anchorage and fairbanks it's pretty interesting to get up close to it and to read about how it works and how it's cleaned this also shows the pipeline [Music] these things are called pigs and they go through the pipeline as it's running with the oil to try to see if there's any issues with the pipeline and help the oil flow better the sign says that as the oil travels through here it's traveling at 100 degrees temperature since we're taking a different route back to anchorage tomorrow we're actually going to be traveling along the pipeline the entire way down [Music] pops has been reading all these books about prospectors and gold and everything he's all excited about it so i think we're gonna go try our hand at gold panning across the street before we head on i have no idea what to expect with this but one thing's for sure i'm going to find more gold than pop spines [Music] gold daughters ended up being a really fun little spot they sell different bags that have guaranteed gold in them so you can go out and you can pan with the dirt that they have and then you can use your guaranteed gold bag pop's dirt is guaranteed to have gold in it but we also can just take dirt from over there and pan it as well [Music] this is definitely not big enough for the gold you're gonna get yeah i wonder if they install larger ones yeah i'm gonna use that trash can and fill it up with enough water to cover that dirt after getting situated one of the workers came over and gave us a complete demonstration on how to do gold panning they basically told us we're going to mess it up the first time we do it so we need to get practice dirt in our pan please scoop me up some with actual gold in it can you give me that big thick all right pops would see it what'd you get where's the where's the flake at gold i think so so you should just move up here and become a prospector yeah this is a gold flake this is definitely a fun experience especially if you have a family to get a test panty for gold and i think that our little pile that we bought from the gift shop is going to have a lot more in it all right here's the moment of truth let us know if you think pops or i am gonna find more gold in our bag there's lots of gold in there it's sparkling this competition took place after we had already been gold panning for like 45 minutes so this was our last pan of the day what's what happens with the 20 bag it's an extreme concentration right now i'll keep working on it but look at that whoa there's pops gold it wouldn't be a good prospector if i can't open my own bag usually i don't get it from a bag it's true oh my god there's nothing in there [Music] it's a nice rock there there you can see the flakes there starting to come through that's crazy how they stay behind like that there's a gold flecks right there we're about to get our gold weights so make sure you leave a comment whether you think pops or i had more gold so this little area is called liars lane and you can take a picture with any of these signs the show you've been to places you haven't been do you want to take a picture standing on the top of it you know it was lots a lot sunnier in the top of denali than i expected it yesterday we were looking at it today we're on top of it welcome to the land of the midnight sun that one's actually true there's the gold that i found right there gonna get dried off and see how much i got when you're done panning you bring your violin and they use a torch to evaporate all the water and then they weigh how much you got after weighing mine she said i have around ten dollars worth of gold so you did pretty good i'm gonna go you had eleven dollars oh what pop said more gold than me he's an expert no way i think i i think i need to see uh some credentials for whether uh expert right here dang eleven dollars so i guess if you were betting on pops you won you got one dollar worth ten percent more for the gold than me that was a really fun spot if you have a family definitely check it out after panning for gold we made our way over to the fountainhead antique auto museum i heard all about this autumn museum before i even got to alaska and i was excited to see it as it's often voted one of the best auto museums in the world i haven't been to many of them but i wouldn't debate that claim as it was a pretty incredible display of cars the museum focuses on pre-world war ii automobiles and it's said to have over 95 in its collection one of the most interesting pieces in the collection is the first automobile that was ever in alaska this was made by robert shelton in the early 1900s and he made it to try to impress a young lady he was interested in the story says that he didn't win her over but he became an automotive pioneer in alaska [Music] there's also many period fashion displays which are situated around the cars as well overall it was a great museum in fairbanks [Music] leaving the auto museum we drove through downtown fairbanks saw the alaska sign and made our way to our next stop running reindeer ranch [Music] in order to visit running reindeer ranch you must book a tour in advance as it is a private residence they have over a dozen reindeer here and you can take a tour to learn all about the reindeer and then get to interact with them yourself the experience takes a few hours with the first half being an introduction to learn more about the reindeer and to meet each one of them [Music] i'm walking a reindeer right now the second half of the experience is the real highlight though as you get to walk all throughout the beautiful property interact with the reindeer walk alongside them and watch them eating the different foliage before you ask the reason some of them have missing fur patches is because they were shedding their winter coats when we were there [Music] i didn't know that this was something that i needed to do but it was a lot of fun to interact with the animals like this plus at the end of the walk they all jump in the little pond which was funny as well pops you're surrounded by reindeer [Music] after saying goodbye to the reindeer it was a one and a half hour drive to the china hot springs which was our home for the night this place is truly in the middle of nowhere as the road you're driving dead ends at the resort the reason we came out here was for the natural hot springs and the ice museum in the winter it's also a great place to see the northern lights we checked into the hotel which left a little to be desired and then we walked around the property to explore these ponds are for duck and moose only this property has a big old dragon sculpture for some reason which is awesome this property is pretty cool as there's a lot of stuff to do out here and there's sculptures and art to see as you walk around plus the hot springs are pretty big but more on that later and they have a giant plane near the ice museum this is the aurora ice museum that we're touring in about an hour heading out the tour of the ice museum and get an appletini [Music] be sure to book a ticket to this in advance as they were selling out when we were there we met our guide and he supplied us with gloves and parkas and it was time to enter the museum the ice museum is beautiful with many different large pieces of ice art on display our guide gave us a short tour talking about many of the different pieces and then just gave us time to roam around on our own it's pretty small but it's still a lot of fun to see the tickets come with or without a drink which is an appletini and is served at the ice bar in an ice glass you're free to wander around for a little while and then when you're done you find your way to the bar to get your drink [Music] in the back of the museum there's four rooms that you can actually book like a hotel to sleep in while you're there no one was booked in them so we got to see each one this one has a loft bed up there as well with little stairs to get to it so our guide told us that each of these are hotel rooms that cost around 600 a night uh i don't know how comfortable they would be but they come with a hotel in the other a room in the other hotel as well but christmas tree there's a snowman and then it's a pretty cool bed after exploring the hotel the only thing left was for me to get my appletini our guide was also our bartender and he said that he actually made these glasses as well apple tv out of an ice glass at an ice bar cheers i savored my drink at the ice bar before we made our way out of the ice museum [Music] when you're coming outside after getting your drink you break it and you make a wish hopefully it comes true that was a lot of fun small little museum but it's a great thing to do when you're in the fairbanks area we're gonna go see if we can get dinner around its spot and then go in the hot springs the only place that was open for dinner when we were here was the restaurant in the lobby so we grabbed fish and chips and then made our way out to the hot springs finished dinner heading to the hot springs just so you know it is almost nine o'clock at night and that's the sun doesn't set until 12 30 tonight the hot springs here were a huge highlight for the alaska trip it was a beautiful area to sit and explore and the hot springs were massive probably six to eight normal pool size plus there were different temperature pockets so some parts were really hot some parts were a little cooler you could find the perfect temperature and you could just chill and relax living your best life it is nine o'clock at night in alaska this is the brightness find pups right there after soaking for about 45 minutes we decided to call it a day even though it's gonna be bright for another four hours it's about 9 30 still bright outside we got a long drive tomorrow so that is the end of day five day six leaving china hot springs and today is a long driving day back to anchorage probably seven eight maybe even nine hours of driving [Music] we made it to north pole we got bagels coffee we are greeted with candy canes if you come to the town of north pole santa claus's house is here as well unfortunately it is not open and we're going to hike a glacier so we're not waiting but you can see santa claus house in the north pole the original santa claus house was built by the miller family in 1952 then when the highway location changed they built this new one in 1972. it's become a popular destination for people to visit from all over the world and one of the highlights is the large santa that they have outside sleigh parking only all others will be mistletoed i don't know what that means but i don't think i want to be mistletoed the pops is six seven there's santa behind him let's see if your name is on that naughty or nice list right there this santa was built in the 1960s and was transported here in four pieces so it could fit under the highway overpasses it was deteriorating so it was rehabbed and it was put up in 1983 and still on display today this is just a really fun stop for the whole family and there's reindeer you can see outside as well the drive from fairbanks to anchorage going this way is 427 miles and it's around seven and a half hours to make the drive of course you know us we stopped a lot along the way this drive heading south is beautiful as you're going along the tanana river and you have the alaska range right out in front of you there are multiple pull offs so keep your eyes peeled and they give you great views of the river with the mountains all of these shots are from two separate turnouts which were within five to ten minutes of each other along the drive it was such a clear day i wish we could have seen denali from here because maybe we would have been able to see the peak be sure that if you're driving this route that you just look for these pull offs because and if it's clear you can see for days continuing on we made it to the town of delta junction for our first stop we made it to big delta state historic park where there's an old roadhouse and a few other things to see this is definitely a great stop if you're into the history of alaska this area served as a meeting grounds for traders travelers and eventually the military this house it's a sod roof housing so you can plant stuff on top of it there's many different historic buildings all around the property that you can go into that have exhibits and all sorts of different tools and things that they would have used the main building here was called rika's road house and it served visitors from 1913 to 1947. when the house is open you can go in and see what it would have looked like it's still furnished like it would have been in the 1920s to the 1930s it's a beautiful old historic building to see from this era and when you go upstairs there's also a shop you can look at as well [Music] if you're looking for a good place to have lunch on the drive it's hard to beat this spot i mean look at that river view out there free rock throwing area don't throw rocks at bears or your sister or your brother but you can throw them into the water this is a public use cabin there's a lot of these all around alaska you can actually go online to book them so if you want to stay in the ferryman's public use cabin which would be pretty epic check it out online as you leave the park be sure to go down near the water as you can get a great view looking back towards the bridge and the trans-alaska pipeline that crosses the water here this little state park is a great stop there's lots of history beautiful views of the river and you can even see the oil pipeline bridge if you want to see that as well we're in the town of delta junction at the visitor center there's some big mosquitoes here too in order to pass through this area the mosquitoes needed a sacrifice so we left pups it's for a worthy cause do note if you come in june there are a lot of mosquitoes me and pops got a lot of bites already i like that this mosquito even has red paint on the bottom i guess for the blood we've donated a lot of blood to the mosquitoes in alaska i don't know what this sign is referring to the buffalo will destroy your car i guess the end of the alaskan highway we didn't drive this but that'd be a cool road trip in the future 422 miles there was also a small visitor center here with an exhibit on the wildlife and there was someone who was working there who could answer questions on the area from there we grabbed lunch at the only place that was open in town it's a cool little roadside spot i don't know what uh ronald mcdonald has to do with alaska and groan but he is here on display this is the only place to eat in town at least today we got a locally grown buffalo western burger fowlerburg as we said goodbye to delta junction and headed south the fuse really started to get stunning i never expected that we'd have this clear of a day while driving to be able to see the entire alaska range like this there were multiple turn offs during this section and we definitely took them to see the views here the road crossed over the trans-alaska pipeline and there was a parking area where you could pull off and you could read more about it and see the pipeline stretch out in front of you [Music] we only stopped at each of these turnouts for a few minutes since we had a long drive ahead of us but we saw a moose beautiful views and lots of history along the way [Music] this viewpoint we pulled off at says that each year from april to august the delta bison herd is often viewable from this spot we didn't see any bison here but look at that view as you continue along this drive note that delta junction is one of the last places to get gas and food there's a few small towns after that but you can never really count on anything being open and so definitely fill up at delta junction also there are some sections of the road where the trees are narrow alongside of you and watch out for moose as one jumped out in front of us while we were driving the next section we crossed was an area called rainbow ridge these pictures don't do it justice as you need to hike up to be able to see a great view of the ridge but look it up online it's pretty cool as you leave the rainbow ridge area you're leaving the alaska range behind you so all the best views would be heading north instead of south that being said this area of alaska is beautiful as well but nothing compares to the alaska range [Music] the next major point of interest is summit lake and the small town that's on its shores this lake seems like it goes on forever and you're driving alongside it for a while after that we encountered a lot of construction so our progress slowed for a while until we got to the junction for highway 1 and highway 4. we're about 35 minutes from the glacier so we've been driving for about six hours still incredible views but as you can tell lots of bugs so it's pretty hard to shoot through the windshield anymore that's for sure as you turn on highway one don't forget to look behind you as you get an amazing view of mount drum there's a pull out and you definitely should take it to take a few pictures as you can no doubt see the views continue to be amazing as you're driving on highway 1 towards anchorage we took the opportunity to pull out whenever we could but we were racing time to get to the glacier for the last tour of the day hopefully i can go back and drive this road again as i'd love to soak in the views a little bit more [Music] as you near the matanuska glacier you'll see the famous lionhead rock come into view eventually after passing the rock you'll make it to the turn-off for the matanuska glacier from here you travel down a dirt road and across a few bridges in order to get to the glacier check-in area this check-in building is as far as you can drive without a ticket got our tickets and we are ready to go so this glacier is privately owned so you can't actually even get close to it without paying for a tour so we booked the tour which was 65 right now and we're gonna drive out and meet our guide and start the hike oh my gosh look at what we just saw we have made it to the glacier incredibly beautiful just getting to this viewpoint is worth the price of admission it is stunning to see the glacier from here you can see people climbing on the glacier right there the next order of business was to check in for our tour get our helmets and try on our crampons first thing we're doing is trying to find a helmet for pop's massive head we got our crampons and our helmets and we're getting ready to go out after meeting up with our guide there was about 10 of us that set out on the group tour it's three miles round trip to get to the glacier hike on it and get back sit down on our hiked up glacier along the way our guide stopped often to tell us about the area and the topography i will say that i learned a ton about glaciers while i was here and it was definitely a benefit of the tour there's areas where they let us touch the water areas where we talked about the ice overall really cool experience with the guide [Music] as you make your way out in the beginning it's basically just walking on mud with many great views of the glacier in the distance i'm sure this changes all the time depending on the season that you visit though i heard that in the winter they actually have to take you up with snowmobiles to the glacier in order to start the hike even before we made it to the glacier i was blown away by how beautiful this trail was with the mountains that surrounded us in the valley we were in in some areas like this one there were literal mountains of ice and you could push away the dirt and it was clear to look into [Music] things are about to get serious we were putting on micro spikes pop's first time ever putting micro spikes on after about a mile of walking we left the mud behind and we were on ice the whole rest of the way to the glacier this is why we put the micro spikes on so we could get used to walking on the ice and also be prepared for when the ice was a lot more intense later on because of a feature of the glacier this water actually flows uphill over there yeah i don't know how a lot of the science of the glaciers work but our guide told us a lot of cool stuff so i wanted to share that in the video my dad continued to complain about the size of his helmet as we walked towards the glacier by this time we were walking on legit ice and you had to be a lot more careful with your steps if you have one i'd recommend bringing a hiking pole as it makes this part of the hike and coming back easier it was crazy to be able to get a sense of scale for the glacier when you saw little people climbing around in front of you during this part of the trail we began walking along a crevasse and this was one of the most beautiful things we saw on our glacier hike our guide gave us a decent amount of time here to take photos [Music] we're almost out on the actual glacier we've been walking on the ice but that seems even more cool [Music] the glacier has a little waterfall right there there were a few parts of the walk where you had to navigate small little creeks after navigating a small hill at the beginning of the glacier that ended up being the end point for our hike this glacier is 27 miles long and in some sections it's four miles wide so when we got to the end point for our hike it was like point zero zero one percent of the glacier we made it to the top of the glacier i don't know where my dad's excitement was on that last clip but here's the clip of me being excited but you can't hear anything i'm saying because the wind now we're making our way back down this is uh highly recommended that was a lot of fun and it's cool to be on the picture the first time i've ever been on a glacier like that little pockets of water and water flow on the way down the hike feels a lot more sketchy with the micro spikes and the steep ice this is where a hiking pole comes in handy if you bring one we got to take a different route on the way back and that was another highlight for this trip [Music] there's also a more intense tour which those people are doing which includes rappelling and other things on the glacier if i come back again i definitely look at doing one of the more intense hikes here as i think it'd be cool to go through some of the crevasses and to do some repelling however this was a great introduction to the glacier i definitely wasn't disappointed [Music] right now we're about to fill up our water bottle from the glacial waterfall [Music] [Applause] [Music] fresh glacial water it's nice it's freezing cold too pop's getting that glacial water bob's traversing a waterfall after letting the whole group fill up their water bottles and make it across the traverse it was time to start heading back on our way back we took a path that allowed us to come right in front of the face of the glacier this is where we got some of the best views and best pictures plus it was just crazy to be able to see the glacier from this angle and to notice how big it truly was oh my gosh you guys look at this that's so epic that's the ridge that we just came down right here now we are greeted with this view ta-da you can place your water on the glacier it's wonderful refreshing so nice i asked our guide why the glacier gives off a blue hue and she said it's because the density of the ice absorbs all the other colors of the light except for blue eventually we had to say goodbye to the glacier and start the long walk back here are a few more clips from the hike back pops review that was an amazing experience it was the hike was a little easier than i thought it would be uh but great learning about glaciers and what they're about and yeah i recommend it really do pops gives it two thumbs up absolutely as we were heading back to anchorage we saw a pull out on the right hand side that gave us great views back towards the glacier from here you could really comprehend how big the matanuska glacier is also take your time on the way back to anchorage as this was such a beautiful drive for us along the way we even got to stop and see a moose in the water i wish we wouldn't have already been driving for like eight hours as i would have loved to have spent more time on this drive back to anchorage but both of us were pretty wiped out so we kind of just made the drive fast and got back to our hotel made it back to the hotel after like 10 or 11 hours of driving and that is the end of day six first stop today dark horse coffee then we're heading out to the town of seward and another glacier hike if you're staying in the downtown area darkhorse is a great spot to stop for breakfast the drive from anchorage to seward is about two and a half hours each way and is often voted one of the most beautiful drives in the united states i've gone on a lot of road trips and driven many beautiful drives and this was easily a top three drive for me as well starting out the road goes along the turnigan arm with many different pullouts to get views of the water and the mountains behind it this is the first major point of interest on our drive beluga point beluga point is probably the most popular pull out on this drive and it's often used for seeing beluga whales during the summer if you have the time on the ride there's also lots of different pullouts that lead to different hiking trails and historic ghost towns and things like that unfortunately for us we couldn't do that on this trip but i do hope to come back in the future this road has been absolutely incredible on this drive down to seward we're only about i don't know 30 or 40 miles in but the whole thing has been just like this with mountains and coastline so really cool [Applause] our next pullout brought us to another unnamed viewpoint that had a lot of information on the mining history in the area and of course it had stunning views as well [Music] as we continued driving we stopped at a few more pull-outs and then entered the chugach national forest here the drive starts to leave the turn-again arm as you continue down towards seward we were making our way down to seward but we pivoted and we're going to take a boat tour of the portage glacier before heading on once you pass the wildlife conservation center you'll see a turn that will take you towards portage glacier road signs will direct you to where the cruises leave from the tours normally only run in the summer from the beginning of june to the end of september when we went there are five different tours you could take throughout the day but be sure to check their schedule online before you go you can also book tickets in advance but we just bought them when we got there [Music] i think like everything in alaska is gonna be pretty epic we arrived about 10 minutes before the 10 30 tour got our tickets boarded onto the boat and we set out on the journey they go over all the safety information with you when you get on the boat and we actually had a guide from the national forest service who is there telling us about the glacier in the surrounding area it was great to have a guide like this as they were extremely knowledgeable and shared a ton of great information with us one of the first things they shared is that this valley with the lake that we were on would have been where the glacier was from 1911 to 1939 it has receded a ton over the last 100 years the first area we went by with the boat was a beautiful section with waterfalls coming down from the snow melt above i didn't expect to see any waterfalls on our boat ride and it was certainly a fun surprise to see these after about 5-10 minutes the glacier comes into view it takes a good to 15-20 minutes to get all the way over there which is why the tour is around an hour long we even passed a few more waterfalls falling into the glacial lake on our way over eventually our crews made it to the front of the portage glacier check it out it is the portage [Music] glacier i asked the guide about hiking to the glacier and he said that the normal view from the hike is from across the water so you don't actually get very close during the hike if you're wanting to get as close as possible the boat tour is probably the best way there's also another more traditional waterfall to the left of the glacier as well that we got to see there's an awesome waterfall out there it looks like it's flowing really well with all the mist and then it just kind of ends down here at the beach next to the glacier each of the three glaciers we saw in alaska were stunning but this one was definitely unique as it ended in a pretty large lake the portage glacier is about 6 miles in length this is crazy when you consider that the matanuska glacier was almost 27 miles in length [Music] our boat tour just basically made a slow cruise along the front of the glacier for about 15 minutes one of the fun things about this trip if you have a family is that our guide went by a few of the smaller pieces of ice that were floating in the water and grabbed one of them to bring up for each of us to try willow excuse me this is a piece of glacier ice this would be the first street tastes like the purest water you can get after trying some glacial ice our tour began to head back to shore [Music] heading back from our boat tour to the glacier great experience really fun way to get out on the water so close to anchorage we're heading on [Music] i feel like we say this with a review of everything we've done but that was absolutely awesome as well so if you want a quick way to see a glacier while you're here do that we're heading on to a wildlife conservation then down to seward after our boat tour of portage glacier we headed back about one mile up the road to the wildlife conservation center this had just opened for the day and it came as a highly recommended spot in anchorage area according to their website this non-profit is dedicated to conservation research education and animal care i've been to many places like this over my time traveling and this is easily the best i've ever seen the animals all have massive enclosures with the bear area supposedly being around 18 acres i can easily say that the animals here were the most active i've ever seen in an enclosed area you can make your trip here as short or as long as you like as you can drive your car around to the different areas or you can just walk around and see it all [Music] we only stayed for about 45 minutes since we still had a long drive to seward and we were planning on doing some hiking down there [Music] if you have a family or you're interested in alaskan wildlife this is definitely a must-see stop though eventually we made our way out of the park and we're back on our way to seward while it doesn't have the water the first half of the drive had it has towering peaks on both sides of you if you're staying in the anchorage area for a couple days it's hard to beat a drive like this as it introduces you into the beauty of alaska made it to the town of seward we're gonna get some lunch and explore a little bit and then go hike another glacier unfortunately due to staffing issues most of the restaurants in the downtown area were closed and the ones that were open were over two hours to wait because of that we just walked around the downtown area a little bit to see the shops and the murals and then we headed down towards the waterfront park the waterfront park area is amazing as it looks out over resurrection bay with some incredible views we talked to a couple on our denali bus ride who had done a boat tour of the kenai fjords national park and they said it was amazing their two are left out of seward and i wish i would have been able to do this while i was here but i'll have to come back there's also some information on the iditarod trail here since it originally went from seward all the way to gnome alaska it doesn't start here anymore but it's still cool to see [Music] so basically every restaurant in the town of seward is closed today or has an hour and a half wait so we're gonna go to the harbor see if maybe we can find some place to eat or it might be at subway [Music] yeah so everything was booked so subway it is but we just needed some food for our hike so go with what you got the trailhead for exit glacier is located about 15 minutes from the town of seward it's a popular trailhead in the area so you probably want to plan to get there early on a weekend in the summer came around this bend about a mile and a half from the glacier trailhead and there is an overlook of the glacier awesome this viewpoint is only five to seven minutes drive from the trailhead so don't miss it as you make your way there probably one of the best views you can get of the harding ice field without making the long climb to the top the sign says that at one point in time this entire area up to like right here would have been ice at the last ice age [Music] after soaking in the viewpoint we got back in our car and headed towards the trailhead pops and i are doing one of our last things on this road trip and that's the hike up to exit glacier it's about two miles round trip and 400 feet of elevation gain unfortunately the nature center was closed but there was a ranger you could talk to this trail provides us with the glacier view which is the wheelchair accessible portion and then also the glacier overlook which is not wheelchair accessible and it's right there so we're heading out to glacier view first and then the glacier overlook what's interesting is as you were driving up it shows these dates which tell you where the ice was at specific times so in 1917 the ice was right here in order to visit this national park this is the only accessible area that you don't need a boat or a plane to get to so if you want to experience it this is it without a lot of work this first portion of the trail the wheelchair accessible part is not paved but it's nice and flat we made it to the river and this is where the glacier would have been in 1926. once this first portion starts following the river it becomes a really beautiful alaskan trail and here's where the glacier was in 1951. there's our first view on the trail of the exit glacier this view is just something that you see as you're walking along the river to the official viewpoint when i was taking these clips we hadn't actually made it to the official viewpoint yet this glacier received its name because it was the exit point for the first official crossing of the harding ice field in 1968. we have officially made it to the glacier view there's exit glacier and the harding ice field so we're just going to like right here but there's a trail all the way up to there too if you're only looking for a short trail in the area or if you're using a wheelchair this is a great way to experience the glacier as we come around this bend we are back on the main trail so when this shelter that we were in was built in 1987 the glacier was right here unobstructed view of the glacier now it's like a half mile away so here's the break off to the harding ice field trail which is 8.2 miles round trip and a bunch of elevations so much more strenuous trail but we're just staying on the easy trail today [Music] going left to the outwash plain and then up to the glacier overlook never mind that party is washed out and closed so on to the glacier overlook so the out wash is washed out here's where the glacier was in 1961. this trail is easy to follow and there's lots of signs directing you which way to go [Music] we're heading to outwash plane again round two on the outwash plane which is where the glaciers receded from unfortunately there's too much water so you need to be able to get all the way over there to get a view of the glacier and we cannot get there right now but definitely come see if you can when you come visit know what you can do though is that you can pick up a piece of the glacier and you can throw it at your dad this is a really cool place to explore with all the huge chunks of ice now tell me this in any national park have you ever seen pieces of a glacier helping to form the base of a of a trail sign never back on the trail to the glacier overlook we have now started the uphill portion of the hike which is 400 feet to the overlook during the uphill portion you start to pass the tree line and you get some great views back towards the river and the valley that you're in we're not even to the overlook yet but look at that wow this sign shows all the things i've been pointing out to you guys but those are all the years and this is what it looks like now i mean this glacier would have gone way back there [Music] i never thought i'd say this but it's hot in alaska during this section you start getting good views of the glacier [Music] obviously made it as you can see this is a pretty popular hike and there was a lot of people here with us at overlook this overlook is really beautiful and there's lots of great information here on the plaques plus there was a ranger who you could talk to here is where the glacier would have been in 2005. so i thought that was the overlook but it looks like the overlook is right there that first overlook is where most people turned around but there was an established path to a closer overlook that was only about a five minute walk this is so crazy i never thought i would see three glaciers in three different ways like a 24 hour alaska you're pretty incredible pops just pointed this out look at those monstrous pieces that have fallen off right there those are probably the size of a car coming right off after getting to this viewpoint this is probably one of the best two mile trails i've ever done and one last time here is where the glacier was in 2010 is now 20 21. all right pops what do you think this is amazing another different way of seeing a glacier this one's incredible it's sad to see how far it has retreated but it's still incredibly beautiful two thumbs up two thumbs up you guys look there's a waterfall right there pops and i are making our way back down and then we're heading on to anchorage for a last meal on our trip hopefully seafood if you're planning a trip like this consider planning an extra day in seward that's probably what i would have done if i could do it again because that way i could have taken a boat out tomorrow and see more of the national park the parts that's only accessible by a boat but as you can see we fit a lot into this trip so i'm not complaining putting this away and we're taking the two hour drive back to anchorage the two and a half hour drive back to anchorage confirmed how much i need to explore this area more eventually we're back in downtown anchorage for our last dinner of the trip at glacier brew house this is a popular spot so i got reservations earlier in the day so we didn't have to wait it was absolutely packed when we went there so reservations are probably a good idea for dinner all right so we're back in anchorage and pops went big with the fresh catch salmon this is copper river king salmon we drove right through there i'm hoping for the best right through copper river look at that it's even a lighter color that is amazing wow i'm not disappointed at all yeah fresh catch salmon in alaska last night going big i went with the herb crested halibut which was also amazing as well confirming our love for the anchorage food scene leaving dinner in downtown anchorage the only thing left on this trip is we're gonna watch the sunset at 11 45 at night it's 10 30 at night and we are heading out to see if we can catch the sunset don't mind our really dirty car but sunset's at 11 40. when thinking of our sunset spot we decided to go back to point warren's off which was one of our favorite places in anchorage there were a lot of other people with us but it's a big beach so it was easy to spread out made it down to the beach we hung out for our first day in anchorage it's about 10 45 11 right now and hopefully this sunset happens within the next 30 minutes or so this beach is just cool with large driftwood pieces and planes flying over top of you plus walking around the corner gives you a good view of downtown anchorage as well if you have a zoom lens we watched the freight boats go in and out watched the planes come down and just enjoyed soaking in the last sunset of our trip [Music] it ended up being pretty cloudy but it still gave way some beautiful views especially right at the end of sunset currently 11 17 and sitting here watching the sunset still looks like our last light is right around 11 37. that's pretty cool to be able to still see the sunset at 11 37 at night that's it for our alaska road trip thanks so much for hanging out with us over the last seven days be sure to like and subscribe and we will see you on the next video you

Channel: Through My Lens

Views: 767,090

Rating: 4.9159842 out of 5

Keywords: Alaska, alaska road trip, fairbanks to anchorage, denali

Id: JN11JClxdA4

Length: 119min 1sec (7141 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 25 2021