State of Eight: A Journey to all 8 of Alaska's National Parks

for years I'd look at the map of Alaska and of its size and its remoteness I've been obsessed with visiting national parks for years and out of the sixty US national parks eight of them were in Alaska however looking at Alaska's Matt let me perplexed how the hell would I get to all eight of Alaska's national parks five out of the eight had no roads and for them were visited by less people in the year than an average Walmart gets in a week there's no tour that you can book to visit them all would require a real adventure but isn't that what elastic [Applause] [Music] this is a story about a two-year journey to visit all eight of Alaska's national parks [Music] [Music] this hike three miles of a mountain well we've been walking through the forest for like well like over an hour and it's been a very shady and very rainy and then all of a sudden we just walked out into this wide open expanse and it's so bright and so refreshing the Mendenhall Glacier gives us our first glimpse of the Alaskan terrain and it's quickly changing weather from Juneau hop on a plane bus and boat get us to Glacier Bay National Park [Music] a glacially carved Bay of Southeast Alaska is home to a variety of life bustling with activity enormous Alaskan sea lions can be seen sunbathing on Islands the sea lion seen here have been unsuccessful or are too immature to find females on an outer edge of the bay and congregate here on South marble island [Music] seabirds can be seen throughout the bay making their homes on the cliffs of the bays in many heads [Music] the big brown bear fishing industry if there's another one big brown bear very exciting two pair do you say very exciting very exciting as we get closer to the glaciers in the north iceberg start to dot the bay that have fallen off from glacial Calvin [Music] the glaciers that make up the namesake of the park stand 200 feet high and are constantly moving in Calvin to put that into perspective that's taller than Disney's Cinderella Castle alright I'll try to act natural ready yes [Laughter] [Music] [Music] after a boat ride back to Juneau we hop on a plane and head north the least visited national park in the country [Music] gates of the Arctic isn't just remote its enormous and over seven million acres of land it's roughly the same size of Switzerland but with only 282 permanent residents [Music] but after our guide cancels our trip is in doubt so we had our plans change a little bit yesterday in the case the article was cancelled so we have been chasing down with Fairbanks that I think we could charter our own claim and wants the very last stop you know sure enough I have a chance it's gonna be $15 at least really fine find us a pilot going straight to the gates the Artic are sounds really no tour group no polar bears let's hope you don't see any fun factor we're gonna go there try in say a couple hours to the flight line [Music] and with no notice we grab our stuff and head up to north of the Arctic Circle to the gates of the Arctic National Park maybe copilot for this afternoon is everybody please sit down ready for a bumpy ride if you veer off the right of the airplane you'll be moving past my point looks like it's been getting the bear matter no already do one common dogging but I'll make it pretty hard we land in a small mountain lunk village called Ana tudyk pass we're finally here we just got off a very bumpy plane ride got to go through some amazing mountain passes and we're here I feel like I've been dreaming of this this place of 200 people in the middle of the Arctic unbelievable let's go explore it let's see what's here we head to the ranger station and surprise the Ranger who hasn't seen anyone all week it wasn't sure he'd see any more people this season how many people come to this park will come through this station you think like annually [Music] to get to the park you just leave the small town and quickly enter a valley surrounded by giant snowy and jagged mountains this place is awesome I don't know what else to say it's absolutely beautiful and and I don't think I'll ever be in a place like this it's so cool it's so friggin cool [Music] [Music] there's a pretty good wind chill right now dog howling I was hitting you in the face because it's really really cool [Music] three hours later we leave gates of the Arctic in the small town of Anna Tuvok heading off the board the train south to our next stop Denali National Park [Music] cutting through the rugged Alaskan wilderness this quick 120 mile train ride south west southwest of Fairbanks to Denali is home to an abundance of interior wildlife like a female moose chewing on some shrubs shoe horn hairs and red squirrels getting a few more things ready for the winter if you go a little deeper in the trails and look over the lake you can see beavers putting their finishing touches on a dam [Music] we enter the park just as the leaves are turning and right before the winter takes brass so we're in Denali National Park so this part has some amazing wildlife whether it's bears moose ptarmigans you name it this park has some of the best animals of a national park you'll ever see grizzly bears also known as North American brown bears are seen the distance foraging for a few more meals before the snow arrives [Music] although known as carnivores they have the diet of omnivores and eat both plants and animals of various sizes the roads through the park park for the faint of heart often windy rugged narrow luckily you won't be the one driving so only the National Park is allowed to traverse the roads at Mile sixty-six we stop at the Visitor Center and get an amazing view of the massive mountain all people formerly known as Mount McKinley the mountain is so large the top is rarely seen below the clouds as it blocks the weather systems base to tip mountain Denali is the largest mountain on earth stretching nearly 3.5 miles into the sky to put that into perspective here's a person here's a person next to the Empire State Building it takes 14 Empire State building's stacked based attempt to reach the height of Mount Denali it takes nearly three weeks to climb to the top of the mountain but I found that out from Google not from experience nearly 400 miles south place Kenai Fjords the last national partner would visit this year we hop on the train outside Denali despite our early luck with weather we are reminded quickly that we are in the heart of the area's rainy season [Music] we arrive late in Anchorage take an early-morning car rides towards seward alaska gateway to kidnap yours to meet up with our kayaking torque [Music] as the Sun comes out from the early morning rain a bald eagle marks the entrance to the national park the clouds from the rain still hug the ocean mountains as the Sun rises over kidnaps courts [Music] okay how it's easy those few awards no I the fjords are home to many seabirds including my personal favorite the tufted and horned puffins weighing as much as 1,500 pounds to stellar sea lions can be found cuddle you together not too far from the sea birds perched at the top the fjords call this guy pac-man super unusual behavior for a whale we've only seen this guy do it or they just hang out the surface like oh I see the whales you like see like their back yeah hello maybe their tail like your fluke they go down very very rarely see the our boat turns and we enter Ilyich they prepare our kayaks to head towards the island glacier [Music] [Music] we're getting close to the glacier right now and it's just it's starting to rain a lot so Hayek in the rain around the small island of slate and explore its many hidden nooks and caverns [Music] we head back to the shores officially conquering the first four national parks before returning nearly a year later to finish our quest to eat on the quest to Alaska to conquer our the state of eight we are going back to Alaska after nearly 300 days to finish our final four National Parks Minneapolis air for of them Anchorage Kovach Valley like gates of the Arctic is north of the Arctic Circle to get there we require a stop in the small village of Kotzebue a town bordering the Arctic Ocean and home to the never setting Midnight Sun during the summer months [Music] we get in a modified small propeller plane and head towards the super isolated Cove of the valley [Music] with our casually texting pilot flying over vast Arctic plains full of moose and caribou Lane lands on the Kovach Valley dunes and set off into the wilderness we got two hours here in Kovach Valley we were dropped them off without ever even getting the identification or the payment for the flight back so I'm hoping that they come back if not this is a very tragic video that you guys will find that an SD card but we just stumbled across some bear tracks in the sand not sure how old they are but if it's any consolation we are like several several days maybe weeks to walk away from civilization I'm not kidding Kovac Valley is incredibly isolated with no towns or roads for hundreds of miles in any direction we are smack dab in the middle of nowhere never before in our lives if we've been so far away from other people making the whole park feel like our own [Music] so we walked on the sand dunes and stopped for a little picnic on the ridge and then now we've just crossed over into presumably permafrost land and it's very crunchy [Music] turning over there we can see the top of the town like me oh my god there's a river no we're in Alaska there's always a ring lucky for us our pilot returned at our pickup point and we headed back to Anchorage to set off for our next stop the land of the brown there Katmai National Park taking off and landing on the water our small ste plane flies from king salmon over Naknek Lake to our campground in Kat Bay [Music] just got off the most beautiful plane ride I've ever seen in my entire life got in to write directly to the camp we get to store our food then we have to go outside this electrical fence to Brooks camp to actually get our bear orientation it's an electric fan here you touch it that will be like officially like you know able to move around the park and learn how to defend ourselves but first we have a half mile to walk there with Esther she knows how to defend ourselves [Applause] [Music] boys is especially important we're busy is limited bears can be very difficult to spot in dense forests or tall grass where they like to bed down for a rest of India although famously known for its bears the parks beauty is unmatched with abundant wildlife like the trumpeter swan [Music] the white-crowned sparrow various mallards the water-loving wind roll looking for a snack the red-breasted Merganser guiding her young [Music] and of course the state bird of Alaska [Music] as beautiful as Katmai is we were there to see brown news and evidence of bears is everywhere around Katmai but where were they Kelly run up towards us [Music] adult brown bears can weigh as much as 1,000 pounds and be as long as 10 feet so we safely stayed in our elevated platforms to watch the bear from a distance [Applause] [Music] the sightings of our first wild brown bear so close was a trend lead pumping and got our whole group a little excited he just like stood by the water for a few just like plop down he's just like laying with his paws there something over the water phone I don't sub adult sub adult bear and everybody's like oh that's a small one [Music] the real reason Katmai is a national park isn't because of the Bears it's because of a volcano that erupted in 1912 about a forty six mile bus ride from Brooks camp in the valley of ten thousand smokes the UK ik River Valley still had snow-capped mountains in June as the park only just opened to the public after a long winter so we've just learned all about duck in 1912 there was a massive eruption and this whole Valley was just covered in power now we're about to hike down to a little waterfall see how deep the ash goes apparently it's like 50 feet where we're going we're here at the bottom of the valley of ten thousand smokes a waterfall and it's one of the most violent waterfalls I've ever seen it's 40 probably hearing but it just fit it's a very unpredictable force being in such a closed container it just feels like it's ripping the earth apart again seeing it's muddy it's gritty it's full of ash and it is just tearing the earth apart it is unbelievable to witness [Music] [Music] it's so hard to believe that we're in Alaska because I feel like we're at the Grand Canyon or something this place is just way cooler than we thought way cooler than we thought this is like nothing that we we arrived back in Anchorage and rent a car for our first big road trip of the journey up to wrangle st. Elias we are enroute to bring Colson Elias National Park it's about an eight-hour drive from Anchorage kind of service so we're about to go on the Rangel's San Elias McCarthy Road in the McCarthy Road they graded it and they said it's basically just like the gravels now like knives and there's a high risk for flat tire so I think very slowly over this really crazy Road for about 60 miles it could take several hours right now we don't get a flat tire our driving on McCarthy Road and we found this bridge and it's national tour guide told us that there's a secret walkway under the bridge but is hard to get to so we decided to park and we found it and now we are probably like 300 feet at least above the ground and we were about to get even steeper because there's a canyon that dips down [Music] [Laughter] the legendary fifty-mile McCarthy road presents amazing views and spectacles along when we get to the end of a very bumpy road in the middle of the park we get out of the car we have to go to a payphone we call up this hotel in Rancho Santa lies that we'll come and pick us up after the untraditional check-in we take a shuttle up to an untraditional town of McCarthy on even Wilder roads we wouldn't even attempt if we could Karthi is a quirky Western town small enough that everyone just lets their dogs run free but with enough personality to be worthy of the largest national park in the United States [Music] up the road from McCarthy lies Kennecott the whole reason this area of the park exists the picturesque copper mill built into the harsh landscape of the Elias mountain range it was operational from 1911 through 1938 combined over 200 million dollars worth of copper what remains of the mill is still horrible but showing its age so he grabbed our helmets and go explore the 14 story historic landmark claimed by Stefan birch in 1902 to be the richest concentration of copper in the world he spent the next 15 years securing funding for the mine and transportation to the mine after four years of construction the first train entered Kennecott and with it came miners looking for new opportunities in rankle along with the miners came their families bringing the town's population up to over 300 the mill itself is a technical marvel full of 14 stories of complicated gears and pulleys meant to separate the copper from the dirt the shakers worked by doing just that using a series of increasingly finer grates the shakers would rattle the mine rocks so the copper silver and gold would separate into pure ore [Music] mill closed abruptly in 1938 and the workers were given only 24 hours notice to leave the town from the window of the mill you could see root glacier a short 2 mile hike away from Kennecott never supposed tastes like cucumber a fish - my kind of person I'll be just a dead two hours hiking a glacier with normal boots would be pretty hard and pretty dumb so we strapped on some crampons to give us extra grip we're on top of Route glacier right now just got our shoes on the spikes make it very easy to walk on the glacier and without it it's almost impossible brute glacier is one of a slew of glaciers that cover over one-third of Wrangell st. elias is eight million plus acres of protected land [Music] [Applause] landscape is constantly changing as cracks and the movement in every stream lake and waterfall we experienced on the glacier the stunning blue glacial pools surrounded by the harsh peaks of the Wrangell mountain range leave you feeling almost alien [Music] it's a fast they don't typically take clients giant waterfall and just a week ago this whole thing is filled with water but it all drain these in the cold pool on kind of sucks it under and it goes all bumpy terrain of the glacier and the only way to really find anything was by exploring it by foot and accidentally running into something new and beautiful and with glacial covering that spans an area larger than the state of Rhode Island meant that there is plenty to explore there's a medium sized in the lawn right there which is basically a death hole that leads under the glacier and if you fall in it you die throw rock instead after hours of discovering new fuels streams and ice caves we set our mind on looking for a glacial Canyon we could walk through but after trying to straddle our way through it we came to the realization that the only way to walk through it begin wet and getting real cold get no shoes are you gonna make it to the other side yeah holy though but whoo and I can feel like puddles of shoes well it's really cool but I'm going through it right now [Music] seven parks down only one remained Lake Clark National Park our little propeller plane departed early in the morning from Anchorage into the cloudy sky over jagged volcanic snow topped mountains land in a town called port Falls were nestled entirely inside the national park head off into the trance Jen who's about to take a step into the last part of the a park challenge Lake Clark [Music] pretty impressive water not only has that water really blue is a really powerful waterfall it's causing like weight besides of Lake Michigan that is a powerful waterfall it was a blissful scene to take in and have some lunch as we were reflected on our journey at all aspen trees and the wild flowers blowing in the wind made for a peaceful experience of Lake Clark [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] we stayed the night at the farm Lodge of four dollars worth as the finality of our journey became more and more real [Music] we saw the wildest parks and the wildest State on the wildest journey we've ever [Music]

Channel: Alexyn Photo & Video

Views: 33,188

Rating: 4.9269404 out of 5

Keywords: Katmai, Kobuk Valley, Gates of Arctic, Kotzebue, Anatuvek Pass, Kenai Fjords, Denali, Gizzly Bears, Brown Bears, Lake Clark, Vlog, Travel Log, Travel Journal, Wrangell St Elias, Root Glacier, Kennecott, Alaskan National Parks, Travel Adventure, Alaska, National Parks, Kellie Masters, Alex Scheller, Jen Barnes, Andrew Dalisky, How to get to Alaska, Outdoors, Travel, Cool Intro, All Alaska National Parks, State of 8, Alaska Documentary

Id: Ya8AejbbG8E

Length: 37min 23sec (2243 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 02 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/cavepopcorn]

So jealous! Was in AK last summer and managed to go to 5 so got 3 more to go. Congrats on getting all 8!

[u/Anon1230984567]

This is amazing! This is some type of stuff I'd watch on National Geographic for hours. If I didn't know it was just a video someone made for fun out of their home, I'd definitely believe it was an episode of Nat Geo on tv.

[u/jab1228]

Great video!

[u/quirkytravelguy]

I'd love to make it to all 8 someday. So far, just 3.

Great work on the video. Did you put this together yourself? The production quality is as good as anything on tv.

[u/amanzarak]

Nice! Sometimes I just pull up google images of Gates of the Arctic... something about the fact that it is so vast, yet so seldom visited makes it mesmerizing. Looks like another world to explore.

One day I will make it there...

[u/[deleted]]

Fantastic video footage and editing!

[u/climbingupthechain]

I really appreciate this video, great job visiting all eight Alaskan National Parks! Just curious, how did you determine the order in which you visited the parks? Was there a reason that you didn't go by nearest proximity?

Also, if you don't mind, can you list how many nights you spent in each location? I know some were for only a day trip, but others require lodging. Thanks so much!

[u/jesuisFLUB]

Awesome! I drove to AK in 2017 and visited Denali, Kenai Fjords and Wrangell St. Elias. Actually spent the bulk of my time in state parks and national forests, but spent 3 days at Denali Nat'l Park. Couldn't afford the bus stuff, but I had already seen most of the animals I wanted to see on the drive up (including a Lynx!!). Did day trips into Kenai and Wrangell. The drive is incredible! For anyone east of the Rockies, you drive thru Glacier Nat'l park and many Canadian Nat'l Parks to get to AK. Trip of a lifetime.... And I'm planning on coming back!

[u/[deleted]]

Great accomplishment! Here I was so proud I saw all four in Colorado, where I've lived for decades and have easy highway access.