We continue to plan and book our Alaska travel.  A quick recap for those of you who have forgotten.

My mother, brother, sister and myself, along with our respective wives/husband, are going to Alaska this summer. We are cruising from Vancouver to Whittier and then heading to Denali National Park. My sister, her husband and my mother are taking the cruise line’s three-day Denali tour.

My brother, sister-in-law, Sue and I were talking about doing a three-day remote camping trip, but we were dissuaded from that by my cousin who has been to Alaska many times. She advised that we might have three days of bad weather so flying in and out may not be available and, even if it is, we might be spend three days soaking wet and cold.  I tapped out and we looked for alternatives. She let us know that there were a couple of lodges about 100 miles into the actual park that might be good places to stay.

We opted for the Kantishna Roadhouse for three nights. It looks amazing and we are very exciting. Once we had our Denali destination, we began to look at the logistics. We have two options to get to Kantishna. We could fly or take the train. Flying has the benefit of being much faster, but often the weather grounds the plane. Even the charter company said it is risky to assume that they will get out on any given day. Not a big deal if you are camping, but given that we have a three-night reservation, it doesn’t seem like a good idea to risk it.

Getting to the Roadhouse via train is more complicated, but more reliable. The Roadhouse runs a bus from the Denali train station to the Roadhouse that takes six hours.  It leaves from the Denali train station at 1:30 p.m.; however, the train from Anchorage arrives in Denali 3:40 p.m. so in order to get the bus, we need to stay one night in the town of Denali.  Making it even more complicated, the train leaves from Anchorage at about 8:20 a.m., but we disembark the cruise ship in Whittier at 8 a.m. This leaves us figuring out how to get from Whittier to Anchorage (estimated travel time 90  minutes) in under 20 minutes. I guess that won’t work. We checked on a couple of other options (get off earlier and taking the cruise line’s chartered train), neither of which are going to work. That means we are also spending a night in Anchorage. (Any suggestions on things to do/see would be much appreciated).

After our three day jaunt in the park, we are going to Fairbanks. The Roadhouse bus takes us back to Denali, where we can grab the Alaska Railway’s train (which leaves late enough that we do not have stay overnight in Denali again). Sue and I are planning to take a trip from Fairbanks to the Arctic Circle.  It is a 15-17 hour bus trip that appears to make a few stops along the way, then reaches the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) Arctic Circle sign. We will get off the bus, take a photo and then turn back. I am not sure there is even a gift shop! I know 15 hours on a bus in order to take photo and get a certificate that we have walked north of the Arctic Circle, on the edge of foolishness.  Sue and I are absolutely in; my brother and his wife may apply reason and logic and drop out.

Lots still to plan, be we are making progress.