Sightseeing -

Backpacking from South Lake to Long Lake

Anticipation Excitement builds. Daphney and Jayden can’t wait. Last year’s backpacking trip felt like a proud accomplishment. This will be a trip bigger than the last, and this will be Myles’s first such trip. It’s Friday evening of Labor Day weekend. Yan and I are doing some final packing. “We’re…

To Anchorage and Home

This morning, the kids gather sticks and cones during breakfast, anticipating another fire. We don’t have much time for a real one, so I douse everything with some leftover sanitizer and introduce them to the brief but huge flames of ignited alcohol. Down the road, we see a moose running in the brush. Yan and I switch spots, and I get out my camera. It’s an elusive apparition, now vanished into the forest.

Denali National Park

We have a hearty breakfast at Prey again, then we pack up everything to head into the park. Tonight, we’ll be camping. Arriving at the bus depot, we learn that the next bus availability is at 12:30, and it only goes to mile 43, since the rest of Park Road is closed due to mudslides. We first tour the visitor center and watch two films: one about sled dogs and another about Denali. We buy the last of our Alaska Geographic patches: first Klondike, then Glacier Bay, Kenai Fjords, Wrangell-St. Elias, and finally, Denali.

The Interior

I’m the first to get up, just before sunrise, while the northerly summer pre-dawn sky glows orange and the distant mountains look purple. Breakfast is a combination of oatmeal with toppings and scrambled eggs for protein. Jayden devours the eggs, but Daphney laments that the eggs don’t taste as good as the free-range ones from home. Retracing the Denali Highway, we parallel the Alaska Range, this time to our left. At a pull-out, we step out onto a small outcrop and take in the expanse—pristine Sevenmile Lake, the vast alpine tundra, glacial streams, and snow-capped peaks that punch into the sky. After a quiet moment, we have to leave.

Wrangell-St. Elias National Park

To save driving time, this day is planned around the Whittier-Valdez ferry. We line up then make it through the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel and arrive in town. I check in with the ferry, and after queuing up, we grab lunch at Varly’s Swiftwater Seafood Café. All they have is fried food: zucchini, onion rings, fish and chips.

The Kenai Peninsula

Early in the morning, we get breakfast at the lodge and pack up for departure. While no doubt the bear viewing and scenery are highlights of the trip, we are happy to leave this place infested with mosquitoes and white sock flies. After breakfast, we pack up and take the water taxi to King Salmon. The King Salmon airport is packed. The previous leg from Anchorage was nearly an empty flight, but now the waiting room is filled with fishermen wanting to leave. The few women there are tourists. The guys behind us describe how this year’s fish prices are terrible, roughly a quarter of what they normally make.

The Grand Princess

We are really rushed this morning: we swallow breakfast, pack, get to the light rail station, ride to International District/Chinatown, and transit to the King Street train station. The elevator is out of service, so we haul all of our luggage down the stairs to make it with only 3 minutes to spare. The Amtrak Cascade takes us across some spectacular scenery. Soon, we arrive in Vancouver. We heft the stroller and our bags across the street and up to the light rail platform. Another elevator outage at the rail exit, so we make multiple trips up and down stairs.

ABJS Meeting in Seattle

This trip’s idea began a year ago, as 2023 has a milestone birthday for me, and Yan will finish all her training and begin work as an attending. Our calendars align the best in July and August. I started booking everything in the fall. On January 5, Yan and I both got on our computers and hovered on the reservation site, hearts pounding, to snag a spot at Brooks Camp. Our trip’s schedule will have to revolve around that.