Traveling Through Alaska Day 2026 Day 7, 8,

Day 7...It's a travel day today...42 degrees this morning. Refreshing! We started out by seeing a moose carcass on the side of the road. About 17 miles outside of Valdez, we saw a female moose! Another female moose a little further down the road was trotting from the roadside up into the woods! We kept going...then two MORE young moose, they looked like twins and were hanging out together. Total: FIVE moose on the Glenallen Highway today. 

Eldy decided to drive all the way from Valdez to Seward for a total distance of 420.7 miles! We decided to stay at the KOA campground outside Seward for one night, and then move over to the Seward City campground on Resurrection Bay for the next night. The price for the KOA was 77.00 for a back row spot, level, full hookups, nice laundry and beautiful stone showers and the eagles were back at the nest this year, raising fledglings. We saw a LOT of activity last time we stayed at the campground, this year, not as much. The magpies are around, we did see quite a few of those....They are a big bird!

As part of the "up and around" circuitous trip back to get to Seward, the drive is spectacular through the Copper Center area and the Wrangell Mountains which are in the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park area. If you are wanting to visit this national park, you CAN drive into it, but access is limited to two unpaved gravel roads and do not connect to one another. Most standard rental companies do NOT allow driving on these rough, unpaved gravel roads. Both roads are historic, riddled with potholes, and occasional exposed railroad spikes. Flat tires are common. One of the roads, the 60 mile McCarthy Road, leads partway to the famous mining town of McCarthy, home of the Kennecott mines. You have to park your car when the road ends, cross a footbridge, then take a local shuttle or walk into McCarthy/Kennecott. The other road, the Nabesna Road, is 42 miles, and travels into the northern, more remote wilderness. There are no gas stations or services along either of these roads. Talk about remote!

As always, the views take your breath away...This is Mt. Wrangell....14,163 feet high...It's an active shield volcano! The range is almost entirely volcanic with Mt. Wrangell the only currently active volcano. Extensive snow fields feed long glaciers. We saw quite a few glaciers on our drive!

Sparky was hoping for lupine blooms, but only saw dandelions and little patches of forget-me-knots just starting to pop out.

Exit Glacier

Day 8...The KOA campground outside Seward is just a few miles from Exit Glacier and Sparky was determined to do a decent hike while traveling through Alaska. The next morning, we headed to the Exit Glacier visitor's center, in the Kenai Peninsula. The glacier sits inside the Kenai Fjords National Park. It's the only part of the park that is accessible by road. The glacier is about 8.6 miles off the Seward Highway, and about 12 miles northwest of the town of Seward.

You can take the easy way up.... It's about .9 miles directly to the overlook, or you can take the scenic route, which has a more strenuous rock clambering route as you get towards the top of the overlook. Sparky took the more challenging route and hiked a total of 2.4 miles round trip. It was fabulous! It got much more chilly and VERY windy as the trail climbed, Sparky almost lost her cap!

The trail is cool because it shows the rapid retreating glacier over decades with marked signs, starting in the entrance to the park at the year 1815. Just relatively recently, aerial and GPS tracking began in 2005. The glacier's pace of retreat is rapidly accelerating, and Sparky could remember the difference from two years ago....

Exit Glacier is not one of the prettier glaciers, it's silt laden and dirty looking, but to be able to walk towards it, is still pretty cool.

The view near the end of the trail looking down was beautiful as well.

We drove back to the town of Seward, and checked into our camping spot for the night at the Seward City Campground which is situated right on Resurrection Bay. Tomorrow, we start winding down our travels, it's almost time to head home, but we are going to close out in style by taking a Kenai Fjords boat tour to hopefully see some whales and other wildlife! 

Sparky explored around the beautiful town of Seward..There is a lot to see in Seward..

on Resurrection Bay

The library....It's a beautiful building...the tiles on the building sides change reflection color all day long, depending on the sun.

A viewpoint on the bay....

There is a free shuttle that will take you all around town and you can pick it up at many different locations near the campgrounds and in town. When cruise ships come in, the shuttle starts earlier in the morning but ends at 7:00 PM no matter what. (Ask us how we know, and how we found out there ARE taxi companies in Seward, about three that we know of!).  It's a mile walk from the campground on the bay to downtown, but if you are tired, a ride is most welcome, so keep the free shuttle in mind.

mural downtown Seward

Seward has great food trucks, great restaurants, and great stores to get Alaskan souvenirs. Sparky got in 20, 697 steps that day! Whew! Her tootsies were TIRED!

We will see you on the cruise out on the bay tomorrow......

Traveling Through Alaska 2026 Day 6

one of the smaller ones

Day 6...Today we traveled to Valdez on the Richardson Highway, AK4. On the way to Valdez is Keystone Canyon, a beautiful, scenic drive through waterfalls and canyon walls. Bridal Veil Falls and Horsetail Falls are the two largest falls but in the spring there are many waterfalls in the canyon, some quite large. It started out as a cloudy day, so photos don't do it justice.

Bridal Veil Falls

Eldy is in front of Horsetail Falls...

There's a cool short railroad tunnel that never was finished that you can walk through if not flooded. The tunnel was hand cut into the solid rock of the Keystone Canyon. Nine companies fought to take advantage of the short route from the copper mines at Kennicott to the Valdez area but a feud interrupted progress and a right of way gunbattle was fought in 1903. The project was abruptly abandoned and the tunnel was never finished.

We are going to drive about 125 miles and stay at the Bear Paw Campground right across the street from the harbor. Price ranges from 55.00-75.00 a night depending on when in the season you arrive. The owner of the campground recently died and Sparky met the lady who is running the show currently, trying to keep things going. She was very spry, in her 80's! and doing a fabulous job. Things are up in the air whether this campground will stay open, someone will buy it out, family will run it, etc. but it's a wonderful campround, parking lot style with nice showers, laundry, and level sites with full hookups. Once we got there....Sparky explored the harbor....

Lots of cool sculptures around town...

Her favorite place for breakfast is a spot called The Potato. They serve a HUGE, amazing breakfast burrito. 

We stayed only one night as we wanted to get to Seward and there was very little fishing activity going on the day we were there. Town was very quiet and not busy at all, too early in the season to see very much. Sparky checked out the ferry option from Whittier to Seward, and although it would save a couple of hours of driving time, she decided she would rather do a whale/glacier watch tour than spend about 416.00 for our rig for 6-7 hours and a trip that would not stop for whales or other wildlife. So we decided to pass on the ferry. When you drive from Valdez to Seward, there is only one way to go, and that is back up north to Glenallen, then west over to Palmer, back south through Anchorage, and down the Parks Highway to Seward. 

That is a distance of 420 + miles, that's a long drive in the RV for us. But Eldy was thinking about doing it all in one day the next day.

fence near the ferry terminal

While we were in Valdez, we received messages from T-Mobile that we were about to incur roaming charges. Apparently, unbeknownst to us, T-Mobile does not offer service anywhere in Alaska, so we were using companion companies and towers while we were traveling, which we had not noticed. Sparky called the company and basically, they would be throttling us back, and suggested we use local wifi as much as possible. We were ok with that as we were not doing anything that required a high level of security, just basic local research and watching a show or two at night. So we kept on doing what we were doing and there was no change in our abilities to communicate.

Temperatures were in the thirties at night and high forties and low fifties during the day....Sunset was about 11:00 PM and sunrise was about 4:30 AM at this point. It did not bother us at all in the RV. We had very dark curtains on some of the windows and we managed to sleep just fine. 

In driving to Valdez and coming out of Valdez, you have to drive through Thompson Pass, a forbidding looking landscape with elevation at 2,678 feet. The last time we were through this pass two years ago, we encountered a blizzard! Today, it was a piece of cake--just a dreary day but lots of snow all around the area. The RV with the Ford engine handled the inclines and descents beautifullly. The drive is pretty spectacular, but driving in Alaska is pretty spectacular all the way around anyway!

Here you can see the frost heaves on the road below. It's like riding a baby rollercoaster, but it still makes Sparky's tummy do flipflops. The wiggles are where the frost has heaved up the road a little bit. Sometimes they are pretty big heaves, but most of the time little ones. You just have to slow down! Right, Eldo? (She thinks I take them a little too fast, explains E.)

frost heaves

Sparky and Eldo never tire of the amazing scenery....

And with that....we will see you tomorrow in Seward, Alaska.....

Traveling Through Alaska Trip 2026 Day 4, Day 5

Our highway guide-a must have!

To recap renting an RV through Alaska, you can get great service and pricing through Great Alaskan Holidays rentals. There are only 12 highways in Alaska, and when you rent an RV from this company, you can only drive on 5 recommended roads. They are: 1. The Glenn Highway- from Anchorage to Canada, 2. The Richardson Highway-from Tok to Fairbanks, 3. The Seward/Sterling Highway-from Anchorage to Soldotna- 4. the Parks Highway-from Palmer to Fairbanks- and 5. The Denali Highway, a mostly unpaved gravel highway which connects Paxon to Cantwell. The reason you can only drive these specific roads is because of road conditions. The four main interstates are in VERY good condition. Other roads are in terrible conditions--frost heaves, gravel, potholes, and you run the risk of damaging your rental RV with flying rocks and damaging your windshield. The Denali Highway is probably the most spectacular 135 mile scenic drive. It is one of the most scenic and remote drives in the world. It is also one of the worst highways to drive on, as it only has about 25 miles of it paved. We attempted it on one day but turned back very quickly as we could only go 25 mph or less and worried so much about damaging the RV we gave up on the rough gravel road. There was almost no cell service and we were worried about our tires going flat and getting help if we needed it. Nobody was on the road! Our goal this trip was to travel to a few different places we hadn't been before but this drive was not to be one of them!

The photo above is our travel "bible" for driving in Alaska--The Milepost. It has a mile marker by mile marker description of the roads-their conditions, the history of the area, places to watch for wildlife -"watch out for moose!" marked in red, and descriptions of reststops and pull outs. It's terrific! You can get it on Amazon and in bookstores. On to Day 4!

Day 4...We headed south out of Denali National Park. We saw a herd of caribou in a low lying field. It was 39 degrees last night! Then we saw a black bear along the roadside! We were driving too quickly to get any photos. We were headed to Talkeetna, a new town for us. It is often described as a quaint drinking town with a climbing problem. We took the Talkeetna Spur Road off the Parks Highway to get there. It's a cute, quirky little town-population of about 900. There is no official government there. If something needs fixing, the people rally together and get it done. The mayor for over 20 years was a cat named Mr. Stubbs. To be more serious, it IS the mountaineering staging area for Denali and a center for flightseeing glaciers and other trips. It has a vibrant arts scene, dirt roads, wooden boardwalks, and an old inn-The Fairview- with the oldest original bathtub in Alaska. There isn't much of a downtown at all, it's a conglomeration of small shops and a couple of small lodging places. There are a couple of really great restaurants there, and some famous spots to try like the spinach bread food truck. There are buildings with interesting placards that tell the location's previous history in front of each establishment.

There is no room for any RV parking downtown but there is a nearby visitor type center with a large empty gravel parking lot as you come into town where you could park a rig and then walk a short distance to town. You can take a short walk from there to see the braided river and mountains in the distance at the river front park. Braided rivers are a combination of silt runoff from the glaciers meandering through the river and giving it a braided look. 

Talkeetna Camper Park

tourist decals from all over on the sign

We stayed at a beautiful little RV campground called Talkeetna Camper Park, which had a terrific lodge style restaurant next door with great food, called "Latitude 62". It's a ten minute walk to downtown Talkeetna from the campground.

Talkeetna is also a place where you can take the Hurricane Turn Train and we did! The Alaskan Railroad has a dedicated track for this small train to ferry people and supplies to and from "the bush". The train stops for wildlife if tourists are on board. The train can be flagged to stop by people out in the remote areas by them just coming to the tracks and waving for the train to stop and pick them up. Drop offs and pick ups are informally requested. Supplies are regularly dropped off to the people living out in the boonies, backpackers get off and on at random stops, and random times. Everybody waved to us as we stopped and let people off and on....

If you are on the train to go to the Hurricane Gulch which is one of the tourist stops, the train will stop for wildlife sightings and even back up for a better look! We started in Talkeetna, the train station was right behind our campground! We did the round trip to Hurricane Gulch and back, and thoroughly enjoyed it. You have to bring your own food and snacks on board as it is a no frills train and the trip was about 6 hours. It travels about 25-30 mph, and there is a person who gives a little history about the area and how the train operates as you go along. We saw a baby moose running uphill. We stopped at an Alaskan author's home right beside the tracks to see her studio and peruse her books. We stopped to let another train go by to use the tracks and visited an old Alaskan Railroad set of train cars with the old historic snow plow.

We saw a mama moose way back in the woods, which the train stopped and backed up so everybody could see it. The engineer saw a mama black bear and baby, but we missed it. 

Hurricane Gulch

We stopped at the famous Hurricane Gulch Bridge, dead in the middle of the tracks overlooking the gorge, and took photos out the open baggage car window. The bridge is 296 feet above the gorge and is the longest, tallest steel bridge in North America. Stopping in the middle of the bridge with just skinny little cables between you and the drop below, and looking down was not for the faint of heart! Sparky felt a little dizzy. The price for this historical train trip was 125.00 a person. We had a great narrator host along for the trip and it was very educational and fun. This is not a well known tour so many people miss this opportunity to see more of the "real" Alaska.

We arrived back at our campsite around 7 and had dinner next door at the Latitude 62. Great food and highly recommended! We had a wonderful conversation with our waiter, Matt, who shared his personal story with coming to Alaska and trying to make it in the difficult climate and the challenges of building and establishing a home for his family.

Day 5... We traveled to Glennallen, AK, to the east, a distance of 219 miles. On our way, we saw a sled dog team pulling an ATV with people on it. That's one of the "sled dog tours" you can take in the summer in the area. On the way driving to Glenallen, we saw a young female moose in a parking lot, just moseying through the lot looking for grasses. You never know where you are going to see moose. They are often by the roadside! Less than a mile away, we saw ANOTHER moose at the side of the road! A little while later, TEN caribou quickly crossed the highway quite far in front of us, but it was still a thrill to see them.

Sparky and Eldo watched the moose for a little while and got one more iconic photo of the moose in front of the Mantanuska Glacier. Wow!

We wanted to stay at a roadhouse called Ranch House RV Park which we remembered from a past trip. It's a cool place, an original Alaskan roadhouse with an historic tavern, on mile marker 173, on the Glenallen Highway. They have added more campsites since the last time we visited a couple of years ago, and the sites are along the Tolsana River. They have full hookups (electric, water and sewer) and some pull thrus.The sites are gravel and level. It's a great stop between Valdez and Anchorage. The lodge/tavern has tremendous fireplace and rockers. Eldy was missing his rocker from home so there he is. 

Which is your favorite name?

The Ranch House has great chili and hot sauces galore as well to choose from! Sparky loves the names of the chilis and the sauces...but no hot sauce for her!

Here is our pull through site at Ranch House RV campground....wish we could have had the windows open at night to hear the rushing creek, but it got down to the low thirties and our water hose froze briefly! 

Ranch House site

Tomorrow we head towards Valdez, 125 miles to the south, and the remarkable Keystone canyon with multiple waterfalls before entering the harbor town of Valdez. See you then!