Alaska: Denali, the Kenai Fjords and the Alaska Railroad

Arrive in Anchorage

Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport to your hotel in central Anchorage

• Welcome dinner
• Nuit : Anchorage
• Environ 18 min de route

Soir

In the evening your See Sight Tours guide meets the group for a short briefing: how the train day works, what to wear on the boat and how your luggage travels while we ride. Then we sit down together to a welcome dinner in town.

Compris

• Pick-up at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC)
• Welcome briefing with your guide
• Welcome dinner

Activités en option

• Anchorage Museum

The Alaska Railroad to Denali

Anchorage to Denali Park by train, via Wasilla, Talkeetna and Broad Pass

• Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
• Nuit : Denali Park
• En train

Matin

The Denali Star leaves the Anchorage depot in the morning (about 8:20 am in recent summers), and we ride in GoldStar Service, the glass-domed double-deck cars with an outdoor viewing platform, while our driver takes the luggage north by road. The line runs about 380 km and seven and a half hours, the long leg that would otherwise be a five-hour drive. It crosses the farms and lakes of the Mat-Su valley, stops at Talkeetna, then leaves the highway to follow the Susitna River into country with no road beside the track. On clear days Denali shows to the west across the valley.

Après-midi

Lunch is in the dining car. The train climbs to Broad Pass, crosses Hurricane Gulch on a high steel bridge and drops into the Nenana valley, reaching Denali Park in mid-afternoon (about 3:40 pm).

Soir

Our vehicle meets us at the station for the short ride to the hotel near the park entrance, and the evening is free.

Compris

• The Alaska Railroad Denali Star from Anchorage to Denali in GoldStar Service
• Lunch in the dining car
• Transfers to the Anchorage depot and from Denali station to the hotel

Deep into Denali National Park

The Denali park road by bus, then the park entrance area

• Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
• Nuit : Denali Park

Matin

We are on one of the first park buses of the morning, when animals are moving and the light is low, so it is an early start; we confirm the departure time with your final itinerary. Private cars may only drive the first 15 miles of the 92-mile park road, so the park's own buses are the way in. Our Tundra Wilderness Tour has a naturalist driver who stops for whatever shows: grizzly bears, moose, caribou, Dall sheep high on the slopes and, now and then, wolves. Past Savage River the road turns to gravel and runs over open tundra and braided river valleys, with the Alaska Range along the southern skyline. Since 2021 the buses have turned at East Fork, about mile 43, while a bridge is built across the Pretty Rocks landslide; if the road beyond has reopened for your dates, we go further.

Après-midi

A packed lunch rides with us. Back at the entrance by early afternoon, choose between the park's sled dog kennels, where rangers show the dogs that patrol Denali in winter, or a hike.

Soir

Dinner together tonight.

Compris

• Denali National Park entrance fee
• Tundra Wilderness Tour on the park road with a naturalist driver
• Packed lunch on the bus
• Sled dog kennels demonstration with a park ranger
• Dinner together

Activités en option

• Rafting on the Nenana River

Down the Parks Highway to Talkeetna

Denali Park to Talkeetna on the Parks Highway, through Broad Pass and Denali State Park

• Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
• Nuit : Talkeetna
• Environ 3 h de route

Matin

A slower morning, then we drive south about 245 km and three hours on the Parks Highway, the road side of the same corridor the train followed, with different views from the highway. We cross Broad Pass, the low gap in the Alaska Range where the country opens into tundra and small lakes, then follow the Chulitna River down into Denali State Park. If the mountain is out, we stop at the Denali Viewpoint South pull-out, which faces Denali and its glaciers across the Chulitna valley. Talkeetna sits at the end of a 14-mile spur road, where the Susitna, Chulitna and Talkeetna rivers meet.

Après-midi

We arrive for lunch, then your guide walks you through the old town centre of log cabins and false-front stores, down to the river viewpoint and past the ranger station where Denali climbers register before their expeditions. If the weather is clear, this is the afternoon for an optional flightseeing trip over the mountain.

Soir

The evening is free.

Compris

• Drive from Denali Park to Talkeetna with your guide
• Denali Viewpoint South, when the mountain is out
• Lunch in Talkeetna
• Talkeetna town walk with your guide

Activités en option

• Flightseeing over Denali from Talkeetna, with or without a glacier landing (about USD 220 to 630 per person on recent operator pages), weather permitting

Alaska Native cultures and Turnagain Arm

Talkeetna to the Alaska Native Heritage Center in Anchorage, then along Turnagain Arm to Girdwood

• Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
• Nuit : Girdwood
• Environ 3 h de route

Matin

We leave Talkeetna after breakfast and drive about two hours south to the Alaska Native Heritage Center on Anchorage's eastern edge. Inside, Alaska Native hosts share dance, song and stories; outside, a path around a small lake leads past full-size village sites, each built by and for a different group of Alaska's Indigenous cultures.

Après-midi

We spend about two and a half hours here, then have lunch together in the city. In the afternoon the Seward Highway runs south along Turnagain Arm, named on James Cook's 1778 voyage when his ships had to turn back. We stop at Beluga Point to scan the water for the white whales that sometimes follow the tide in, and the cliffs above for Dall sheep. Girdwood, a small mountain town in a valley on the arm's north shore, is ours by mid-afternoon.

Soir

We ride the Alyeska Aerial Tram to its upper station at about 700 m for the view over hanging glaciers and the arm, and the evening is free.

Compris

• Alaska Native Heritage Center, Anchorage
• Lunch in Anchorage
• Beluga Point on Turnagain Arm
• Alyeska Aerial Tram, Girdwood

Exit Glacier and on to Seward

Girdwood to Exit Glacier in Kenai Fjords National Park, then Seward

• Petit-déjeuner et repas du soir
• Nuit : Seward
• Environ 2.5 h de route

Matin

The morning is free in Girdwood: sleep in, have a coffee in the village, or walk the Winner Creek Trail with your guide, a boardwalk and forest path through tall spruce and hemlock.

Après-midi

We leave late morning and drive south through Turnagain Pass and past the long lakes at Moose Pass, about two hours on the Seward Highway, with a lunch stop on the way. Just before Seward we turn up the valley to Exit Glacier, the part of Kenai Fjords National Park you can reach by road. Signs along the approach mark where the ice stood in past years, so you see for yourself how far it has pulled back. Your guide leads the walk on the Glacier View Loop, a short accessible trail, or the keen can climb the first section of the Harding Icefield Trail to a turnaround the guide sets.

Soir

We reach Seward, at the head of Resurrection Bay, in the late afternoon, and dinner tonight is together at a local seafood restaurant, with Alaska salmon and halibut on the menu.

Compris

• Exit Glacier walk with your guide, Kenai Fjords National Park
• Dinner together in Seward

Activités en option

• Winner Creek Trail walk with your guide in the free morning, at no extra cost

Kenai Fjords National Park by boat

Seward, Resurrection Bay and Aialik Bay

• Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
• Nuit : Seward
• En bateau

Matin

Late morning we board a six-hour cruise into Kenai Fjords National Park. The boat runs the length of Resurrection Bay, past sea stacks and seabird cliffs, then round Aialik Cape into Aialik Bay to the face of a tidewater glacier, where the captain idles the engines so you can hear the ice crack and fall. Watch for humpback whales, orcas, Dall's porpoises, sea otters, sea lions hauled out on the rocks and puffins on the cliffs.

Après-midi

Lunch is served on board. If the sea outside the bay is rough, the captain keeps to sheltered water and the route changes on the day.

Soir

We are back in Seward in the early evening, which is yours.

Compris

• Alaska SeaLife Center, Seward
• Six-hour Kenai Fjords National Park cruise to a tidewater glacier
• Lunch on board

Portage, Turnagain Arm and home

Seward to the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center at Portage, then along Turnagain Arm to Anchorage airport

• Petit-déjeuner
• Environ 3 h de route

Matin

We leave Seward after breakfast and drive north on the Seward Highway past Moose Pass and over Turnagain Pass, where the morning light falls on the other side of the valleys from the way we came. At Portage, at the head of Turnagain Arm, we stop for about an hour at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center, a sanctuary for orphaned and injured animals that cannot return to the wild. Paths and a loop road lead past brown and black bears, moose, musk oxen, caribou and wood bison, a good back-up if the park road was quiet. Then we follow the arm one last time, with a last look for belugas, to Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, arriving at about 1 pm. Driving is about 215 km in all, under three hours. Book a flight leaving after about 3 pm; if you are staying on, we drop you downtown instead. Your guide sees you to the airport and checks your flight before saying goodbye.

Compris

• Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center, Portage
• Drop-off at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC) or downtown Anchorage