ALASKA TRIP REPORT AUGUST 2022
Naomi Sesstein shares some highlights from The Last Frontier.
Alaska The Last Frontier Trip Report August 2022
Day 1
Sat Navs mounted, panniers collected, huge portions of halibut consumed! With bear spray locked and loaded, we’re ready for the wilderness ahead of us!
Day 2
This morning we set off from Anchorage, heading SE along the Turnagain Arm, right at the top of the Cook Inlet. Immediately on entering Chugach State Park, the buildings are replaced with densely forested mountain slopes and you can feel civilisation disappearing behind you.
We’ll spend the next few days exploring the Kenai Peninsula and generally gaping in awe at the scale of the surrounding scenery!
Day 3
Today we rode east, crossing the Kenai Peninsula before turning south along the shore of Cook Inlet.
Clear weather gave astounding views of Mount Saint Augustine, Iliamna, and Mount Redoubt volcanoes from the most westerly paved point in the continental US.
Finally the ride down Homer Spit to our hotel, right at the very end of a narrow wisp of land in the middle of Kachemak Bay, where we watched sea otters from the deck with a beer. Blissful!
Day 4
A day off the bikes today as we have 2 nights on Homer Spit (The Halibut fishing capital of the world btw!).
Most of the group were dropped off by boat for an intrepid wilderness walk, ending at an icy glacial lake, whilst a few headed off to explore the area a bit.
Plenty of laughter and tall tales at dinner, topped off with a beer (or gin) at the famous Salty Dawg Saloon!
Day 5
Back to Anchorage yesterday, for a final taste of the city before we head into the northern wilds!
Rain and fog in the morning was followed by some glorious sunshine just in time to dry us out for arriving at the hotel
Day 6
A much shorter day today allowed for a very welcome lie in, followed by the standard American 3 course breakfast 
and a late start.
We headed up to Hatcher pass, but avoided crossing its slippery switchbacks in the rain and plumped for grilled cheese sandwiches and hot soup at the lodge instead!
Birch syrup tasting (a must if you’re a gourmet!) on the way to our hotel, where we were treated to a sumptuous buffet provided by the fabulous Judy & Dee!
Then to top it all off, live music and dancing in the crazy town of Talkeetna (seriously, a cat called Stubbs was the actual town Mayor until 2017!)
A 5 
day!
Day 7
North to Fairbanks today. Gas is starting to become scarce and the roads are emptying out as we thread our way through Denali National Park, with the mist shrouded behemoth of Denali itself (Mount McKinley), somewhere on our left.
Moose and bear sightings in the afternoon (albeit brief ones) give us the feeling of heading into the wilderness proper now, with nothing but 500 miles of forest and tundra between us and the Bering Sea!
Day 8
Today we visited the start of the famous Dalton Highway. (It’s 412 miles of mud and gravel from the sign here, north to Prudhoe Bay!)
The trucks on this road don’t slow down once they’re moving so you need to have your wits about you!
We’re starting to follow the Trans Alaska Pipeline now, which delivers crude oil 800 miles from Prudhoe Bay, all the way south to Valdez Port.
Chena Hot Springs, was a very welcome stop for the night, with 40’c waters to soak in after an adventurous day!
Day 9
This morning’s coffee stop is at Santa’s House, in the town of North Pole. (Try to imagine a festive-themed B&Q superstore!).
Luckily we still have 137 days, 13 hrs, 51 mins, 41.9 secs to go until Christmas, or the weather may have been a bit chillier. As it happens, 3’c and the occasional sprinkling of snow on the ground indicate a fine Alaskan summer is in full swing!
We follow the Tanana River to Delta Junction, before taking Highway 4 straight through the middle of the Alaska mountain range. The sheer scale of this wild land is on full display, and it is clear that nature is in charge here, not people.
With 140+ miles between fuel stations and board-shack coffee stops that may be open, or may be in the process of steadily decomposing, you can see why the locals are a self sufficient breed!
Day 10
The Denali Highway on day 10. We covered 60 miles of this iconic dirt road in each direction, with fingers crossed for fuel at the turnaround point!!
Dinner in Glenallen at the local Thai takeaway hut, which is the best (only) food for miles around!
Day 11
All the way down to Valdez today, where the Prudhoe Bay crude finally reaches the port that will ship it worldwide.
The route crosses over the stunning Thompson Pass, Alaska’s snowiest spot (although not today thankfully!), which dwarfs anything similar in the UK.
A visit to the Solomon Gulch salmon hatchery provides some great photo opportunities as literally hundreds of thousands of salmon throw themselves upstream, heading for the exact spot where they born and creating an all-you-can-eat buffet for bears.
This evening we eat in fantastically named ‘Fat Mermaid’ in the lovely coastal town of Valdez!
Day 12
Today we retrace our route (impossibly, the Thompson Pass is even more impressive in this direction!), heading north from Valdez but turning off to Chitina before riding another epic gravel road along a former railway track to McCarthy.
Only accessible via a narrow pedestrian bridge, McCarthy is a quirky old copper mining town with plenty of history. Those that ignore the ‘Travel beyond this point not recommended’ road sign and return can claim their McCarthy Road Warrior sticker as a badge of honour!
This area is steeped in mining history and folklore and really does still feel like the last frontier to this day, with Moose wandering the streets amongst the carcasses of abandoned vehicles, some of which have been rusting sedately since the 1920’s
Day 13
Good morning Alaska!!
We’ll be sorry to say goodbye to your immense, wild landscape. Every day has felt like an adventure!
Day 14
Farewell Alaska – it’s been epic!
