We had two fabulous excursions and several others which were very good.  We got to see some beautiful scenery from the air, taking off and landing on the water in a floatplane, to spend all day in a large meadow watching bears – on a bear viewing trip out of Homer. It was expensive, but when else would we get a chance to do all this? We used Emerald Air due to good reviews online, and were very satisfied. Our guide, the wife, has been doing this for 24 years, and made us very comfortable with how to stay safe around bears. Her husband flew the de Haviland Otter float plane, and also has years of experience flying, teaching flying, and tinkering with planes. We had lunch sitting in a meadow with a bear grazing about 30 feet away!

Homer is a cute little town, highlighted by a long sand bar curving into the bay, which has been built up into a thoroughfare with many shops, restaurants, and businesses scattered along its length.One of the most surprising features here was the lavish vegetation; it reminded us of Hawaii. Apparently, the short growing season but long hours of daylight and plentitude of rain make the flora grow extravagantly. The forest floor had a very thick carpet of decaying organic matter. The drive down from Anchorage started off along water with tall snow-capped mountains along the side. In the Cooper River area we saw lots of fishermen along a section of river and did a U turn when I saw some bears fishing among them!   

From Homer we drove to Seward, which we liked, and then to Whittier which we didn’t like, for a Prince William Sound glacier and wildlife viewing cruise. The cruise was enjoyable but our trip did not spot as much wildlife as some, and none of the glaciers “calved” while we were there.

In many places, the tall mountains look like a photograph in the distance. You really appreciate them when you get up close and personal, as we did on a Mt. McKinley flightseeing trip out of Talkeetna. Besides the hour flight each way with plenty of flying close to mountains and over glaciers, we actually landed on a glacier near Mt. McKinley that was 1,000 feet thick in places.   I realized how deceptive distances could be on our approach when the debris at the end of the landing area resolved into two other planes on the glacier! At that point we were 5,000 feet above sea level and it was incredible to think that the mountain we were looking at was another 4 miles higher!

We stayed in Talkeetna instead of going up to Denali because it offered activities we were interested in and less driving. The 6 – 8 hour bus drive through Denali was not appealing to us. Talkeetna is a pretty, little, “walk around” tourist town. On another day we took a 4 hour jet boat ride upriver seeing wildlife, a trapper’s cabin exhibit, and the start of white water before we had to turn around.