Jennie's Favorite Alaska National Park

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Transcript

 Welcome to the Alaska Uncovered Podcast with me, your host, Jennie Thwing Flaming, my occasional co-host and full-time husband, Jay, and I bring you accurate, helpful, and entertaining information about Alaska Travel and life in Alaska.


Hi everyone. Happy National Parks a week. This is a week that we have celebrated on this podcast for the last three years. So if you go back to late April, uh, you will find tons of other National Park episodes and. Not only there, , there are many other episodes about Alaska's parks, , in among our 176 episodes.

So today what I wanted to talk to you about is my favorite national park and in Alaska, and. This is an opinion piece. So, I'll explain why. But this is, this episode is really my opinion. I will share facts with you of course, but there are many reasons that many people argue. For other national parks in Alaska being their favorite, but I today am going to share mine.

Now. In the past, you may have heard me say that Glacier Bay National Park was my favorite. You may have heard me say that Lake Clark was my favorite. And I will tell you that I have changed both the title and the outline of what I wanted to share with you this week, four or five times in the last month between those two.

So I think the reality is that, whichever one I've been to more recently is my current favorite. So, most recently I've been to Lake Clark National Park and I am going there again in June. , I am also in the middle of planning. The 2027 Authentic Alaska Tour, which spoiler alert is going to include Glacier Bay.

So I've been to Lake Clark most recently, but I am in the middle of planning this trip to Glacier Bay, which I also love. So I really think I'm always gonna waffle back and forth between those two. In case you think I'm hedging, which of course I am, I'm giving two. But you know how when you ask someone, like sometimes on the podcast, I ask people for their favorite restaurant in their place and they give like five, which is fine 'cause I know you wanna hear those great restaurant recommendations.

I will also tell you that Alaska has. Eight named National Parks. We've talked on the podcast before about why you should not overlook other places like the National Wildlife Refuges, national Preserves, all the other public land in Alaska. But the other six are not close for me.

They're all wonderful and beautiful in their own way, but these two are truly my favorites. I I'm happy to go to any of the others. But I would never choose them over these two. So I feel like that's important to say. This is a real, fairly strong opinion that I have about these two, and I'm gonna share with you why.

Like I said, based on what you like to do when you travel and what it is that you love about national parks, you might have a different favorite. So let's talk about Lake Clark First Lake, Clark National Park and Preserve.

It is located southwest of Anchorage, um, and it is, it is a vast park. I will tell you that even though it's one of my favorites, I have literally seen a tiny, two different tiny corners of this park. There are so many other places in the park that are incredible that I want to visit that I haven't been to yet.

The ones I have been to are pretty amazing. So I think one thing about Lake Clark is there's so much variety there. There's towering mountains, there's incredible wildlife, there's beautiful, uh, coastal areas.

All of that is just amazing. Um, it has big volcanoes and it's just a super interesting and beautiful place. So that's probably. The reason why I really love it, it's also a wonderful park for solitude. So is Glacier Bay. So you'll find that that's a theme. Uh, it's, there's nothing crowded in Lake Clark. Anywhere you go in the park, you'll be with the people in your group and that's it. Maybe in Port Ellsworth, there might be a few other people, but this is not a place where crowds or anything like that is ever gonna be a challenge. And I really, I really love that about Lake Clark. I think the other thing is I have had some incredible bear viewing experiences in Lake Clark, and I've also been lucky enough to.

To do bear viewing, uh, in Katmai at Brooks Falls. I prefer Lake Clark for bear viewing massively. I, I, it's just, I love just being with a small group of people on a boat and just having lots of time. The bear viewing I've done in Lake Clark involved hours of just being there with bears and observing their behavior.

And to me that is totally magical. You don't, you don't have that in Katmai. You're, you're kind of in a hurry in Katmai most of the time. I was lucky enough to be camping there, so I did get to have unhurried bear experiences in Kamai. , But it's hard to do that. So. Especially on a day trip. So yeah, I think those are the reasons I really love Lake Clark.

Okay. So how can you visit? One way is to go, uh, to Snug Harbor Outpost, , which is. What I am doing in June with our, with Jay, the my small group tour, which is very exciting and I've also been there before.

That is a remote fly in from Homer. All inclusive experience. It's so amazing. Like everything about going there is incredible, including the, including the bear viewing that we did in the park, but not just bear viewing. We went to Fossil Beach and saw these. Really cool fossils and just spent some time at the beach and that was really cool.

So that's one way to do it. And uh, snug Harbor has been on the podcast a couple times. The most recent time was September 30th. , The episode is called Better Bear Viewing in Lake Clark National Park with the Porter Family of Snug Harbor. So that was episode 1 42. And then, um, they were also on the podcast in. May of 2023. So that was episode 16, a long time ago. Those episodes are very different, , so that's one way to go to Lake Clark. That's gonna be a two to three or four day experience, depending on how you book. And then another way to go to Lake Clark is to do a day trip of bear viewing from Anchorage. . October, 2024, I did an episode about doing it.

That's a great way if you're short on time. Um, we went to Crescent Lake in Lake Clark, but depending on the time of year you go to different places. That was another just completely magical day. Not only the bear viewing, but the the views as we were flying out there or just over the park.

They were just really cool. So. That's another way to do it. And then there are other non-air viewing ways to go into the park. So like rusts, uh, flying service that has a code for the podcast to save 10%. It's Alaska uncovered. They also do a day trip flight out to Dick Pre's Cabin, which is kind of a well-known place in Lake Clark to the degree that Lake Clark has well known places.

In the past it hasn't been on a regular schedule. Exactly. 'cause it's kind of a newer tour for them. They're still feeling out how much people want to do that. So,, if you do give them a call and say, Hey, you know, when are you offering this? When can I get out there? And then the other way, uh, to visit Lake Clark is to go to, , lake Clark Resort and, Salina, who is, one of the members of the family that owns and operates Lake Clark Resort.

Salina Ellsworth Peterson. She was on the podcast in November, episode 1 49. And that's cool because you can stay with them. It's also a fly-in all-inclusive lodge, but they really cater to National Park visitors going to Lake Clark and Kamai. So that is a great way to get out there and go to both parks and get a immersive experience.

They're in Port Als worth, which is right at the edge of,. It's right there in Lake Clark National Park. You know, so you, there's a couple trails and you can like walk into the park from there. I would love to do that sometime. I haven't been to Port Ellsworth, so,, that is a place I would love to go.

And there are many back country lakes and experiences that you can have there. There's all kinds of backcountry adventures that you can do in Lake Clark. So that's that one. So let's move on to Glacier Bay. So why do I love Glacier Bay? There's two things I'm gonna say about Glacier Bay that are maybe hard to believe, but just trust me, they're true.

The first one is that Glacier Bay provides a tremendous amount of solitude. It will never show up on the list of least visited national parks because there are so many cruise ship visitors that go to Glacier Bay. And by the way, if you are on a cruise and going to Glacier Bay, it's still amazing. No matter how you get there, it's incredible.

But the real magic is going to Glacier Bay on your own and if you go and stay at the lodge or camp in the campground and experience the park that way., There are so few people doing that. , It's. If you took out cruise ship visitors, I would guess that Glacier Bay wouldn't, would be in those top 10 lease visited.

I don't know that for sure. But, you're definitely gonna have an experience of solitude in Glacier Bay for sure. I. I would also say, so this part is a little bit of opinion, a little bit of fact. Glacier Bay is the easiest national park in Alaska to get to. Now I know many people are gonna be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, Jennie, what are you talking about?

Denali and Kenai furs are obviously way easier. They're on the road system. You can fly an anchor to anchor Anchorage and rent a car and drive there. That's true. But, , glacier Bay is easier, because you fly there and then you're there. That's it. , For a couple months of the year, you can even fly there on Alaska Airlines, um, from, you would go from Seattle to Juneau, and then from Juneau to Gusav.

Um, there's just one flight a day. So there's, there's other, uh, small scheduled plane flights that go between Juneau and Gusav, but it's really pretty straightforward. Now, if you're combining it with other parts of Alaska, then it's not, but I'm talking about if you're just gonna plan a trip. To a park in Alaska.

This is the easiest one. There's no question about it. I'm just being reminded of that right now 'cause I am in the middle of planning a tour there next year. . And then when you get there, if you're staying at the lodge, they'll come pick you up. You don't need a car there.

There's nowhere to drive. There's a 10 mile road between the town of Gustav and Bartlett Cove. If you're like with an rv, there's also an RV park there, so you could stay there and drive your rv. 10 miles, but there's no reason otherwise to have a car there unless you're staying at the RV park.



If you're thinking, Jennie, you have to fly there. How would you get an RV there? Well, you don't have to fly there. You can take the ferry from Juneau. You'd, you'd have to event it's somewhere along the line. You have to fly 'cause you have to get to Juneau. Um, even, I suppose you could drive all the way there or take a vehicle all the way there.

If you drove to Bellingham, took the ferry, did Juneau and the ferry to Glacier Bay. You know, you'd need to allow like a week for that. So that's why I'm not getting into that in detail. But you can also take the ferry from Juneau. So if you're in Alaska in an RV and you were on, you'd wanna do it on your way to or from Alaska, you would take the.

A road down to Hanes or Skagway and the ferry to Juneau, and then you'd have to stay in Juneau and change ferries and then take the ferry from Juneau to Gusav. The ferry ride between Juneau and Gustavus is between. Four and six hours. It depends on which way the ferry is stopping in Hoonah. It's definitely less expensive than flying unless you're taking a vehicle, then it's not.

But the ferry doesn't go every day and you'd have to make your plans. Most likely before you knew what the ferry schedule was. So if you're in an RV and have that kind of flexibility, it's different If you're going on your own and planning on taking the ferry, just know there's a chance that you would have to fly because the ferry might not run that day.

So Ferry from Juneau is also an option.

Tours will pick you up where you're staying, , at Glacier Bay Lodge and probably other, there are some other places to stay, so, um, just make sure that you find out what the transportation situation is if you're doing that. Those are some reasons to love Glacier Bay. Beyond that, it's just an incredibly beautiful place.

It has a really interesting human story, a really hi, interesting natural history story where Bartlett Cove is, which is Park headquarters, the lodge where the Debo Tours starts, imagine that 300 years ago, not 3000 years ago, not 30,000 years ago, 300. Was underneath a glacier.

So in the last little ice age, which was just a few hundred years ago, the entire bay was full of ice. And all of that land that you walk around on now is young and also. Because that happened after people were writing down history. Uh, it's kind of interesting too because the Hoonah Tlingit people who, glacier Bay is the homeland of the Hoonah Tlingit people , when the ice advanced moved across to where the town of Hoonah is now, uh, the Hoonah Tlingit people are very involved with the park service in.

How things work in this park. There are cultural rangers in Glacier Bay. They have the Hoonah totem house, which is absolutely beautiful. It's fairly new and they do cultural programs there., There are several wonderful totem poles. It's really quite unique in the National Park Service, in my experience

you have to do the day boat tour if you're there. Otherwise you don't see the glaciers because they are too far up bay, to see from, , Bartlett Cove. Uh, you can also, you can go for a hike. You can go fishing, you can go whale watching, you can go flight scene, you can go kayaking, beach. Combing there is amazing.

I mean, it's just an incredible experience, so I would really encourage you to check that. Out. I will put my link to my article, which is all about planning a trip to Glacier Bay on your own in the show notes.

If you. Enjoyed this opinion that you didn't ask for. All of our episodes of Alaska uncovered are brought to you by our Patreon members, the members of the Alaska Uncovered Planning Club. And if that's you, if you're one of those folks in the planning club, thank you so much for supporting the podcast and keeping us going.

Thank you so much for your wonderful questions that you give me every week to answer. It's definitely a highlight of my week, so I wanna invite all of you to join them. As you know, this week I am transitioning from the mode of, helping people plan their trips into tour mode.

I won't be offering, zoom sessions again until the fall, but I will still be doing, ask Me Anythings in, , the planning club for the whole summer every week the link is in the show notes, but also you just go to patreon.com/alaska uncovered.

It's $9 a month, and the way it works is you can submit all the questions you want on the Google form, and then once a week  📍 I answer them. So . Join us. . We'd love to have you over there. , Happy National Parks Week and thank you for listening to Alaska Uncovered.

See you next week.