Home

RV Trip to Alaska 2014

Camped on Homer Spit, Homer, Alaska

I think the most exciting and rewarding aspects of the trip for us were the bear watching float plane trips we took out of Homer and Ketchikan, and the local bear watching at Herring Creek on the road east of Ketchikan. So if you have the time and interest please watch the bear movies. These are links to files stored in DropBox so they should load and play quickly on any device.

There’s a lot of stuff here. Most people will not want to go through all of it in detail. You can pick what you’re interested in.

This is probably where you should start. “The Whole Enchilada” slide show, highlights the entire trip. About 130 slides with descriptions.

KATMAI GRIZZLY BEAR MOVIE—5 Min: Grizzly bears grazing and mating in a field at Hallo Bay, Katmai National Park and Preserve, Katmai Peninsula, Alaska— float plane trip about 120 miles southeast of Homer.

HERRING CREEK BLACK BEAR MOVIE—1 Min: Black bears catching salmon ; mama bear and 2 cubs; mama bear and 3 cubs: at Herring Creek 20 miles east of Ketchikan, Alaska—free and accessible by road .

ANAN BLACK BEAR MOVIE—4 Min:

Black bears fishing at Anan (pronounced Ann-Ann) Bear Observatory about 30 miles southeast of Wrangell and 50 miles north of Ketchikan, Alaska.— float plane trip from Ketchikan.

Then if you’re still with us, look at some or all of the additional slide shows and movies below. Here you will find more detail about the trips and more photos.

KATMAI BEAR STORY with pictures

ANAN BEAR STORY with pictures

HERRING CREEK BEAR STORY with pictures

If you are planning a trip to Alaska by RV yourself, you might be interested in the excruciating details. On the NEXT PAGE you will find a summary of the trip and links to day by day descriptions of where we went and what we did. So that this file is not 10x larger, we do not describe every breathtaking mountain, stunning glacier or soaring eagle. Suffice it to say there were very few days that we didn’t find ourselves saying “wow” several times.

Here are a few things we learned that others might find useful:

· Never pass up a gas station

· Dump the holding tanks and fill with fresh water at every opportunity; this allows for spontaneous camping in primitive places

· Be flexible and try not to have a schedule; you will find things to do that will divert you

Donna and I had a 37-foot fifth-wheel and a Ford 350 to pull it with. We lived in it for a couple of years and then traveled through the Western states in it. It was luxurious. But we decided that for our future travels it was too big, so before the Alaska trip we traded down to a 25-foot Class-B+ motorhome. It proved to be a wise decision for our mode of travel which is to avoid commercial RV parks as much as possible in favor of small, out of the way forest and state campgrounds with no hookups. For this style, small is better. This is not to say you can’t do the trip in a large, luxurious motorhome, trailer or fifth-wheel; you can, certainly, and in great comfort, but you might find that you have to utilize commercial parks more often. You might also have to make reservations ahead more often.

Our trip was from Prescott to Port Angeles, Washington where we took the ferry to Victoria, BC and the ferry from Nanaimo to Vancouver, BC then to Prince George via the Sea to Sky Highway; then to New Hazleton and up the Cassiar Highway to Watson Lake. From there we went to Whitehorse, down through Carcross to Skagway, by ferry to Haines, then north to Haines Junction, Beaver Creek, Tok, Fairbanks, Anchorage, Homer, Seward and Whittier. We took the ferry from Whittier to Valdez, then drove to Glennallen, Tok, Chicken, Eagle, Dawson City, Whitehorse, back to New Hazleton and made a side trip to Prince Rupert where we took the ferry to Ketchikan and back to Prince Rupert. From there to Prince George, Jasper, Banff and down through Montana,Yellowstone Park and Utah to home.

Below is a map of Alaska and Yukon.

By russ and donna Sherwin

Prescott, arizona