Preamble

It has become almost a good tradition during the last years to discuss summer vaction plans during the Christmas break. We still want to visit southern Africa once more, this is one of our top favourites. "Unfortunately", we happened to see a very impressive tv documentation on the north-west-passage, with fantastic pictures from Northern Canada. Our memories of our last visit to Alaska and Canada in 2007 were still fresh enough to know, that we by far missed more than we had seen in these beatiful countries. So it was not a very long discussion to finalize the destination of our summer trip - southern Africa needs to wait another year or two.

As we like RV'ing, we decided to choose this type of vacation once more - although tenting is becoming more attractive again as the kids grow up. The next question was whether to concentrate on Alaska or Yukon Territories, and for this time, Alaska made it. So we know we need to come again... And finally, the family didn't want to wait again for three weeks into the summer holidays until to take off. So the basic parameters were clear, and already mid-January the flights with Condor into Anchorage and the RV had been booked.

Planning

So the time for more detailed planning started. As we knew from our last trip, the main attractions like Denali National Park get fully booked quite early in the year, and the same holds for ferry routes. Therfore we had to hurry up, although more than 5 months were left before the journey. Without a passenger car, you'll typically find some free space and ferry connections without advance bookings, but with a big RV, this would not work.

So we got some new travel planners about Alaska to look for more ideas. We especially appreciated the well written and really nice to read Frommers Alaska 2010, where we took many inspirations for this trip. The main attractions we want to visit this summer are:

• Cordova, a small town reachable only by ferry or by air, with a 60 mile backcountry road (gravel :-)) into the wild. At roads end, Childs glacier is waiting for us - one of the few still advancing glaciers on earth. This glacier - with cliffs more than 300 feet high - is calving directly into the Copper River. On the opposite river bank, there's a campground - so this stay is an absolute "must".
• Mc Carthy/Kennicott – located deep in the Wrangell/St. Elias National Park. Although in 2007 we only drove by these majestic mountains and glaciers, they impressed us very much, so we need to see a bit more.
• Dalton Highway / Brooks Range – after our 2007 experience on the Dempster Highway, we hope for another adventure in fascinating landscape, although we will have to share the road with many commercial trucks probably 
• Denali National Park – our visit in 2007 was too short to get the real spirit - therefore this time we plan to spend three nights in the park, as far as one is allowed to drive with an RV.

Cordova – reading the pages in the above mentioned travel planner makes us really anxious. Hikes to glacier lakes with icebergs, birding and wildlife watching as well as overnight stays in face of a calving glacier are planned. We hope, the weather will not do a foul play on this. Otherwise, there's the Salmon River Run festival in Cordova during these days, so we will have something to experience.

Mc. Carthy/Kennicott  is one of a few possibilites to enter Wrangell/St. Elias' fascinating world of mountains and glaciers by car. At the end of a bumpy 60-mile drive we will find an old copper mine, the possibility of a real glacier hike in half a day and a gourmet restaurant (!!). Along the way on the Copper River banks, we should be seeing fishermen at their work - the fish wheel as well as number and quality of salmon here is said to be outstanding.

There are many opinions on the Dalton Highway. The ones are seing it as a too long, bumpy and dusty gravel road with heavy truck traffic, the others as one of the last adventures. Of course we are with the others' view... As the risk of driving this road with an RV seems to be too high, we rented a 4x4 truck for this side trip and will stay in an old gold mining "town" along the way.

In Denali National Park, we'll do the unevitable bus tour to Wonder Lake. The remaining two days we plan to relax in the surroundings of Teklanika River Campground, doing small hikes and hopefully watching wildlife.

For the fine planing, we ordered the "bible of the north", the Milepost, already here in Germany. All official roads of the northern territories are described in every little detail, so you know what you can expect.

Route

Here you'll find an overview on the planned itinerary. As we are "off the beaten track" quite a bit of the time, we have reserved most overnight stays in advance. This may take a little bit of flexibiltiy, but with an RV it is sometimes hard to find appropritae space in the middle of peak season. And typically, there's no real problem with re-booking ...

Despite of the 1000 mile trip to the Arctic Ocean and back, we consider the total trip with its approx 2.500 miles neither too long nor too stressful. Not considering that side-trip, we have no days planned with driving distances of more than 150 miles. And as we have several multi-day stops at some locations, there should be no issue of just being on the road too much.

The following map provides an overview of the planned trip: