Family trip to Alaska

After kids' graduation from middle and high school, with my son going to college, we decided to take a family trip as the summer vacation started. After lot of debates, we ended up with Alaska. I had been to Alaska ~20 years back before kids but still had lots of memories as its such a remarkable place. 

Here is what we did:

June 9 - Travel around Anchorage to collect bear spray and go to Mt McKinley. The sights from McKinley Wilderness Lodge were unreal

June 10 - We took the evening flight to McKinley with Talkeetna Air. They were superb. We saw amazing views of McKinley up close but the most interesting thing was landing on a glacier. Even more interesting was that instead of landing at the regular spot, they landed at basecamp since they had to pickup a climber who had just completed the McKinley hike. We got to see the basecamp setup. I admired at both the mountains but also how minimalistic the base camp setup was.

June 11 - We spent this day inside Denali National Park. We did a small hike from the visitors center and then drove up to mile 15 to Savage River and the views were dramatic. On the way back, we saw a Moose at length eating shrubbery

June 12 - We spent the day at the Wildlife Conservatory watching bears and other animals up close on our way to Seward

June 13 - Our tour to the glacier got canceled due to rough choppy waters, so we went to Exit Glacier. The glacier is so beautiful that instead what was supposed to be a one hour hike, we spent a good 4-5 hours admiring the glacier from both the valley below and the hike end points

June 14 - The day had a lot of rain, so we did a small hike near the beach where we saw bald eagles circling and perching atop trees. It was a sight to behold. We also saw Hera Pheri while inside the AirBnb and discovered some good prepared meals in the nearby Safeway! That was a life saver!

June 15 - We did a 7.5 hour trip to see two glaciers with Major Marine tours. It was one of the best on water tours I have done in my life. The tidewater glaciers were a sight to behold. We saw some calving too with ice falling the water. The sound was bigger than I expected as massive chunks of ice fell in the water. We saw some whales, puffins and dalls porpoise (surprisingly fun as they swam on the waves created by the ship).

All in all, a lot of family bonding in a wonderful setting. We also had a lot of heavy philosophical discussions about life goals, which I am sure the kids did not love :).