July 24

We are finally home!!!!

After a 38+ hour train ride from Portland Oregon to Union Station in St. Paul, I guess the best way to put it is it was a new experience.  I am glad we tried a long distance trip on a train in a sleeper car but it was an experience I do not plan to repeat anytime soon.  If a long distance train situation ever comes up again, we would certainly do things very differently.

We had a fantastic trip to Alaska!!!  After the "dust settles", I hope to start putting pictures on our website.

I hope everyone following this blog enjoyed the posts.  If you want to see more pictures from our trip, please check our website from time to time.  In a few days, information to a link where the pictures can be found will be on:

WWW.DickinsonAdventures.com

This will be the last post to this blog.  Thanks for keeping track of us!!!!   ....... John and Pat Dickinson

July 23

Arrived at Whitefish, MT at 10 am local time.

Arrived at Essex, MT at 11:36 am.

Arrived at East Glacier Park, MT at 12:30 pm.

Arrived at Cut Bank, MT at 1:23 pm

Arrived at Shelby, MT at 1:58 pm.

Arrived at Havre, MT at 3:40 pm.

July 22

Sadly we had to leave Andy and Cheryl's and start heading home.  We had a great time with them, Ellie, Jack and Ben.  We boarded a bus in Salem about 1 pm and went to Portland.

We are currently in Portland waiting to board the Empire #28 train to the Twin Cities. We were supposed to depart at 4:45 pm and then 5:15 pm and we were just told they are hoping to get out by 5:45 pm.  Seems they had a problem with the track earlier in the day and it delayed the arrival of our train and now they are cleaning our train before we can board.  Whether that will effect our arrival time on Sunday morning is still unknown.

We were also told that cell service was very spotty along our route so we may or may not get a blog post out tomorrow but I am sure we will have phone service as we pass through some of the larger cities.

July 21

Two days ago when we were out biking with Jack, we came across this very strange tree that I was trying to identify for the last two days.

I recruited Jack this morning to go out on bikes and help me find the tree again.  Jack led me straight to it.  We were lucky enough to have the home owner out in the yard when we arrived and we found out it was called a Monkey Tree.

When we got back to the house, we left to visit the Tillamook Cheese Factory.  We had lunch, got to watch the production lines packaging cheese, had several samples of their cheese and had some of their super ice cream and posed for a picture.

We then headed for the Oregon coast.  We stopped at the Cape Meares State Park to visit the Lighthouse and "Octopus Tree".

From there, we headed to Oceanside beach to collect rocks and shells.

It was a long day and we did not get back until after 9 pm but we had a great day!!!

July 20

Yesterday when we were out biking, we came across a large patch of very ripe and very sweet Blackberries.  So this morning Andy, Jack, Ben and I biked back to the spot to pick a couple bads of berries.

I think Ben (blue shirt) ate more than he put in the bag.

In the afternoon, we went to Silver Falls State Park and hiked to a couple very cool waterfalls.

When we got back, we were treated to steak on the grill and BlackBerry Sundaes for desert.

July 19

This morning Jack took Pat and me out for a bike ride.  He was a great tour guide and took us all over the neighborhood. One stop was at the Willamette River.

In the afternoon we all went on a tour of the city.  This shot is near the Carousel at Salem Riverfront Park.

Cheryl had a big Salmon Fillet on the grill all day smoking that we had for dinner with potatoes and corn on the cob.  It was great!!!

July 18

Today was a travel day.  We headed to see my sister Ellie in Keizer, OR.  Ketchikan's airport is on an island so we took a cab from the hotel to the dock and took a ferry to the airport.  The flight to Seattle was uneventful.  There were low clouds so not too much to see.  Our flight from Seattle to Portland was delayed but we were still able to catch the shuttle to Salem and Ellie picked us up there.

Ellie lives with her son Andy, his wife Cheryl and their two boys, Jack and Ben.  Ellie took us all out to dinner and we chatted for awhile at Andy as Cheryl's and retired for the evening.

July 17

W e spent the entire day today touring all the sights in Ketchikan.  We took a hotel shuttle, a free downtown bus and a city bus a couple miles from the downtown area to see the Saxman  historic Totem park.

It is an area where the have erected many Totem poles from the area and there is a building where local Totem carvers continue to carve Totem poles today.  The tour person said that it may cost up to $4-5,000 a foot for a master carver to carve a pole for sale and take up to a week per foot to carve, depending on the detail.

After an hour or so, we caught the bus and headed back downtown.  They have a well mapped 35 point walking tour that starts at the visitors center and covers a couple miles of the downtown and historic areas.  This was the starting point.

The part of the tour I liked the best is the area along Ketchikan Creek, where you could see the Salmon swimming up stream to spawn.

July 16

Today was fishing day.  We had a 4 hour private charter with Strike Zone charters out of Knudson Cove, Ketchikan, AK.  We had a good day!!!

We caught 11 Pinks and 2 Chums.  I caught both Chums and they were the largest.  Pat caught the two largest Pinks.  We each caught about the same number of fish.  We were trolling and would alternate who would take the next strike.  Even if we lost one, that person would keep taking the strikes until a fish was caught.  We are having the Chums smoked and the Pinks flash frozen.  All in all, we will probably end up with 25 - 30 #s of Salmon.

In the afternoon, we took a Dehaviland Beaver float plan ride into The Misty Fjords National Park.  It was a clear and beautiful afternoon for flying.  We landed on an alpine lake and got out on a dock to look around.

July 15

So today was a traveling day.  We left Wrangell about 10:45 am on the ferry and arrived in Ketchikan about 5 pm.

We sat with a couple from Poynette, WI for a couple hours on the trip.  They had driven their SUV to Alaska and were looking forward to getting home.

We got to our hotel after a delay from confusion with the shuttle driver about which ferry terminal we were at.  Seems they have two ferry terminals in Katchikan, one for the Alaskan Ferry (which we were on) and one for the "airport ferry".  Who knew, the airport is on an island and you have to take a ferry to and from Ketchikan to the airport!?! ... Go figure!

In any event, we made it to the hotel and they had one of my favorites on the menu.

We had a very nice dinner and retired to our very nice room with a deck and Oceanview.  You just have to look past the crane and port-o-potty........

Tomorrow, we have to get up at the crack of dawn as we have a Salmon fishing charter at 6:45 am about a 20 minute ride from our hotel.

July 14

We rented bicycles today and biked 4 miles out of town to visit Rainbow Falls (and of course 4 miles back).

The trail to Rainbow Falls passes through the rain forest.  70 to 80% of the trees are Western Hemlock and the rest are Sitka Spruce.  There are a few Cedar and a Birch here and there but very few and far between.  The trail has been highly improved and consists almost entirely of boardwalk and steps.  There are 583 steps to the observation platform (No, I did not count them, it was in the trail guide).

The waterfall was 100 feet.  ( Okay no more selfies!!!)

We got back early this afternoon so we will have a chance to do some laundry and get organized as we ship out tomorrow morning to Ketchikan, AK.

July 13

It rained during the night and it was still drizzling in the morning so we took our time getting going.  This morning we hiked up Mt. Dewey.  The trailhead was just a few blocks from our motel.  We had great views looking down on Wrangell.

We returned to the motel and had lunch.  We have a small kitchenette in our room so we made sandwiches and ate left overs from our restaurant meals.

In the afternoon we headed off to do some more hiking that could be reached by foot near the city.  Along the way, Pat rolled her anchle on some uneven sidewalk so we turned around to get back to the motel before it got too swollen.  We got some ice and Pat took the rest of the afternoon off to care for her anchle.

I went alone to visit Totem Park

 and went to hike the trails in Volunteer Park that we were headed to when Pat had her mishap.

July 12

Guess what we did today??

Yep, we rented a two person Kayak and paddled in the channel on the Northwestern shore of Wrangell Island where the city of Wrangell is located.  One of our stops was at Petroglyph Beach.

We were out for several hours and sitting with my legs out straight and getting out and back in a couple times, I was reminded why I prefer Canoeing over Kayaking.  I guess I am getting too old and fat to be a Kayaker.

July -11

Okay so here is the continuation of the saga from last night.  When we arrived at the Ferry Terminal in Juneau last night about 10 pm, I was lamenting with the ticket counter agent about not leaving until 4 am and inquiring if there may be a stateroom available to secure so we could get some rest on the 13.5 hour ferry trip.  He said I would have to check with the purser when we got on board.  We chatted for awhile since the place was deserted so early before departure.  Later Pat and I found a corner out of the way and were kinda dozing.  At midnight when the ferry arrived, he came over and woke me up to suggest that we go talk to the assist purser that was unloading passengers and cars to see if we could board early and check on the availability of a stateroom.  The assistant purser was very sympathetic and let us board about midnight.  Once on board, we found the purser and he said he would have a stateroom but it would not be available until they were all cleaned in about two hours but normally we would have to be put on a wait list.  I said okay fine we really want a room.  I asked how many were on the wait list and he said one, you.  With a sheepish grin, he said that was kinda silly and agreed to go ahead and book us since we were standing right there.  So we got a stateroom but had to wait for it to be cleaned.  The ship was deserted so we found a lounge on level 6 and crashed on the sofas waiting for the announcement.  About 1:30 am, the announcement came and we went back to level 5 to get our room assignment and keys.  We were asleep in our Oceanview stateroom bunk beds by 1:45 am.  I did not even hear the ferry leave at 4 am.  That stateroom was heaven.  Two bunk beds, a small desk and a bathroom with a shower and a big window.

I got up about 9 am and strolled around all the passenger areas both inside and out and had breakfast.  During my stroll, I saw another dozen humpback whales and one was so close to the ferry's path, that the captain had to change course.

I went back to make sure Pat was up to get breakfast.  While she was getting ready, we saw a couple more humpbacks from our stateroom window and several more while we were on deck.  At lunch, we saw another Orca 75 yards from the ferry.

The Ferry stopped in Petersburg, AK on the way to Wrangell.  It was a short stop and we got off and walked about a mile into town and turned around and headed back to reboard.  We are now in Wrangell and will be here for a few days.

July 10

Today we took the 8 hour boat tour of Glacier Bay.  It was Great!!!

There were initially about 50 people (lots of room) and we picked up 21 kayakers along the way.  We saw a dozen humpback whales fairly close and at least another dozen blow hole spouts at a distance.  We were extremely lucky in that we saw two pairs of Orcas real close to the boat.  We saw dozens of seals on a couple different rock areas sunning themselves.  We also saw 3 Brown Bears, 4 Mountain Goats and several dozen Sea Otters.  We also saw hundreds of birds to include Puffins, Artic Terns, Cormorants, Gulls, Bald Eagles, etc.

We took off from the visitor center at Glacier Bay and traveled to the Northern most finger, Tarr Inlet, to park along side Margerie Tidal Glacier.

  We stayed there for about 30 minutes and during that time, we heard several of the classic "gunshot" noises that are heard before the glacier calves.  We did not see the "National Geographic" type calving, but we did see several large pieces fall off, making big splashes.

We are now experiencing one of our poorer planning phases of the trip.  We flew back from Glacier Bay to Juneau today at 6 pm and will not leave Juneau until 4 am tomorrow on the ferry.......  with all our spare time we went to a movie with all our luggage in tow.  We got another cab to get us to the ferry terminal and with any luck, we will only have another 5 hours to kill.

July 9

This morning we went for a car tour of Douglas, AK.  Douglas is the town across the Gastineau Channel from Juneau.  We then crossed back to Juneau and toured the campus of  the University of Alaska at Juneau.  They are known for two large totem poles that they have on campus.

We returned the rental car and hung out at the airport for a couple hours before flying to Gustavus, AK, where we are staying at the Glacier Bay Lodge.  One of the really cool things they have here is a full skeleton of a Humpback Whale.

Tomorrow we will be taking an 8 hour boat tour of Glacier Bay.

July 8

This morning we did a walking tour of Juneau.  We saw some of the government buildings, the Capitol (the whole front entrance was under construction), the City Museum, Old Town, the tourist trinket shops, etc.  All went fine until we got to the Red Dog Saloon, I could not get Pat out of that place.

In the afternoon,  we went to the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center.  We viewed their exhibits and watched a short video. We hiked out on Photo Point Trail and the Nugget Falls Trail to get better views of the Glacier and the Falls.

We also drove North of the city to visit the Jensen-Olson Arboretum and the Shrine of St. Therese.

July 7

Today was primarily a travel day.  We left Skagway on the ferry to return to Juneau.

We hab one stop at Haines, AK, so the trip took about 4 + hours.  It was a beautiful day with full sun and mild winds.  We saw about a dozen dolphins.  We heard someone say that they saw a whale but unfortunately, we did not.

We got to the ferry terminal in Juneau and split a cab with one of our fellow travelers to the airport where we picked up a car.  We went downtown to the Visitor center before checking in to our hotel.  It just so happens that there was a tram near the visitor center that went up Mount Roberts 1800 feet to a Nature Center, Theater, restaurant and hiking trails.

We took the tram to the top and spent about 2 hours watching their video on Southeast Alaska Native  culture (18 min) and hiking the trails they had.  The highest elevation we got to was 2050 feet at Father Brown's Cross.  There were half a dozen
lookout points in the couple mile hike that provided spectacular views of the city of Juneau, the airport, the surrounding waterways and the mountain ranges.  We are now at the Driftwood Motel in Juneau for the next couple nights.

July 6

We started out the day with a 45 minute Historical tour of Skagway with a National Park Service Ranger.  It was interesting but very repetitive of the information gleaned from their 30 minute video which we had seen earlier.

The big event for the day was a train and bike ride.  We took the White Pass and

Yukon Scenic Narrow-Guage Railway 28 miles from Skagway, AK to Fraser British Columbia, Canada.  We crossed the White Pass at about 3000 ft on our way to Fraser.   After a Canadian Customs Official checked our Passports, we were allowed to get off the train.  We were picked up by a van with a trailer load of bicycles behind.  We were driven on the road to where the highway crosses White Pass to begin our bicycle ride back down hill to Skagway.

We dropped about 3000 feet over 15 miles and with one small exception, it was down hill all the way.  There were 11 people in our group plus one person from the bike shop to lead us and one person from the bike shop bringing up the rear.  We all had to pass through US customs individually.  It was chilly and blustery at the start but the closer we got to sea level, the nicer it got.

July 5

We made another trip to the Post Office to send some more stuff home and then we took a shuttle to visit Jewel Garden and glassworks place.  Both were very interesting.  We watched as a glass blower make a multi colored bowl.

We jumped off the shuttle on the way back to town to visit an old cemetery and hike back to the Lower Reid waterfall.

We hiked back to the road where we caught another shuttle to get back to town and from town, we had access to the Yakutania Point, Smugglers Cove and Pet  Cemetery Tralis that we hiked.

July 4

WOW!!! They really know how to do a 4th of July celebration in Skagway!!  They blocked off the main street from 2nd St to 7th St.  They had 2 parades (a kids parade and an adult parade), running races for various age groups, tug of war contest, arm wrestling, egg toss, 3 on 3 basketball, a beer garden, street vendors, street musicians, plus more.

There were 4 cruise ships in town so there were lots of people to join in the celebration.  All the events took place in that 5 block area so you did not have to go far to take it all in.

July 3

Talk about strange!!  We think our hotel room (429) at the Guesthouse Inn in Anchorage must have been haunted.  A little after 8 pm when we returned to our room from dinner, we got a knock on our door and it was one of the hotel staff.  She wanted to know if we were alright as they were getting calls from our room phone but no one was on the phone.  She came in and checked our room phones and said that was strange there was not even a dial tone so the phone must not be working.  We all had a laugh and she left.......  The story continues ..... we got a knock on our door at 4:30 am and it was the Police!! They wanted to know if there was any problem because they were getting 911 calls from our room and no one was on the line..... Go figure! ...... Conclusion:  If you stay at the Guesthouse Inn in Anchorage, do not stay in room 427 as the smoke detectors go off randomly and do not stay in room 429 as it is haunted!!!

Today was a travel day.  We left Anchorage on a morning flight and arrived in Juneau at about 9:30 am.  We got our luggage and took a short walk off the airport grounds to a local diner.  We returned to the airport and caught a cab to the ferry terminal.

Strange that their sign does not say Juneau but I guess "everyone" knows that Auke Bay is in Juneau. We had about a 2.5 hour ferry ride to Skagway.  The ferry was a catamaran style hull.  It was averaging about 33 knots.  We saw at least 2 dozen dolphins feeding right at the surface.  We also saw a whale breach about 7 times while he was still in our sight as we passed by.  The breaches were the real deal with about 2/3rd of its body out of the water.  Very cool!!!

We made it to Skagway about 5 pm.  What a great quaint small town.  We walked about a half mile from the ferry dock to our hotel.  We walked to dinner and if we can

stay awake, their 4th fireworks will be at 11 pm tonight.

July 2

Today was the day that I was going to summit Omalley Peak 5100 feet.  Pat was going to accompany me through the valley and up to the point where the trail got tough and then head back to the trailhead and hike around there while I went ahead with my mission.  After crossing the valley, the first challenge was a scramble about 1000 feet over a quarter mile to a saddle that provided access to a large plain called the "football field". After Pat made it 3/4ths of the way up, I encouraged here to make it to the saddle and she could stop there.

Once at the saddle, it was about 2.5 to 3 miles to the point where the attack of the summit would begin.  It was a terrible day for mountaineering, it was overcast with a heavy wet fog and very low visibility.  We trudged on.  Pat made it all the way to the attack point. The terrain only rose a couple hundred feet at most over the couple miles.

We arrived at the attack point a little before 11 am.  I was hoping the weather would improve but it did not.  I debated for a couple minutes and decided as long as I was there, I would start the climb and see what would happen.  The higher I got the more dense the fog became.  You could only see about 50 vertical feet and maybe 100 horizontal feet.  These were perhaps the worse climbing condition I have ever encountered.  I should have turned back but I soldiered on.  Long story short, I ran into many blind routes where I had to go back and take another path because I could not see far enough ahead because of the dense fog.  I would proceed up a path looking for the high points to appear in the fog and find a route to get to that point only to see a higher point in  a different direction.  I had read some of the climbing logs that warmed of the several false spire summits surrounding Omalley so I did not want to fall into that trap.

As it turns out, I think I did exactly that.  In the fog, I think I actually passed Omalley and climbed one of the false summit spires to its West.  After arriving at the tenuous perch at its top, the weather cleared just long enough for me to look across and see some rocks poking out of the fog/clouds that appeared to be 50 to 100 feet higher than I was.  I can only assume that it was Omalley.  It was not clear enough to do a 360 degree sweep to see what else was up there or actually get a good fix on my position.

I rested for a couple minutes and had something to eat and the fog/clouds started getting heavier.  I made 5000 feet so it was time head down.  The rocks were wetter and it got very dicey on the way down.  I slipped on a large rock incline and slid about 20 feet.  I was lucky and only got a scraped up arm and leg before I arrested my fall.  Someone was reminding me that I should not be climbing in that weather.

I got back to where Pat was waiting for me and we hiked the 3+ miles back to the trailhead without incident.

July 1

This morning we drove to Girdwood to visit the Jade Rock Shop.  We had a nice chat with the lady, looked over some of the equipment that they use to cut down large pieces of Jade and Pat picked up a couple pieces of Jade to add to her rock collection.

On the way back, we stopped at the Anchorage Zoo.

It was an interesting Zoo.  They had all the local big mammals: Brown, Black and Polar Bears, Moose and Caribou, Wolves, Cyotes and Fox, Musk Ox and Yaks, and they even had two Camels. They also had an assortment of Eagles, Owls and Hawks.

In the afternoon, we spent quite a bit of time at the Alaska Botanical Garden.

It was well done.  They did an excellent job of marking the plants.  Even though a plant may appear in several places throughout the various gardens, they were all marked.  Another interesting thing about the place was that the route for the Iditarod Sled Dog Race ran right next to the garden.  They had a gate so we could walk on the actual race route.

We went to the Slippery Salomon to eat tonight.  It is associated with the Ramada and it was the first place we had something to eat when we arrived on June 1. We had dinner on the deck and they had live music.

After dinner, we walked down town where all the action was and hung out for awhile in the general area of the visitor center  before walking back to our hotel.

June 30

We had an interesting night last night.  The smoke detector in our room went off.  We called the front desk and they turned it off.  About 30 minutes later it went off again and this time they could not turn it off.  This very loud annoying noise continued for about 20 minutes.  One of the staff came to our room and mucked around for a few minutes and left and the alarm was still going.  It finally stopped.  They were booked for the night and we told them in the morning we wanted a new room.  We made it through the night and in the morning they were very accommodating to change our room.  We will see how it goes tonight!

Today we climbed Flattop Mountain, a little South and East of Anchorage.  We made the 1.5 mile 1350 foot climb to the summit of 3550 feet in an hour and 10 minutes.  The last 200 feet was a scramble to the top.

We took the scenic route down and looked over the route to Omalley Peak, 5150 feet. That may be on the schedule later.  We went to a different trailhead from the one we were at for Flattop and did about a 4 mile hike to scout other possible routes for Omalley.  We will see how the knees feel tomorrow to determine if a summit attempt is in the plans for Omalley.

June 29

We got up early to catch the Alaskan Railroad Gold Star train from Fairbanks to Anchorage.  This is Pat in front of the Train Station in Fairbanks.

They have a very extensive model railroad set up at one end of the depot in Fairbanks.  There were at least 6 trains all running simultaneously on various different tracks and some on the same tracks.

We upgraded our level of service on the train and had assigned seats in an observation car and our own dinning room just for our car.  They served us three free meals and a couple free drinks.  It made the 12 hour ride very pleasant.  We are now at the Guesthouse Inn for a couple days in Anchorage.

June 28

It was raining when we got up but it cleared up by mid morning.  This morning we took the River Discovery tour on a real sternwheel boat on the Chena River at Fairbanks.

As part of the tour, we saw a float plane demonstration, a dog sled demonstration and visited a recreated Athabaskan camp.

In the afternoon we did a walking tour of Fairbanks.  We walked along the Chena River and visited several Museums.

June 27

Today was our first day of significant rain all day.  We took the opportunity to visit indoor attractions in Fairbanks.  We spent the morning at the Morris Thompson Cultural and Visitors Center.  In addition to a 40 minute movie on Northern Lights, they had many exhibits.

After lunch, we went to the University of Alaska Museum of the  North.  We saw three 30 minute films:  Discovering dinosaur bones in Alaska, Whale migration and research and another film on the Northern Lights.  They had an extensive art collection and many exhibits on the local people, local animals, dinosaurs and whaling.

The Brown Bear pictured stood 8ft 9in tall.

June 26

Well the day started with a big surprise!!  We received an email at 8:30 am that our 11:50 am Alaska Air flight from Barrow to Fairbanks was canceled.  I immediately called Alaska Air lines to see what they could do.  After spending several minutes on the phone, the agent confirmed the flight was canceled and came up with a 6pm flight from Barrow to Anchorage and a 11pm flight from Anchorage to Fairbanks.

In the process of discussing the suggested changes, I asked if there were any options through Prudhoe Bay.  She put me on hold for about 10 minutes and when she returned to the line she started apologizing profusely.  As it turned out, there was a mix up and the Prudhoe Bay flights were canceled. She returned our flight to the originally scheduled flight and all worked out and we are now in Fairbanks.
Go figure!!!

Interesting fact about the planes they use to fly to the small Northern towns like Barrow and Prudhoe Bay is that passengers board from the back of the aircraft.  There is a solid wall divider between rows 15 and 16.  There is additional cargo where rows 1 through 15 would normally be.  Passengers sit in rows 16 to the rear of the plane.

One additional point of interest.  In the debate over the pronunciation of Barrow, i.e., "bear-o" vs "bar-o", after surveying a significant sample of locals, it must be concluded that "bear-o" is the correct local vernacular.