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TRAVEL - ALASKA 2003
This website provides some
highlights from our recent Alaska trip. SOME BACKGROUND ON ALASKA A good summary is available from this website, and we quote from there: Alaska is the largest state in the United States, with an area of 586,000 square miles -- roughly twice that of Texas and roughly one fifth the size of the lower 48 states combined. Alaska's tidal shoreline is estimated at more than 47,000 miles, more than that of the other 49 states combined. Anchorage, with a population of about 260,000, is Alaska's largest city. It is so much bigger than other communities in the state that other Alaskans like to say Anchorage is only 20 minutes from Alaska. More than half the state's population lives within a radius of 50 miles of Anchorage... ...Alaska has 39 mountain ranges and 17 of the 20 highest peaks in North America. Major mountain chains and mountain ranges are the Alaska Range, which includes Mount McKinley [note: also known as Mount Denali, the highest peak in North America] as well as several volcanic peaks that can be seen across Cook Inlet from Anchorage; the Brooks Range in northwest Alaska; the Chugach Range around Anchorage; the St. Elias Mountains including the 18,000-foot Mount St. Elias (North America's second highest peak, Mount Logan, at 19,545 feet, is located on the Canadian side of the St. Elias Mountains); and the Fairweather Range, which stretches down into the southeast panhandle. Alaska is part of the "Pacific Ring of Fire," a string of volcanoes that stretches from Asia into North America. It has more than 100 volcanoes and volcanic fields, many of them in the Aleutian Islands. A 1912 eruption created the "Valley of 10,000 Smokes" on the Alaska Peninsula and was the largest 20th century eruption in the world. Mount Spurr and Mount Redoubt, about 100 miles west of Anchorage, erupted in the 1990s. The Mount Spurr eruption in 1992 brought activity to a standstill when an inch of ash rained down on the city. The Yukon River, which originates in Canada and is the third longest river in the United States, winds for 1,875 miles through Alaska. Alaska has more than 3,000 rivers and 3 million lakes, leaving Minnesota, "land of 10,000 lakes," far behind. Southeast Alaska, with its Inside Passage familiar to cruise ship passengers, includes more than 1,000 islands as well as a rainforest. The 16.8-million-acre Tongass National Forest is the largest forest managed by the U.S. Park Service. ALASKA IN THE SUMMER As appropriately stated by this site: Alaskan summers are great, because the weather is mild, the days are long and even at night the sun is never far below the horizon. (Alaska is not the place to go to see fireworks on the Fourth of July, because in most of the state it just doesn't get dark enough -- even after midnight -- to show them to best advantage.) The further north you go, the more daylight you get. In Anchorage, it's possible to read a book outside at midnight in late June. In Barrow, on Alaska's North Slope, it doesn't get dark at all for several months. We can confirm the book-reading-at-midnight statement :-) It is fascinating, to say the least, when 12 midnight feels like 6:00 p.m. at home.
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