Alaska has as a surface area of roughly 1.718 million km² which is unfathomable to most of us, but certainly bigger than you ever imagined. You know California is big! Well, you could fit California into Alaska four times!
Alaska – America’s Arctic state.
We travel the Kenai Peninsula from Anchorage to Homer and beyond.
You also know that Texas is bigger than California. Guess what? You could fit Texas into Alaska twice! Alaska is bigger than Texas, California, and Montana combined! Rhode Island is America’s smallest state and can fit into Alaska 425 times. From north to south, Alaska measures 2,285 kilometres, the distance from Denver City to Mexico City. That’s far!
Much of Alaska is unreachable!
Now that we realise how big Alaska is, we should also know that most of Alaska has no roadways and only 20% of Alaska’s roads are paved. Due to a lack of roads, much of Alaska is practically unreachable but you can charter a seaplane to many areas as Alaska has about 3 million lakes larger than 81,000 m² each.
Denali National Park
Let us start by exploring Alaska by car and stay on the road from Anchorage up north to the rugged Denali National Park where we will find Alaska’s highest peak (6,190 m), Mount Denali (formerly known as Mount McKinley).
With a size of almost 24,300 km² of Alaska’s interior wilderness, the Denali National Park is a mix of forest at the lowest elevations, tundra at middle elevations, and massive glaciers, rocks, and snow at the highest elevations. Its most famous resident is Mount Denali (formerly known as Mount McKinley) the highest mountain peak in North America (6,190 m).
Its impressive Kahiltna Glacier is about 71 km in length. Look out for Denali’s Big Five: the moose, bear, wolves, Dali sheep, and the caribou. Denali also hosts the red fox, squirrels, collard pika, marmots, wolverines, voles, hares and many more!
Kenai Fjords National Park
We then head south along the rugged Kenai Fjords National Park with its many glaciers all the way down to the Homer Spit on the southern tip of the Kenai Peninsula.
When you reach the town of Ninilchik, be on the lookout across Cook Inlet for Mount Redoubt, an active stratovolcano in the volcanic Aleutian Range which is the long skinny “Alaskan spit” piece of land jutting out in a southwesterly direction towards the Bering Sea.
The best and safest view of the active Mount Redoubt is from the Alaska native village of Ninilchik across the Cook Inlet. Mount Redoubt was violently active during March and April of 2009 sending out plumes of smoke and ash clouds up 13,700 m into the air. The smoke was accompanied by several earthquakes.
The Steller (or northern) sea lion is the largest of the eared seals (otariidae) family. California sea lions can often be seen and heard among the Steller sea lions in the southeastern Alaskan waters. The Steller sea lion is much bigger, more blondish, and has a shorter snout than their Californian cousins. The Steller males also have a broad upper torso with a “mane” while their cousins can’t claim this! The Stellers also have a much longer life span (30+ years) while the Californian sea lions live 15+ years.
South of the southern Peninsula
We board a small boat to Kachemak Bay State Park to check out Halibut Cove and then travel further southwest to the remote Seldovia Village.
On the approach to Seldovia, spot the sea otters drifting around in Kachemak Bay. During 2015/16 hundreds of them died for some unconfirmed reasons. The likely culprit is the bacterium Streptococcus infantarius subspecies coli which causes encephalitis in otters or a host of other bacteria which flourish in the warming waters. An unknown virus has also been suspected. The Kachemak Bay otter population was estimated to be around 6,000 in 2012. It is not known how many are left today.
Bird rookery with black-footed kittiwake (front) and the common murre (back). As many as 20,000 seabirds build nests in the craggy rock faces and cliffs of Gull Island on the south side of Kachemak Bay near the Homer Spit. Others include the glaucous-winged gulls, pelagic cormorants, red-faced cormorants, puffins and pigeon guillemots.
☛ Read more: Alaska is on my “9 Places to Visit” list.
A few more photos of Alaska
Horned puffin Moose Bald eagle King eider Tufted puffin Orcas (Killer whales)
Blog post and photos by Peter who has been travelling almost full-time since 2005 and has been to over 122 countries. He visited several countries, such as Japan, more than 20 times. Peter is Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of GlobeRovers Magazine, an independent travel magazine focused on intrepid destinations.