Well, from the far Arctic North, I rode directly South to the opposite coast of Alaska.
The Southern coast is all mountains and fijords.... and tourists.
Im here in early August and this is the late end of the tourist high season. Already here the weather is turning quite cold.
As I rode South through central Alaska I was a bit dissapointed by the lack of views of some of the really big mountains (Like Denali at 6000m) due to the very heavy smoke from the forrest fires. The forrests here are all burning down these days. Its just like the forrests in the Okanagan of BC ... The climate is changing and the flora of these areas is not right for the drier conditions, so nature steps in and sorts it out (with fire) .
Its just we silly humans with our really short time perspecrtive that think its some sort of disaster and we try to resist it. In a century or two it will all have sorted its self out :)
Anyway, back to the point.
The South coast is all beautiful mountains and glaciers and forest and lakes and fijords and tidal flats.
The Kenai peninsula is the main area with roads (there just are no roads over in the West of the state at all) and thats where all the tourists go. Most of the peninsula is a national park, and I spent a couple of days just gently touring around down here and enjoying the views.
The weather was a bit grey but I still really liked it and would not hesitate to recommend it.
I did however note that while it seems really nice and lush and green here, the trees are all quite small... and that means they have a very shoret growing season... So the winters here are very long and very cold!!!
This is confirmed by the fact that they get 8-10 metres of snow here in the winter!!
But its certainly a nice place in the summer :)))
The Southern coast is all mountains and fijords.... and tourists.
Im here in early August and this is the late end of the tourist high season. Already here the weather is turning quite cold.
As I rode South through central Alaska I was a bit dissapointed by the lack of views of some of the really big mountains (Like Denali at 6000m) due to the very heavy smoke from the forrest fires. The forrests here are all burning down these days. Its just like the forrests in the Okanagan of BC ... The climate is changing and the flora of these areas is not right for the drier conditions, so nature steps in and sorts it out (with fire) .
Its just we silly humans with our really short time perspecrtive that think its some sort of disaster and we try to resist it. In a century or two it will all have sorted its self out :)
Anyway, back to the point.
The South coast is all beautiful mountains and glaciers and forest and lakes and fijords and tidal flats.
The Kenai peninsula is the main area with roads (there just are no roads over in the West of the state at all) and thats where all the tourists go. Most of the peninsula is a national park, and I spent a couple of days just gently touring around down here and enjoying the views.
The weather was a bit grey but I still really liked it and would not hesitate to recommend it.
I did however note that while it seems really nice and lush and green here, the trees are all quite small... and that means they have a very shoret growing season... So the winters here are very long and very cold!!!
This is confirmed by the fact that they get 8-10 metres of snow here in the winter!!
But its certainly a nice place in the summer :)))
