Lonely Planet Alaska PDF
Preview Lonely Planet Alaska
TABLE OF CONTENTS Cover How to Use This Guide Alaska map Plan Your Trip On the Road Understand Alaska Survival Guide Behind the Scenes Our Writers GETTING THE MOST OUT OF LONELY PLANET MAPS E-reader devices vary in their ability to show our maps. To get the most out of the maps in this guide, use the zoom function on your device. Or, visit http://media.lonelyplanet.com/ebookmaps and grab a PDF download or print out all the maps in this guide. Plan Your Trip Welcome to Alaska Top Experiences Need to Know What’s New If You Like… Month by Month Itineraries Outdoor Activities & Adventures Cruising in Alaska Travel with Children Regions at a Glance Welcome to Alaska Top of section Big, breathtakingly beautiful and wildly bountiful; there are few places in the world, and none in the USA, with the unspoiled wilderness, mountainous grandeur and immense wildlife that is Alaska. SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / GETTY © Wondrous Wilderness & Outdoor Playground Wilderness – land free of strip malls, traffic jams and McDonald’s restaurants – is the best attraction Alaska has to offer. Within Alaska is the largest national park in the country (Wrangell-St Elias), the largest national forest (Tongass), and the largest state park (Wood-Tikchik). This is where people play outdoors. During 20-hour days, they climb mountains, canoe wilderness rivers, strap on crampons and trek across glaciers. In July they watch giant brown bears snagging salmon; in November they head to Haines to see thousands of bald eagles gathered at the Chilkat River. They hoist a backpack and follow the same route that the Klondike stampeders did a century earlier or spend an afternoon in a kayak, bobbing in front of a 5-mile-wide glacier continually calving icebergs into the sea around them. In Alaska these are more than just outdoor adventures. They are natural experiences that can permanently change your way of thinking. The Biggest State of Them All Alaska is big and so is everything about it. There are mountains and glaciers in other parts of North America, but few on the same scale or as overpowering as those in Alaska. At 20,320ft, Mt McKinley is not only the highest peak in North America, it’s also a stunning sight when you catch its alpenglow in Wonder Lake. The Yukon is the third-longest river in the USA, Bering Glacier is larger than Switzerland, and Arctic winters are one long night while Arctic summers are one long day. The brown bears on Kodiak Island have been known to stand 14ft tall; the king salmon in the Kenai River often exceed 70lb; in Palmer they grow cabbages that tip the scales at 127lbs. A 50ft-long humpback whale breaching is not something easily missed, even from a half mile away. Far, Far Away The 49th state is the longest trip in the USA and probably the most expensive. From elsewhere in the country it takes a week on the road, two to three days on a ferry, or a $700 to $900 airline ticket to reach Alaska. Once there, many visitors are overwhelmed by the distances between cities, national parks and attractions. Alaskan prices are the stuff of legends. Still, the Final Frontier is on the bucket list of most adventurous travelers, particularly those enamored of the great outdoors. Those who find the time and money to visit the state rarely regret it. DRIENDL GROUP / GETTY © top experiences Top of section Mt McKinley 1 The Athabascans call it the Great One, and few who have seen this 20,320ft bulk of ice and granite would disagree. Seen from the Park Rd of Denali National Park, McKinley (Click here) chews up the skyline, dominating an already stunning landscape of tundra fields and polychromatic ridgelines. The mountain inspires a take-no-prisoners kind of awe. Climbers know that feeling well. As the highest peak in North America, McKinley attracts over a thousand alpinists every summer: less than 50% make it to the summit. PAUL A. SOUDERS/CORBIS ©
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