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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
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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.
Meet the People
Isolation fosters peculiarities. A trip into the Alaskan wilderness can be as much about the off-beat people as the off-the-beaten-track location. Take tiny Chitina with its handful of subsistence-hunting locals, or the crusty boom-and-bust town of Nome, or the jokey gold-mining punch line that is Chicken. Ever since the US bought Alaska for 2 cents an acre in 1867, the land that styles itself as America’s last frontier has attracted contrarians, rat-race escapees, wanderers, dreamers, back-to-the-landers and people imbued with the spirit of the Wild West. In a land of immense natural beauty, the Alaskan people are an oft-forgotten part of the brew.
The Call of the Wild
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Animal Magic
People-watching takes second place to wildlife-spotting in a state where brown bears snatch leaping salmon out of angry waterfalls and curious moose pose majestically on national park roadsides. But the real thrill for wilderness purists is to go off in search of fauna in its natural habitat. Fly out into unguarded backcountry and you'll quickly get the sense of swapping your seat on a bush plane for one in the food chain. The landscapes of the far north might be the domain of musk oxen, gray wolves and bears, but, keep your wits about you, and they’ll quietly accept you as a guest.
Just do it
Alaska is, without a doubt, America’s grittiest outdoor playground where skilled bush pilots land with pinpoint accuracy on crevasse-riddled glaciers, and backcountry guiding companies take bravehearts on bracing paddles down almost virgin rivers. With scant phone coverage and a dearth of hipster-friendly coffee bars to plug in your iPad, this is a region for 'doing' rather than observing. Whether you go it alone with bear-spray and a backpack, or place yourself in the hands of an experienced ’sourdough’ (Alaskan old-timer), the rewards are immeasurable.
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