Thanks and good advise...since my travel partner is moving to Seattle next summer, it will make taking trips up there much more convenient, at least for one of us

Here's my personal opinion on paying to see bears. Don't. I attract bears and can turn them up in Alaska even going out to get the mail. Caribou are a long way off your chosen path. Alaska is BIG! The bus tours leave on their route through Denali very early in the morning and take a very long day to do. You can ride the hop on hop off buses, but you need to know what you are doing. The drive from Anchorage to Denali can be darn slow during tourist season. All it takes is a couple slow motor homes and you have to cool your heels.

Frankly I think you are trying to do too much. You won't enjoy all that running around.
Read your MILEPOST and take it seriously.

www.milepost.com

Thank you and the more I think about it, the more I'm going to seriously research SRQGuy's itinerary as the one we're going to do instead of the one I came up with.

As for the bears - assuming we scrap the flight to see them, are there any places that offer a decent chance to see bears in the wild in late May along the route he took, or perhaps with a short and easy detour that won't take much time out of the itinerary?

If there is a relatively easy to way to do it, we can work that into the schedule, otherwise we'll leave it off for this trip.

There are many, many bears in Alaska. If you keep your eyes open you are likely to see them along almost any road, in the area of Exit Glacier, Portage Glacier area and sometimes even in Anchorage....in the city.

There is a running (decades long) joke in our family that if you want to see a bear, follow me! My family has a house out in the area east and south of Anchorage not far from Turnagain Arm. During the warmer months, there are bears just about anywhere I want to go.

If you see a bunch of cars/trucks pulled over along a road, chances are the people are seeing animals. Most tourists drive to fast and miss so much.

It goes without saying, leave the bears alone! You don't have to pay to see bears, just keep a look out. The same with moose.

Be sure to take a pair of binoculars as you will use them plenty.

I wouldn't take the time and effort to drive to Fairbanks. You have plenty enough driving to and fro Denali Park. That road can get very congested and slow. Don't set yourself such a tight schedule that you turn your vacation into a JOB!

You will see bears and all kinds of other wildlife if you spend any time at all between cities in Alaska. In Denali, you'll see tons of it.

We saw a HUGE porcupine walking on the side of the road one day, as well as countless moose and bears.

On our first trip to Alaska in late May, we saw bears at Exit Glacier and at Denali. We saw black bears at Exit Glacier and grizzly bears at Denali. In Denali we watched a grizzly snacking on a moose - not quite the same as watching them catch salmon but extremely exciting in its own way. We saw at least seven grizzly bears including a mother and her twins. In late May the wild life viewing was spectacular! A bus tour offered by the park was our only option for touring but it really was a wonderful experience. Ranger Ken was extremely cute as well as knowledgeable. We stopped every time that we saw an animal. We were on the first trip of the morning.

We have hiked to the Russian River Falls (about a five mile round-trip on fairly flat ground) on two of our trips to Alaska. Bears are often spotted there eating salmon. I do not know if there will be bears there in late May; it may be too early for salmon. The RRF are just off the Sterling Highway a few miles past Cooper Landing. We have seen several moose in this area.

Everytime that we have visited Alaska (only six times so far), we have taken one of the Kenai Fiords cruises. We have used different companies - usually the one with the longest cruise at the cheapest cost. In September 2006, our options were limited because many companies had stopped cruising for the year. However, we had one of our best orca sightings ever! In fact our naturalist said that it was one of the best that he had ever experienced. A pod interacted with our boat for over forty-five minutes. The really weird part of this story is that we were on a humpback whale watching cruise in Maui in January 2007 and two of our fellow passengers (we had never met them before) were talking about a cruise that they had taken in Alaska in September 2006. We discovered that we were cruising in Alaska on the same day and possibly on the same boat. What a small world!

We have also taken the PWS cruise three times; Phillips 16 Glacier Cruise is really good and they travel to more glaciers (some of the other boats travel to fout or five glaciers). However, you can sometimes get a really good discount if you book your KF and PWS cruises with the same company.

Hello, That looks like a great itinerary.

I am planning to visit alaska around July. We would like to do alot of hiking. Currently, I am deciding if i shoud do a cruise for 7 to 9 days vs Booking everything my self such as hotel, rent a car and visit places like you posted.
What does a trip like you posted cost?

thanks

Given the mixed reviews from TripAdvisor about every property within a 2 hr radius of the Park, I am open to suggestions on recommended hotel (non-rustic) options.

The Denali Princess is sold out for one of our nights, so that's a non-starter and it looks like the Denali Bluffs doesn't open up until the day after we are scheduled to leave the park....unless I do the scheduled tour in reverse.

The McKinley Princess has availability, but it's very hard to tell from the website how close it really is to the National Park entrance and Visitors Center/Bus Depot.

I put this itinerary and trip together myself. I'd say I spent an average of $100 per night on hotels, and I rented a car for the week for ~$200. I think the ferry trip, including car accomodation, was around $200 as well. I can't remember the cost of the Kenai Fjords tour in Seward, but most everything else we did was free. For meals it will all depend on what you choose to do, but generally we found food to be noticeably more expensive than comparable meals at home, but not horribly so. Personally I hate organized tours, and I think this itinerary gives you a better taste of Alaska than a cruise will.

I think you're SOL for "non-rustic" places near Denali that aren't Princess hotels. I can safely recommend Motel Nord Haven as a reasonably priced and clean accomodation. There's no nightlife to speak of and just a few restaurants in the area, so I'd plan on just relaxing while in the Denali area.

If you want to stay somewhere with a view of Denali but not necessarily in the park, try Talkeetna Alaskan Lodge. Pricey but definitely not rustic. We stayed there for two nights on our honeymoon and wish we'd stayed longer. Land's End in Homer was nice and of course you can't go wrong at the Captain Cook while in Anchorage. Second the Double Muskey, excellent place.

Apparently, Denali Resorts (the Aramark contractor running the nearby hotels) has a two-for-one special - buy one night, get the next free. Can't beat that deal, so we ended up booking the McKinley Chalet Resort (the Grande Denali was sold out). You can call their central booking number and mention the 2-4-1 deal and they know exactly how to book it (standard rooms only, no upgrades).

Now we're trying to figure out what to do in the park. Originally, we wanted to do a bus tour, but it seems the premier company, Doyle, is not operating until early June. We wanted to get as far as Wonder Lake, but it appears there are not shuttles or buses going that far in until mid June.

So...are there are other recommended tours that get as far as Tolkat River, or is it OK to take the shuttle to Tolkat, get off and hike around? Is Tolkat the best jump-off spot for wildlife? What are some other good spots to get off the shuttle for relatively short hikes with decent animal viewing, perhaps wildflowers and mountain/landscape views?

There are many places to do all of the above. There are many guide books and maps available for that area. Good for you on your booking for the Chalets. The Park shuttles are good enough for what you want to do. They stop when someone spots a big animals. You don't have to go far from the road or even get off the road to see a great deal. The buses drive very slowly. A lot of bump, bump.

I could spend eternity at Polychrome Pass! Check out info on that. Here's a great photo. Polychrome Pass is at the Tolkat River.

http://www.wildnatureimages.com/Polychrome%20View.htm

Thanks for the info! I will put together an itenary this weekend.

I forgot to solicit opinions for this earlier, but where is the best place to sample locally caught wild salmon sashimi or sushi in the Anchorage and/or Seward area - short of going down to the dock and gnawing on someone's catch or fighting for position beside a local grizzly at a spawning stream

Any stand-out or reliable restaurants specialize in this?