It was a trip five years in the making and it certainly did not disappoint! Dog sledding, the Northern Lights, a train trip through the wilderness and a flight north of the Arctic Circle were all highlights as our member Justinf travelled with his sister to Alaska.
So I just returned from a two week trip to Alaska. My sister and I during a drunken dinner in Hong Kong, decided we would do Alaska in the year of her 40th which happened to be 2017. This has been five years in the making.
The trip began in exquisite style with our member receiving an upgrade to First class on QF93 to Los Angeles. It perhaps wasn’t such a pleasant flight for Justinf‘s sister, who was stuck in Economy for the long haul across the Pacific. But it wasn’t all bad news… they were still allowed to hang out together in the A380’s under-utilised Business class lounge for a couple of hours mid-flight.
After heading in different directions from Los Angeles, the plan was to meet back in Seattle and fly to Anchorage together on Alaska Airlines.
We were to meet up in Seattle for two nights before going to Anchorage and then the Aurora Winter train to Fairbanks. Plenty of stuff organised for Fairbanks, including dog sledding, reindeer walking, aurora viewing (hopefully) and a light-plane trip up to Coldfoot (96km above the Acrtic Circle – hopefully I can download the video I took of us landing on the ice airstrip).
The Alaska Airlines flight from Seattle to Anchorage was an easy three hours, and soon enough the spectacular views of a snow-covered Anchorage came into view.
Out of the airport and into the cold, crisp air. Temperature hovering around zero celcius.
Into a cab and I was spellbound by all the snow.
Anchorage may have been cold, but it was just an introduction to the sub-zero temperatures ahead. After a few quiet days in Anchorage, our member boarded the famous Aurora Winter Train bound for Fairbanks. It was a long trip, but the scenery made it all worthwhile.
Sometimes in the end, you just have to draw the line and put the camera away and stop looking at all this incredibleness through the window of an iPhone. I ended up putting it away and actually taking the time to look at what Mother Nature had created through my eyes. I sat mesmerised.
A reindeer tour and dog sledding were on the agenda for the next part of the trip…
The ride was awesome. So much fun and so exciting. We had to stop every five minutes to let the dogs cool off even though it was -20 degrees. To watch them roll in the snow to get cool, was surreal.
But one of the real highlights was a scenic flight to a small town north of the Arctic Circle called Coldfoot. Our member almost got cold feet (pardon the pun) when they saw the size of the small Air Arctic aircraft. Thankfully they didn’t, and after an hour of taking in the spectacular scenery, the plane landed on an ice runway.
That night our member headed out on a Northern Lights tour in search of the Aurora Borealis. Was the mission a success? Find out, and enjoy some spectacular photography and much more as Justinf heads north to Alaska HERE.
