kennicott
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Posts posted by kennicott
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Yes, no cruise ships hardly at all, which is really hard for Alaska since close to two thirds of our visitation comes from cruise ship guests.I don't know of any of our ports which are closed or intend to close for cruise ships, however that is elementary, since, as long as Canadian ports are closed it is impractical and illegal for most foreign bottom ships to engage in commerce here without having a Canadian visit on their itinerary.Even if they should port in Alaska we currently have a law that requires anybody "except essential workers like oil field types or fishermen who are restricted by other rules", entering Alaska to quarantine for 14 days. I'm in Florida right now but that also includes me, an 80 year resident of Alaska, I will have to quarantine in Anchorage in a few weeks when I return.Thousands of seasonal workers are impacted as well, many of which are Alaskan residents. As a for instance, all of the Princess Lodges are closed for the season.With oil production drying up due to no markets, we are returning to days of yore, where commercial fishing will be our primary livelihood.
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16 hours ago, JjC81 said:
Not sure if we should do drive that night or wait until next day.
Or is it better to just stay somewhere near airport the 9th, girdwood the 10th then onto seward for 11th and 12th and stay girdwood again the 13th?
Thank you for insight
Don't try and do the drive after a day of air travel and being acclimated to the east coast time zone, if like me, you will not only be dragging during the drive along the Arm but maybe even be all owl eyed the next morn at Alyeska. Rather, get into a decent hotel near the airport or in midtown, have a good nights rest, nice breakfast in the morn, maybe drive around Anchorage a bit, take in the largest seaplane base in the world at Hood/Spenard Lakes by the airport, maybe the air museum at Lake Hood, then perhaps the downtown museum on 7th, have lunch somewhere, then head south.
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12 hours ago, caribill said:
Biggest advantages of EZAir:
o A flexible fare can be changed or cancelled up to 45 days before travel begins.
o Fares of overseas flights are significantly less than other ways of booking.
Biggest disadvantages of EZAir:
o Not all airlines are included.
o Not all flights are included on included airlines.
o Need to watch connection times. "Legal" connection times may not be practical connections.
I agree with most of the comment here. We are getting pretty long in the tooth and wife has some mobility problems, so coach simply doesn't cut it anymore for us on overseas flights. Connection times can really be a nightmare. We don't cruise international unless we can get business class. EZ Air manages to negotiate some pretty decent rates for B.C. recently.One thing we have to be careful of is the connections. Since we live in Alaska we usually don't want to leave here and travel all the way to Europe or Asia without having an overnight, hopefully in SEA, however EZ Air won't allow that. Also, they try and work it out when we use ANC as our Gateway airport that we originate with an airline that is partnered with other carriers all the way to our destination, say United. United may have only one flight out of ANC a day, whereas ASA might have 10, so we usually do all our domestic travel on Alaska making SEA our Gateway where we go a day early to and stay overnight.Usually we can work with EZ Air in arranging a lot more time than a couple of hours at connecting overseas airports in attempts to avoid the horror show we more often than not run into at London or Paris. Sister-in-law made the mistake of using Phoenix as her Gateway a year ago for Venice, they insisted that a 45 connection was legal at SEA. She got to Venice 24 hours late due delays at SEA. -
We do that a lot, most of the time no problem. The only time we use a card is when we purchase another bottle and we have a wine deal card that needs one more to be marked off. The only exception was one time on the Coral where the dining room crews were so terribly understaffed that it wasn't worth it to hold a bottle over since it took so long to find, regardless of the venue.
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For Anchorage----
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Two shots of Hubbard Glacier at the end of May on a very warm day a few years ago. Also, three pictures of Port Wells and Harriman Fiord in Prince William Sound on July 6th, also on a very warm day. See the hanging glacier in full melt.
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I agree with about all the comment here. Particularly on the southside of foothills of the major mountain ranges in Alaska, most of the snow will be gone by the end of summer at elevations below 7000 to 8000 feet. Above that the snow is generally perennial with the exception of dark rock out cropping's below 15,000 feet which often lose their winter snow. The major ranges are the Alaska Range, St. Elias Range, Chugach Range, Wrangell Range and the Brooks Range with many smaller and lower ranges spread around the state. Here is a shot I took in the latter part of the summer of Mount Blackburn, the highest of the Wrangells, it is 16, 390. All the lower foothills seen here, most are below 9,000.
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On 9/21/2019 at 9:49 AM, CruiserBruce said:
As I understand it, this was the worst year for acres burned in Alaska history, and it sounds like they haven't got normal late summer rain fall to put things out.
Actually, from a forest fire standpoint this year was bad but it has been worse. Somewhere over 2.5 million acres this summer but in 2004 it was 6.5 million acres. I believe this year will come in at number four overall.However, this has been the hottest ever summer for Alaska. Many day highs and all time highs, night and day, have been set from east to west and north to south. I certainly agree with that, as I have worked the state over most of my professional life, living here all my life too since I was born and raised here.Sure sorry about the smoke for our visitors and guests. It was nasty. Most of it was in Southcentral Alaska and came from the over 4 million acre Swan Lake Fire on the Kenai Peninsula. Princess even had to close their Kenai Princess Wilderness Lodge for a while. We took the 26 Glacier Cruise out of Whittier on July 6th and it turned out beautiful, got a wind drift that kept the smoke out of Prince William Sound that day. -
We have visited Venice three times on Princess. Really enjoyed those. Twice as an original embarkation port and once an intermediate. The Pacific Princess was the ship we were on when for the cruises that originated there. We just had a 35 day cruise scheduled for a year from this November canceled out from under us on the Pacific Princess. Stein Kruse, head of the Holland American Group, is the dude you have to watch and listen to when it comes to the future of the Pacific Princess. I believe Kruse is postured to get rid of it. As far as Tony Roberts, I thought he was some sort of V.P. not a CEO.
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I realize this action directed toward Allen Marine Tours may not involve operations in Yakutat Bay but still is not exactly good news for excursions in Southeast.. Hope the company gets their problems worked out with the U.S. Coast Guard before next season's excursion itineraries commence. https://www.adn.com/business-economy/2019/09/13/coast-guard-docks-most-boats-operated-by-southeast-alaska-tour-company/
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We always said we prefer smaller vessels, long duration cruises with lots of sea days and the more exploration type itineraries. But then we decided to try the larger ships. Over four cruises we spent about three months on two of the Royal Class ships Princess has. Then we went back to the smaller ships. I thought our cruises on the big ships were minimally okay as there were a lot of on board venues to choose from. Wife doesn't want to cruise on the larger ships anymore though and I'm inclined to go along with her. One of our favorite ships is the Pacific Princess, their smallest vessel, which we have been on for about three months total sailing. We were booked in a full suite with my wife's sister on the Pacific Princess for a 35 day South Pacific and Panama Canal a year from this November but they recently canceled that cruise. I believe Stein Kruse is getting set to sell that ship. We have about 350 days total on Princess but most likely won't be sailing with them anymore. We really like the Regent size ships and service which we have over 150 days on but now they have escalated their fees way beyond our means.
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"Among those who had already left Cooper Landing by Tuesday: The hundreds of people from the Kenai Princess Wilderness Lodge. The lodge had preemptively moved out visitors and staff Monday."
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Umbrellas-----We were on Regent in 2010 for two weeks, San Fran to Valdez and then back down to Vancouver hitting all the obligatory ports enroute. Excellent weather but when we got to Valdez it was blowing and raining. Getting off the ship they handed out umbrellas, everyone who opened their's had them turn inside out. But as far as the future rain in late summer and fall, it looks like Alaskans as well as visitors are going to have to get used to these changing weather patterns such as we have today. "Instead of a once in a lifetime experience this might occur every few years". Almost September now and in South Central no rain of significance predicted. Hope no one has the Kenai Princess Wilderness Lodge booked in the next few days."Southcentral Alaska has seen less than an inch of rainfall since June 1 and no measurable rain at all during August, said a climatologist from the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy." "This year’s already-unprecedented summer is on track to beat yet another record: becoming the driest ever recorded in Southcentral Alaska."
"The U.S. Drought Monitor has classified part of the region — including Anchorage, the Susitna Valley and a portion of the northern Kenai Peninsula — as being in an “extreme drought” for the first time in the drought monitor’s 20-year history." "Extreme drought is the second-highest drought designation, underneath “exceptional drought,” which Alaska has never recorded. Most of the southern coastal swath of Alaska, from the Panhandle to the Aleutians, is experiencing drought to a lesser degree."
The U.S. rain forests, Tongass and Chugach, (the nation's largest and second largest, respectively,) along the southcentral coast and in Southeast Alaska (our panhandle) are being hammered.
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Latest.--------- https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/weather/2019/08/23/this-summer-is-on-track-to-be-the-driest-on-record-for-southcentral-alaska/
Still hot and very dry in Alaska. North of the Alaska Range though, over recent weeks we have had a lot of rain, remarkable and very strange weather patterns. For visitors, my guess is that there should be no problem on the Parks Highway, now, getting to Talkeetna. But we certainly can use a lot of precipitation in Southcentral Alaska. Been the hottest season ever, by far, as best as I can recall for Alaska and I was born and raised here. Getting close to September so it is starting to get chilly at night here in the Wrangell Mountains, where I am now, so I fire up the wood stove in the morn. We also have a nice cabin on Crystal Lake which is about two miles west of Willow near Mile 70 of the Parks Highway. I'm not there but my wife is at the lake. She says there is no problem except for power outages from time to time. I have tried to encourage her to go back to our home in Anchorage for a while but she says no way, the smoke in Anchorage is a lot worse than at the lake. The ADNs is keeping a close watch on these events--for obvious reasons.
Here in the Wrangell Mountains near McCarthy and the Kennicott River it is so dry that it makes me very nervous. My entire place could be gone in minutes, a little wind and a spark could turn everything into an inferno ( like what happened north of Willow). I've got a pretty good sized wilderness spread too, 350 acres. I'm surrounded by white spruce, black spruce, quite a few aspens and cottonwoods with patches of birch. Makes one humble to realize how vulnerable we are.
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Smoke in Anchorage is pretty severe. But looks like traffic flowing better on the Park's north of Willow than it was the other day. North winds are not now, so the firefighters are beginning to put a dent in things. Cooler temperatures at night now is helping out, but still no rain in sight. And this is the rainy season.
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My guess is that by Friday you should have no problem on the Parks Highway getting to Talkeetna. Although we certainly could use a little precipitation in southcentral Alaska right now. Been the hottest season ever as far as I can recall in Alaska and I was born and raised here.We have a nice cabin on Crystal Lake which is about two miles west of Willow near Mile 70 of the Parks Highway. I'm not there right now but in the Wrangell Mountains where we have another place (also a tinder box) but my wife is at the lake. She says there is no problem except for power outages from time to time. I have tried to encourage her to go back to our home in Anchorage for a while but she says no way, the smoke in Anchorage is a lot worse than at the lake. Ha.The ADNs is keeping a close watch on these events--for obvious reasons---here is the latest: https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/mat-su/2019/08/20/as-crews-fight-destructive-susitna-valley-wildfire-evacuees-prepare-for-recovery/
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The Parks highway is closed at Mile 71 until further notice. To get to Talkeetna one has to fly in or go north on the Glenn Highway to Glennallen then go north to the Denaili HIghway and cross over to the Parks Highway turn south and enter Talkeetna from the north. The railroad is not operating through that area north of Willow either. Largest fire is around miles 85 to 91, called the "McKinley fire". Another is a few miles west of Willow, at mile 70, called the "Deshka Landing" fire. The strong north wind which caused these fires has now let up so things might get better, but no rain in sight. They couldn't use helicopters yesterday to fight the fires due to the turbulent north wind. Hot shot crews from the lower 48 are currently moving into the Willow area. https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/2019/08/18/new-evacuations-ordered-as-wind-stokes-willow-area-wildfires/
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We were just in Whittier yesterday and the day before. Not on a cruise. We did the 5.5 hour Philip's 26 Glacier Cruise (On the Klondike) though. The passengers got off/on the train right at the covered walk way down to the Golden Princess (200 feet max) which was in port then. The bus passengers were let off a little closer even. In the drop off lot, Princess has set up a baggage check in station, you can leave your bags there then tour the area. Whittier is pretty small, but here is what we did, after staying in a nice hotel there:
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If you stay on the ship in Whittier you are going to miss out on this: Taken yesterday from the Klondike, a small vessel used for shore excrusions there, 5.5 hour "Philip's 26 Glacier Cruise".
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Our heat wave continues. But yesterday after we had spent a night in a very nice hotel room in Whittier, where it is hot too, but then, took the 5.5 hour Philip's 26 Glacier Cruise. Excellent trip, and doing so we got away from the smoke (most of it anyway) and the heat.
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Hottest in Alaska I've ever seen and I was born and raised up here. In Anchorage we have been breaking daily records for over a month now. On the 4th we set the all time high. Trouble is, we are on fire due the heat. And fire means one thing, "SMOKE"
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20 hours ago, sfaaa said:
Yeah. Considering the source, this is hardly a surprise.
And what "source" would that be?????
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59 minutes ago, Crew News said:
On the video, I noticed hardly any wake so ship must have been traveling very slow when the video was made.
Strange---I see a wake. A pretty good one at that. Having been in a number of boat harbors for dozens of years, driving boats under no wake rules, that has got to be a tad fast---- not very slow. And also, having been on many cruises where we were moving at 2 or 3 knots, there wasn't any wake to speak of. My guess is they were doing over 10 knots. Princess policy limit is, for the Icy Strait area about 70 miles to the north, their ships not to exceed 11.5 miles (10 knots) per hour when in the strait south of the national park, due potential whale activity.
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11 hours ago, chengkp75 said:
Love the "fact" Walker puts out that whales have been "impaled" on the bulbous bows of ships. They may have been draped over the bow, and held there by water pressure while the ship sails, but they are by no means "impaled".
Walker wasn't the only one who used the term "impaled"------------
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-10/cruise-ship-grand-princess-impales-whale-near-alaska/8792526
Alaska in September
in Alaska
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