Alaska RV Trip Planning - Part 3 - Figuring Out When To Be Where & Our Proposed Schedule

Links To Our Prior Alaska Planning Posts

If you missed them, here are links to our previous Alaska RV Trip Planning entries:

Alaska RV Trip Planning - Part 1 - Focus On National Parks And Nature; Initial Planning Resources

Alaska RV Trip Planning - Part 2 - The Inside Passage By RV

In the prior entries, we indicated that our focus is on National Parks and nature, and we've decided to explore the Inside Passage with the RV via the Alaska Marine Highway System (the ferry).

For the Inside Passage portion, it was very important to make some decisions and get our ferry travel reserved well in advance, so that sort of forced us into the start of a schedule. Generally, we prefer not to make reservations in our RV travels so that we maintain lots of flexibility, but taking an RV on the ferry system requires it, and there are a few other places in Alaska where advance reservations are suggested.

The Alaska trip is a bit of a different animal due to the limited amount of time available and the numbers of travelers during the few months of peak weather during summer vacation times. So we've made more reservations than we normally would, and we'll indicate those as we walk through our schedule below.

Mid April to Early May - Route Into and Through Canada

Originally, we were going to head north from our April Spring Rally in Nevada and cross the border in Washington. Now, we've decided to go a little east and stop in at West Yellowstone, Montana to visit friends that are camphosting there. Though some Yellowstone National Park roads may not be open yet, we wanted to see the park in early spring with some snow and perhaps do a little early season wildlife spotting.

The western entrance to Yellowstone and the roads in the western half of the park are scheduled to open April 19. The northern route across the park, which includes the wildlife-rich Lamar Valley, is open year round, and in late April we should be able to access it from West Yellowstone.

After our Yellowstone stop, we'll cross into Canada at Sweet Grass, Montana around the end of April/first of May. We're contemplating getting a small storage unit in Great Falls, Montana to offload several things we know we won't need in Alaska (golf clubs, etc.).

Once in Canada we'll make our way up to Banff National Park and Jasper National Park. We hope the scenic Icefields Parkway that connects the two parks will have suitable road conditions in late April/early May, but if not, we'll detour around the area. If the Icefields Parkway is safely passable, we know many of the trails and highlights may not be open yet and exploring will be limited, but the scenery should be beautiful as we pass through (plus the current plan is to return back through the area in mid September).

We'll pick up the Yellowhead Highway (Canada Hwy 16) in Jasper, and we'll follow it through Prince George all the way west to the coast at Prince Rupert.

We'll work out the camping details for that part of the trip later.

Early May to Mid June - The Inside Passage

We'll board the ferry in Prince Rupert on May 10 and begin our exploration of the Inside Passage, spending a few days in Ketchikan, Prince of Wales Island, Wrangell, Petersburg, Sitka, Juneau, Gustavus (Glacier Bay National Park), Haines, and Skagway. Many of the details of that part of our trip are included in the second half of the prior entry "Inside Passage By RV", and the first half of that entry includes the painstaking efforts required to plan such a trip using the Alaska Marine Highway System (AMHS).

Here's the short version:

May 10 - Prince Rupert to Ketchikan (AMHS)
May 12 - Ketchikan to Hollis, Prince of Wales Island (Leaving the RV in Ketchikan and taking just the Jeep on the Inter-Island Ferry)
May 17 - Hollis, Prince of Wales Island to Ketchikan (Inter-Island Ferry)
May 19 - Ketchikan to Wrangell (AMHS)
May 21 - Wrangell to Petersburg (AMHS)
May 25 - Petersburg to Sitka (AHMS)
June 2 - Sitka to Juneau (AHMS)
June 3 - Juneau to Gustavus (AHMS - Leaving the RV & Jeep in Juneau; Glacier Bay National Park Boat Tour on June 4)
June 5 - Gustavus to Juneau (AHMS)
June 10 - Juneau to Haines (AHMS)
June 12 - Haines to Skagway (Haines Skagway Fast Ferry - Day trip leaving RV & Jeep in Haines)
June 12 - Skagway to Haines (Haines Skagway Fast Ferry)

For this portion of the trip, we've made the following reservations:

All Alaska Marine Highway System segments
Three nights at a B&B in Craig, on Prince of Wales Island; Other nights on the island we'll be tent camping
Seven nights at Starragavan Campground just outside Sitka
Glacier Bay Boat Tour - Bartlett Cove, Glacier Bay National Park (taking ferry to Gustavus, tent camping at the free Bartlett Cove Campground; reservations not necessary for the campground)
Five nights at Mendenhall Campground just outside Juneau

As for the rest of our nights of camping, we have targeted places in each location, but won't be making reservations in advance.

As it stands, we'll be in Southeast Alaska (aka "the panhandle") for about five weeks leaving Haines in the middle of June. So, where do we go from there?

Working Out An Overall Plan

Well, we sort of worked backwards. We decided that we wanted to be in the Fairbanks area at the end of our stay in Alaska so we might have a little better chance of seeing the Northern Lights around the first of September. We have friends north of Fairbanks that have a place we can stay, so we wanted to finish up there before heading back.

It makes logistical sense to go to Denali National Park in mid to late August on our way north to Fairbanks. The best opportunities to see North America's highest mountain, Denali (formerly known as Mt. McKinley), are in June which is a drier, less overcast month, but we were fortunate enough to have had good looks at the mountain back in 2004, so that wasn't a priority this time. But it's still a magnificent sight when the mountain shows itself, so we'll hope we get lucky in August.

Before heading to Denali, we'll spend about six weeks in the Kenai Peninsula from the last week of June until the second week of August. The timing of our touring in the Kenai Peninsula was largely based on the timing of salmon runs for bear viewing and fishing with a couple of other considerations thrown in.

Southcentral Alaska & The Kenai Peninsula

Again, our planning for the second half of June, all of July, and the first half of August has centered around fishing seasons (especially salmon runs) and peak bear watching times, which tend to go hand in hand. With my online research, we just received the following hard copy publications to assist in the planning:

The MILEPOST 2019: Alaska Travel Planner

Traveler's Guide to Alaskan Camping: Alaskan and Yukon Camping with RV or Tent (Traveler's Guide series)

Alaska Fishing on a Budget: A First-Timer's Guide to Organizing and Planning an Economy Salmon Fishing Trip to the Last Frontier

The Milepost

Briefly, The Milepost is the "bible" of traveling to and through Alaska. In fact, half of this big, thick, heavy book is dedicated to roads in Canada to help you on the way up and on the way back. It's over 700 pages, and the print is pretty small - I need my highest magnification readers to keep from getting a headache.

Certainly, there are a lot of commercial advertisements that take up a lot of space, but there are also photos and maps, and the details are unbelievable. However, I am hearing from some people that The Milepost doesn't do a good job of warning RVers (especially in large rigs) of significant downgrades that should be approached with caution.

Some of the organization of the book is a bit odd, and there is a small learning curve in understanding how to best put it to use, but it certainly seems to be worth every penny. Also, the other two books I purchased (as well as many other resources) refer to locations using the same system of referring to locations based on mileposts or mileage distances from one town or junction to another, so it's pretty easy to cross-reference.

Alaskan Camping

Several of our readers suggested this book. Like The Milepost, it is segmented by roadways. Many of the major roads, as I described in the Alaska RV Trip Planning - Overview post, have their own chapter and then large areas like the Kenai Peninsula have their own chapter. In addition, there are chapters on the Alaska Highway and the Cassiar Highway.

But this book is much more than just a listing of campgrounds. There are nice write-ups (usually 1 - 3 paragraphs) about each campground along with addresses, phone numbers, websites, and GPS information. There are icons for prices and amenities.

In addition, each chapter includes a short section on highlights in each area including wildlife viewing, fishing opportunities, boating/kayaking, biking/hiking, and fuel options. And since most of the public campgrounds don't have dump stations, each chapter ends with a section on dump station access.

Now, this book is geared toward camping in campgrounds - public and private. It does NOT include references to free camping or overnighting options outside of campgrounds (roadside parking, parking lots, etc.). Although there are a few free public campgrounds that are listed in the book, we will look to other resources if we are seeking out non-campground options that are free.

Alaska Fishing On A Budget

First of all, this book was published in 2003, so it's 16 years old and there will be things that have changed. Second, it's the sub-title "A First-Timers Guide To Organizing And Planning An Economy Salmon Fishing Trip To The Last Frontier" that better describes the book's purpose.

This book is aimed at those that fly to Alaska to spend a week or two fishing for salmon but that don't want to pay the big bucks for guided fishing trips, charters, or fly-in fishing. The author still recommends taking a charter or guided trip from time to time, but his focus is on do-it-yourself salmon fishing for the first-timer using the Alaska road system and a rental car. Guided trips and charters tend to run $200 - $500 (and sometimes more) per person depending on the season, the fish being targeted, and costs of getting to the fish.

So, while the book has some chapters that focus on flights, rental cars, packing, etc., there is still plenty of good information for those of us that will have our homes with us and will have a great deal more time. I was particularly interested in the chapter on "Targeting Fishing Locations" which includes several places to access fishing hotspots, which species of salmon to target, and at what time of year. I incorporated some of these into our travel plans and cross-referenced the locations with The Milepost (which had similar information).

Back in 2004, on our first trip to Alaska, Linda & I spent one morning shoulder to shoulder with other fishermen in what is known as "combat fishing" for sockeye salmon. When the salmon are running, lots of people are trying to fill their freezers, and it's less about the sport of fishing and more about just getting limits. So, at least we understand that certain prime areas in peak runs will be quite crowded, but it's nice to have some other productive, less crowded locations to check out.

Of course, the chapter on "Understanding Salmon" was quite helpful to this novice. I now have a better understanding of the five species of salmon - chinook (aka king), sockeye (aka red), coho (aka silver), chum (aka dog), and pink (aka humpy) - including when and where to anticipate peak runs and opportunities.

What the book doesn't cover (and I should have known this from the sub-title) is fishing for trout, grayling, Dolly Varden, and some of the other species that we should encounter in the lakes and streams along the way. But we can figure that out on our own - at least I've fished for and caught some of those in the past.

Linda & I both love to fish (and eat fish), so we hope to get in a lot of fishing (and catching). The plan is to eat fresh fish in Alaska as much as possible, freeze a bunch, and ship any we can't get in our freezer back to the in-laws in Florida.

We'll do some guided trips and charters as the Alaska Tour Saver has ten 2 for 1 offers on fishing trips in the Kenai Peninsula. Those trips range from $200 - $350 per person and include fishing for halibut, chinook, sockeye, coho, and other species, so there are some significant savings to be had when we're both able to fish for the price of one trip. We'll do at least a couple of those.

But we also just want to fish as we travel for food and fun, as well. Non-resident sport fishing licenses can be purchased online and are priced as follows:

Nonresident 1 Day Sport Fishing License $25.00
Nonresident 3 Day Sport Fishing License $45.00
Nonresident 7 Day Sport Fishing License $70.00
Nonresident 14 Day Sport Fishing License $105.00
Nonresident Annual Sport Fishing License $145.00

We'll probably get annuals and be done with it.

Note: If fishing for king (chinook) salmon, you have to also purchase king salmon stamps as well which you can also get online.

Figuring Out Our Schedule For The Kenai Peninsula

Katmai National Park & Bear Viewing At Brooks Falls

For this six-week segment of our trip, we again sort of backed into a schedule. My first priority was to acquire a few nights of tent camping at Brooks Camp in Katmai National Park so we could experience the spectacle of large Alaskan brown bears catching salmon at Brooks Falls.

Brooks Camp can only be reached by float plane, and most visitors just do an expensive day-trip to see the bears. But I wanted to spend a few days watching the bears and have the opportunity to do so in the early morning before the day-trippers arrive and in the evening after they leave.

There is a lodge at Brooks Camp, Brooks Lodge, that has 16 rooms, but the cost is $384 per night per person (for two people). It's already quite expensive to get to Brooks Camp, so that was out of the question. However, there is a campground - Brooks Camp Campground - there that can accommodate up to 60 people per night, and the cost is $12 per person per night. As you can imagine, the demand is quite high at the campground.

So, usually on January 5 of each year, Recreation.gov opens up reservations for the campground (Brooks Camp Permits) and you have to be ready on that day as soon as reservations open up to grab nights during the peak bear viewing time which is the month of July. Click here for the National Park Services pamphlet on "Bear Viewing At Brooks Camp".

This year, however, due to the early 2019 government shutdown, reservations didn't open until March 2. On that day, I was ready and managed to snag four nights for July 15 - 19, right in the middle of the Brooks River salmon run and peak bear viewing time. Our tent and backpacking gear will come in handy.

I'm very happy we were able to get those dates. It's not an exact science but mid-July is a pretty safe bet that the salmon will be running. At the end of June or beginning of July you risk the salmon run being late and, at the end of July, you risk the salmon run ending early and if there are no salmon there are no bears or at least the sightings are more limited.

By the way, on March 2 the whole month of July was sold out in ten minutes, so we were quite fortunate. Once we had those dates, I needed to book flights.

We needed to get to the village of King Salmon where we could get a float plane to Brooks Camp. I checked out all sorts of options from Homer, Kodiak, and other places, but it turned out the cheapest flights to King Salmon were from Anchorage. So, I had to plan to be in Anchorage around those dates. With that in mind, we could figure out the rest of our time in Southcentral Alaska.

Currently, the float plane trip from King Salmon to Brooks Camp and back is $228 per person. And the roundtrip flight from Anchorage to King Salmon and back was almost $900 for both of us. These are ridiculous prices, but the cost of a day trip runs around $900 - $1,000 per person, so we're actually "saving" a few hundred dollars by staying in the campground four nights.

Now, there are other bear viewing day trips that run $600 to $700 per person, but they don't go to Brooks Camp which commands a premium due to the setting and the numbers of large bears.

Second Half of June

The current plan is to leave Haines in the middle of June, take the Haines Highway into British Columbia and the Yukon Territory where it connects with the Alaska Highway (ALCAN) which will take us back into Alaska.

We're planning to visit Wrangell - St. Elias National Park from Nabesna Road on the north side of the park (maybe just a day trip, maybe an overnight) and then again at McCarthy where we'll spend a few nights. On the way to McCarthy, we will cross the Klutina River near Copper Center, and the sockeye salmon should be running around that time. There is good public river access and, hopefully, we can make a stop and perhaps catch our first "reds" of the trip.

Note: Sockeye salmon are prized, but they don't tend to feed when they are swimming upstream to spawn. Basically, you are throwing a line out with some weight and a hook and you are hoping a fish swims by with its mouth open and runs into the line causing a tug you can feel and then "set" the hook. This technique is called "flossing", but it's really legal snagging. However, you have to hook the fish in the mouth. Hooking the fish anywhere else is "foul hooked" and you are not allowed to keep a "foul hooked" fish. This is the technique we used when we caught our first ever sockeyes with a guide back in 2004.

From McCarthy, we'll continue south to Valdez where we'll stay a few more nights and take a boat tour to view the glaciers and wildlife of Prince William Sound.

From Valdez, we'll return back up the Richardson Highway (Hwy 4) to Glenallen where we'll take the Glen Highway (Hwy 1) to Anchorage and then south where we'll pick up Hwy 9 to Seward. We'll spend a few days in Seward at the end of June where we will take a boat tour into Kenai Fjords National Park on one day and perhaps a fishing charter on another day.

We've been to Seward before and we like it there, but they have the Mount Marathon Race the first week of July, and the number of people will increase significantly. So, the current plan is to visit Seward and get out by July 1. If that timing doesn't work out, we may skip Seward at that time and return later.

First Half of July

After leaving Seward, we'll head back north and make a stop at Exit Glacier in the Kenai Fjords National Park, before heading west on the Sterling Highway to the Cooper Landing/Skilak Lake area. We'll have some time in this area, so I hope to do some fishing on the Kenai River and maybe a float trip. A couple of free campgrounds are located on the Skilak Loop Road, and we might check those out and do a little lake fishing in the area.

Around the start of the second week of July, we'll head back toward Anchorage but make a side trip to Whittier for a few days. I have my eye on a charter boat tour out of Whittier to visit a different area of Prince William Sound for wildlife watching and more glacial scenery.

Then we'll leave Whittier and have a short 60-mile drive to Anchorage where we'll stay at least one night prior to our flight to Katmai National Park.

Second Half of July

We start out by flying to Brooks Camp in Katmai National Park for our bear viewing trip July 15 - 19. Then we'll fly back to Anchorage, pick up our rig, and head back to the Kenai Peninsula. The current plan is to go ahead and drive the Sterling Highway all the way to Homer where will spend a few days.

This part isn't yet settled, but I would like to take the ferry from Homer to Kodiak Island. We know a couple that has property on Kodiak so we're trying to work a couple things out if we can. If not, I think we'll ferry our Jeep over, tent camp at one of the state parks, and do some fishing on the Kodiak road system. I also have my eye on an ATV combo fishing/bear viewing tour.

If we decide not to do Kodiak Island, we'll have more time and we'll likely do a halibut fishing charter out of Homer or Ninilchik. And we may do another bear viewing tour by taking a boat or bush plane from Homer into Lake Clark National Park. We may work it out where we can squeeze those two activities in whether we go to Kodiak or not.

In any case, we'll be leaving Homer at the end of July.

First Half of August

In an unexpected turn of events, we got an email from a reader of ours. He and his wife and some other friends are going to be in Alaska, and he and his buddies are doing a 38-mile five-day, four-night backpacking trip on the Resurrection Pass Trail from the town of Hope to Cooper Landing. He's already reserved Forest Service Cabins for the trip, so they won't need to carry tents. And he asked if I'd like to join them. "Absolutely!!" was my response.

They had reserved spots at an RV park in the town of Sterling for a week from August 4 - 11, and we were successful in getting booked in there ourselves. So, I'm going to spend a few days hiking with strangers while Linda hangs out with ladies she doesn't yet know. Should be fun.

But before that, I've reserved three nights - August 1 - 3 - in the Russian River Campground on the banks of the Russian River. We'll be able to walk to the river and try our luck with the sockeye salmon that should be running at that time. It's one of the premier fishing destinations in Alaska that time of year, so I squeezed it into the schedule, and we'll probably be squeezing into the river for a little "combat fishing".

After the backpacking trip, we have some time. So, if we hadn't gotten to Seward yet, we may go then. Or we may backtrack toward Homer or Soldotna or Ninilchick if we didn't have enough time there. Or we may just hang out in the Sterling/Cooper Landing area and do some more fishing and sightseeing.

Second Half of August

I made reservations in the Savage River Campground in Denali National Park for August 19 - 23. On the way, we'll take our time and perhaps hit a few fishing spots that should be having a good run of coho salmon by then.

Along the way, we'll likely make a side trip on the Hatcher Pass Road (aka Fishhook Road) scenic by-way which runs between Willow and Palmer.

We'll also drive the Denali Highway, at least part of the way, from Cantwell.

In Denali, we'll take a bus tour or two, and then decide if we want to stay longer and move to the Teklanika River Campground for a few nights. We shouldn't need reservations to snag a spot in there as it's 29 miles into the park and once there you are not allowed to go anywhere except by tour bus until you leave.

After Denali, we'll make our way on up toward Fairbanks and out Chena Hot Springs Road to the private property of our friends. We'll hang out there and explore that area until they tire of us.

At this point, we have no plans to drive the Dalton Highway (definitely not with the RV), but we'll see.

First Half of September

The first week of September, we'll start our drive back to the lower 48. We haven't yet decided if we are going to make a northerly detour and do the Top of the World Highway and visit Dawson City in the Yukon Territory. We'll see.

What I do know is that we will take the Cassiar Highway south. We hope to make a stop in Hyder where there is another good bear viewing spot if the salmon are still there in Fish Creek. The viewing is supposed to be decent through mid-September, so we'll see.

Whether or not there are bears, we'll do the side trip to Salmon Glacier which is supposed to be well worth the trip and we'll likely make a stop at Bear Glacier Provincial Park.

Second Half of September

We plan to arrive in Jasper National Park by mid-September, and we hope to spend about a week doing some driving around Jasper and Bannf National Park before we continue south and back into Montana.

Final Thoughts

So, that's the schedule we have as of today and how we got there. We've made some reservations as indicated above, but we still have quite a bit of flexibility as well.

That pretty much does it for the majority of our planning, but we may post another couple of entries if I think they might be helpful. Please, if you have any questions or suggestions of other "Alaska By RV" topics, let us know.

It should be an amazing trip.