Jim DuFresne - Lonely Planet Alaska

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Big, breathtakingly beautiful and wildly bountiful; there are few places in the world, and none in the USA, with the unspoiled wilderness, mountainous grandeur and immense wildlife that is Alaska.

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Wilderness land free of strip malls, traffic jams and McDonalds 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.

Alaska is big and so is everything about it. There are mountains and glaciers in other parts of North America, but few on the same scale or as overpowering as those in Alaska. At 20,320ft, Mt McKinley is not only the highest peak in North America, its also a stunning sight when you catch its alpenglow in Wonder Lake. The Yukon is the third-longest river in the USA, Bering Glacier is larger than Switzerland, and Arctic winters are one long night while Arctic summers are one long day. The brown bears on Kodiak Island have been known to stand 14ft tall; the king salmon in the Kenai River often exceed 70lb; in Palmer they grow cabbages that tip the scales at 127lbs. A 50ft-long humpback whale breaching is not something easily missed, even from a half mile 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.

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The Athabascans call it the Great One, and few who have seen this 20,320ft bulk of ice and granite would disagree. Seen from the Park Rd of Denali National Park, McKinley () chews up the skyline, dominating an already stunning landscape of tundra fields and polychromatic ridgelines. The mountain inspires a take-no-prisoners kind of awe. Climbers know that feeling well. As the highest peak in North America, McKinley attracts over a thousand alpinists every summer: less than 50% make it to the summit.

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Riding the Alaska Ferry to the Aleutian Islands

Theres no experience like it: three nights on a ferry that services remote Alaskan communities far along the tendril of the Aleutian chain. Commercial fishers with plastic bins full of gear, tourists lugging giant camera lenses searching for birds, and even a family or two returning from a visit to the doctor in Homer are all likely to be your new friends by the time you disembark in Unalaska. In port, more folks pile on just to take off stacks of hamburgers; the Tusty is the only restaurant most of these towns have.

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Bear Viewing

Whether its a black bear galloping across the road or a grizzly snapping salmon from a wild river, spotting your first bear never fails to get your heart racing. You can leave it to chance and hope to see one from your car or at a distance on a hike, or head to known bear-watching spots such as Ketchikan ()!

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Spotting Whales in Southeast Alaska

Youre half asleep in the forward observation lounge of an Alaska Marine Highway ferry (see boxed text, ), when suddenly theres a rush of passengers and an announcement that humpback whales have been spotted. You join the crowd outside and see a pair of black humps and spouts less than a quarter mile away. Suddenly one of the whales breaches, heaving its nearly 50ft-long body almost completely out of the water. Its such an unexpected sight that it has everybody buzzing until the ferry arrives in Wrangell.

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Anchorage Nightlife

Youve already taken in the Anchorage Museum (), where a band must be rocking tonight.

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McCarthy Road & McCarthy

When all you need is an open road, a funky town, and 13.2 million acres of wilderness to make you happy, the McCarthy Rd (), a former red-light district thats now a handsome old boomtown and the perfect base for exploring this epic landscape of glaciers and reach-for-the-sky alpine ranges.

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Icebergs in Glacier Bay

Passengers have already seen sea lions, horned puffins and even a pod of orcas when icebergs of all shapes, sizes and shades of blue begin to appear in Glacier Bay National Park & Preserve (). By lunchtime the tour boat reaches Margerie Glacier and for the next half hour passengers see and hear the ice fall off the face of the glacier in a performance that is nothing short of dramatic.