Active Pursuits

Most people visit Alaska to experience wilderness, so it's ironic that so many spend their time in crowded ships, buses, trains, and airplanes, the antithesis of a wilderness experience. You do need technology to get to the wilderness of Alaska, but unless you at least partly let loose of that umbilical cord, you'll never really arrive at your destination.

Every town in Alaska is a threshold to the wild. There's always a way to go hiking, biking, or sea kayaking, or to get on the bank of a stream or the deck of a boat to hook into a furiously fighting wild salmon -- and end up in the evening back in a comfortable hotel room. Or take it a step further: Plan to go out overnight, perhaps with a friendly local guide at first, and then go out on your own. I've included lots of details on how to do this throughout the book. Scary? If it weren't a little scary, it would be Disneyland, and that it definitely is not. It's real, and that's why it's worth doing.

Use the section to learn about activities, outfitters, wilderness lodges.

Keeping the Wilderness Clean -- Human use shows up quickly in wild places. Even small signs can diminish the wilderness experience -- trampled vegetation or charred wood from a campfire -- and it's disgusting and disheartening to find toilet paper or human waste. The idea of Leave No Trace Camping, encouraged by Alaska's public land managers, is simple: Use the outdoors in such a way that no one would ever know you had been there. It's as important for rural highway driving and for day hikes as for backpacking trips. The key is to plan ahead. For example, bring some kind of digging tool and sealable plastic bags with which you can pack out toilet paper and any other trash. To learn more, see the website of the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics, www.int.org.

A Guide to Guide Gratuities -- As a general rule, tip fishing guides and outfitters $10 to $20 per person per day. For outings of less than a day, adjust the tip accordingly. At wilderness lodges, which normally have all-inclusive rates, it's often best to add the tip to your final payment when you leave and let the proprietor distribute it to the staff rather than try to do it at each meal. A blanket tip of $15 per person per day is acceptable.

Backpacking

Alaska's best country for trail hikes is in Chugach State Park near Anchorage, on Chena Hot Springs Road and on the Steese Highway near Fairbanks, and in the Chugach National Forest on the Kenai Peninsula. For hiking beyond trails, go to Denali or the Denali Highway, Wrangell-St. Elias National Parks, or the Dalton Highway. Alaska trail hikes require the same skills as backpacking anywhere else, plus preparation for cold and damp. Hiking beyond the trails is a glorious experience, but you need to know how to cross rivers and find your way -- it's best if you have some outdoor experience.

Biking

Most every town in Alaska has a bike-rental agency. There are excellent bike routes all over the state and few restrictions on where you can ride. A bike is a great way into Denali National Park, Anchorage has an extensive network of paved trails and many mountain-biking routes, and guided biking is available in Haines and Skagway.

A couple that built an excellent reputation and a large business for over a decade offering bicycle tours on Alaska's long, rural highways now operates Alaska Bicycle Adventures (tel. 907/245-2175; www.alaskabike.com) on their own from a home office. These are terrific vacations for avid cyclists. The 8-day tour over the spectacular Richardson Highway costs $2,995, inclusive. The schedule includes bike and kayak tours, too.

Bird-Watching

In Alaska, birders can encounter birds in greater variety and greater numbers than they have seen before and add many new species to their life lists. I have listed birding groups and best places to go in many of the sections on destinations. Making a "best of" list is difficult, because good bird-watching is found in any Alaska town. For example, I could recommend you go to Haines for the eagle sanctuary, but since you are bound to see eagles in every coastal town, I hesitate to send you on a special trip for that purpose. Weeding out the excellent to mention only the truly exceptional, here are the places I would send birders. For marine birding, consider Sitka, Juneau, Seward (Kenai Fjords National Park), Unalaska, and the Pribilof Islands. Migratory bird festivals happen in May in Homer and Cordova; Homer also has handy sea bird colonies, and Cordova has the wetlands of the Copper River Delta, an accessible bird paradise of immense proportions. Alaska's two largest cities have parks dedicated to inland birding, and other bird resources as well: See the sections on Anchorage and Fairbanks for details. For Arctic birding, Nome is probably the best choice, thanks to the existence of roads that allow self-guided exploration. The very best bird and wildlife destination in Alaska, and surely among the best in the world, is the Pribilof Islands. You can sign up directly with the island's own Aleut residents for a tour there. The Internet makes it easy to network with local birders all over Alaska before your trip to find out what they are seeing and get tips. Here's an active discussion board where you can get started: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/akbirding.

Serious birders with money to spend can dedicate an Alaska trip to some of the world's best and most famous remote bird-watching sites (those with milder or budding interest might better choose a less ambitious destination first, or make bird-watching only a part of an Alaska vacation). Learn about trips in birding magazines. Bird Watcher's Digest (www.birdwatchersdigest.com) offers good, detailed advice on its website. Group trips are advertised in Birders' World (www.birdersworld.com) and Birding (www.americanbirding.org). Among the largest and most reputable operators coming to Alaska is Arizona-based High Lonesome BirdTours (tel. 800/743-2668 or 520/458-9446; www.hilonesometours.com), priding itself on relaxed trips for small groups. All inclusive tours visit Kenai, Denali, Nome, Gambell, Barrow, Unalaska/Dutch Harbor, Adak, and the Pribilof Islands; and Texas-based Victor Emanuel Nature Tours (tel. 800/328-8368; www.ventbird.com), which counts well-known authors among its leaders.

Canoeing

Paddling a canoe on a remote Alaska lake or river is the best way to get into the wilderness without a backpack, a guide, or a great deal of expense. For beginners, it's easy to rent a canoe in Fairbanks for a day trip. If you're ready to go overnight, the choices of routes are extraordinary, including the rivers of the Interior, the bird-watching country of the Copper River Delta near Cordova, or the supreme lake canoe routes of the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.

Car or RV Camping

Campgrounds are almost everywhere in Alaska, many in extraordinarily beautiful natural places. Public campgrounds outnumber commercial ones. They're usually located where they are because there's something special about the place: a great view or beach, an exceptional fishing stream or trail head. Rarely will you find running water or flush toilets; most are seasonal, with hand pumps for water. (When it's time to wash up, stay at a commercial campground.) Alaska's public campgrounds fill up only in certain times and places (the Kenai River and Denali National Park campgrounds are among the exceptions), so campers have flexibility other travelers can't share, able to stop when and where they like.

Even if you don't usually consider camping, think about renting a comfortable RV for a tour. One company offers these rentals as add-ons with cruise vacations, taking care of all the details for clients.

If you fly to Alaska, car camping can be a bit complicated. Carrying a camp stove on an airplane is forbidden unless there is no attached fuel canister and no odor of fuel (even in that case, keep the unit handy for inspection at check-in). It often makes more sense to buy a new stove in Alaska and then give it away or ship it back to yourself at the end of the trip. Much car camping equipment is bulky and hard to fit into your limit of two checked bags. Consider renting some of your gear here: Rental agencies are listed with large towns in this book. You can also use the mail, sending packages to yourself care of General Delivery at any post office, or simply invest in compact backpacking equipment that you can fit in your luggage.

I've mentioned some great campgrounds throughout this guide, but there are many more than I had space to cover. A free map that lists all the public campgrounds along Alaska's highways is available from the Alaska Public Lands Information Centers. If you are planning to camp the whole way, get a copy of Traveler's Guide to Alaskan Camping, by Mike and Terri Church (Rolling Homes Press, $22), which contains detailed reviews of virtually every public and commercial campground in the state.

Fishing

Fishing in Alaska may spoil you for fishing anywhere else. The world's largest salmon and halibut were caught here in recent years, and Pacific salmon are so plentiful that catching and processing them still provides one of the state's largest sources of employment. Fly fishermen also come for thriving wild stocks of steelhead, cutthroat, and rainbow trout; Dolly Varden and Arctic char; and Arctic grayling.

There's no room here to tell you how to fish in Alaska -- the best way is to pick it up from other anglers, most conveniently by going with a guide on your first outing. If you can afford it, a day of guided fly-in fishing to a remote stream is the ultimate. You can also study with a book; several are available, the best of which focus on individual areas of the state or particular fishing techniques rather than trying to cover everything.

The best all-around source of information is the Alaska Department of Fish and Game Sport Fish Division (www.sf.adfg.state.ak.us). Browse the website for run-timing information and hot spots updated weekly, to learn generally about fishing in Alaska, and to obtain particulars about where to wet a line in different parts of the state (click "Publications" and then the region you are visiting). You can even buy a fishing license online. If you lack Internet access, the agency also produces printed guides and fields questions from the public, and they record the weekly local updates on telephone hotlines. Contact the office nearest where you will fish.

If fishing is the primary goal of your trip, think about booking time at a fishing lodge. The remote rivers of the Bristol Bay region have Alaska's most prolific salmon fishing, and the only way out there is to take a floatplane to a remote site. You might find a stream jammed with salmon and with few other anglers around to compete with. But you'll waste your money if you book a date that's not near the peak of the local salmon run (that does happen, as lodge owners hate to admit slow fishing). Consequently, I review only a few river-fishing lodges in this book. (The exceptions: on the Kenai River in Cooper Landing and Kenai-Soldotna; and ocean fishing in Ketchikan.) Instead, I recommend booking through Sport Fishing Alaska, 9310 Shorecrest Dr., Anchorage, AK 99502 (tel. 888/552-8674 or 907/344-8674; www.alaskatripplanners.com). The business is run by Sheary Suiter, with years of lodge experience on the Kenai River and in Southwest Alaska. After receiving a $95 advance fee, she plans a fishing vacation tailored to your budget that puts you right where fishing is hot at the time when you can travel.

A Salmon Primer -- In Alaska, it's not so much where you wet your line, but when. The primary catch, Pacific salmon, lives in saltwater but spawns in freshwater, with each fish returning to the stream of its birth during a certain narrow window of time called a "run." When the salmon are running, fishing is hot; when they're not running, it's dead. And the runs change from day to day, typically lasting only a few weeks. (Halibut, on the other hand, are bottom-dwelling ocean fish; you can fish them from a boat every day when the tide is right.) You can fish salmon all over the state in freshwater and saltwater, but the closer you are to the ocean, the better the fish are. Salmon flesh softens in freshwater and the skin turns dull and red. Salmon right from saltwater that haven't started their spawning cycle are called silver bright -- when you see one, you'll understand why. No Pacific salmon feeds in freshwater, but kings and silvers, meat eaters at sea, strike out of habit even in the river.

There are five species of Pacific salmon, each preferring its own habitat and, even when the habitat overlaps, each timing its run differently. Each species has two names.

King (or chinook) is the most coveted and best fighting fish, commonly growing to 30 pounds in 5 to 7 years at sea (the sport record, from the Kenai River, was 97 pounds, and the largest ever, taken by commercial fishermen near Petersburg, was 126 pounds). It takes a lot of effort to hook and land a big king, but it's the ultimate in Alaska fishing. You also need a special king stamp on your fishing license from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, which you can buy when you buy your license. King runs come mostly from late May to early July.

The silver (or coho) is smaller than the king, typically 6 to 9 pounds, but it fights and jumps ferociously, making it nearly as big a prize. Silvers run mostly in the fall, beginning in August and lasting into October in some streams.

Red (or sockeye) salmon, so named for their tasty red flesh, are the trickiest to catch. They usually weigh 4 to 8 pounds and can run in any of the summer months, depending on the region and stream. Reds feed primarily on plankton at sea, and when they strike a fly, it's out of an instinct that no one really understands; you need perfect river conditions to catch reds legally, because snagging anywhere but the mouth generally is not allowed in freshwater.

Pinks (or humpies) grow to only a few pounds and aren't as tasty as the other three species; their flesh lacks the fat that makes salmon so meaty in flavor and it deteriorates quickly once the fish enter freshwater. Pinks are so plentiful that Alaska anglers usually view them as a nuisance to get off the line, but visitors often enjoy catching them: There's nothing wrong with a hard-fighting 4-pound fish, especially if you use light tackle, and a sliver-bright pink salmon is tasty if cooked right.

Chum (or dog) salmon return to streams over much of the state but are rarely targeted by anglers. Yet a typical 5- to 10-pound chum hits and fights hard. Chums aren't prized for the table and are mostly used for subsistence by Alaska Natives, who smoke or dry the fish for winter use or freeze it to feed dog teams.

The gear you use depends on the species you are after and the regulations for the area you're fishing. You have to catch the fish in the mouth; snagging is allowed only in special circumstances. On saltwater, boats troll for kings and silvers with herring bait and gear to hold it down. Lures, salmon eggs, or flies will work on silvers and kings in the rivers, but regulations vary. Flies work best with reds. Most Alaska fishermen use spinning gear on the larger salmon species -- landing such a large fish is iffy with a fly rod.

Flightseeing

No one should come to Alaska without seeing the scenery at least once from a small plane. The most spectacular rides of all are the Mount McKinley flights from Talkeetna and the Glacier Bay National Park flights from Haines or other surrounding communities. But just about anywhere you go is worth seeing from the air; only then can you grasp how huge and complex the land is and how little changed it is by mankind. Fixed-wing flights give you the most time aloft for your money, with seats starting for around $100 for a brief flight. If you can't afford that, consider taking scheduled prop service between small communities on your itinerary for around the same price, and see almost as much.

Rafting

Letting an Alaskan river pull you through untouched wild country in a raft provides a unique perspective without the sweat and toil of backpacking. Alaska has many great rivers, virtually all undeveloped and, with few exceptions, never crowded. White-water guides operate on rivers all over the state offering day trips in many towns. Outfitters also lead trips deep into Alaska, using the rivers to visit extraordinary places that can be reached no other way. Many companies offer floats.

Sea Kayaking

Just about every coastal town, from Kodiak east through Kachemak Bay, Prince William Sound, and the Southeast Panhandle, has at least one kayak outfitter taking visitors on day trips or expeditions. I think it would be a shame for any fit person to come to Alaska and not take a sea-kayaking day trip. It is your best chance to get close enough to really know the wilderness and see whales, sea otters, seabirds, and marine life in an intimate way. Local guides are listed in each town section.