Best High End Trips: Lake Clark National Park
Last year, only 700 people visited these 2.5 million acres – and most of those stayed in a few high end lodges near the airport. It is really everything you want and expect in American wilderness. Not only are there no roads, there are no trails. And yet it’s only a 1 hour flight from Anchorage (on a small plane with Lake Clark Air which has regular service from Anchorage.) You can see everything here – bears, caribou, moose, mountain goats. And the squirrels are thigh deep.
If it were us, we’d go in (by walking or 10 minutes in chartered floatplane from Port Elsworth) and stay in one place and do day hikes. This has two main advantages – you don’t have to carry around all your heavy crap. And you don’t have to worry about crossing any rivers. There are, of course, no bridges and some of these rivers are big and wide. But if you are being picked up in the same place you came in or you are just going to hike back out. Then you don’t have to worry about getting picked up and trying to find a way across the river.
We should also say that this is a wee bit scary. This is true wilderness with bears – far from the buses of Denali – but it is SPECTACULAR! Lakes, rivers, glaciers, mountains, valleys and tundra – you can’t go wrong here. It’s spendy to get to (about $350 per person) but when is it going to be easier – when you are older and your knees don’t work? when you have kids? Okay, I’ll stop. Here are some photos.
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Lake Clark National Park
