Alaska

Click on the small picture to see a larger, more detailed version. I toured Alaska, visiting Anchorage, St. Lawrence Island (Gambell), Seward, St. Paul Island, Nome, and the Denali area. The trip was led by Jan Hansen (dba Otus Asio Tours otusasiotours@bellsouth.net). Jan leads a variety of trips, all of which I would recommend. On this trip, the co-leader was John O'Donnell who has led a number of trips for the Sierra Club.

Alaska is a vast state, much of which is completely uninhabited. The main means of transportation is the airplane and our trip involved flights to jets between Anchorage and Nome and smaller propeller planes between Nome and Gambell and between Anchorage and St. Paul. St. Lawrence Island is a roadless island 75 miles long and no more than 15 miles across, owned by Eskimos. They allow birders access at the settlement of Gambel which is only 40 miles from Russia and rent us ATVs with which we travel over the gravel terrain. St. Paul is a smaller island much to the south inhabited by Aleuts with a fish processing plant and an organized hotel and tour facility for visiting birders. From Seward we went on a pelagic (boat) trip around the fjords. In Nome, we bounced down the dirt roads leading out of town - or at least as much of those roads as were passable and not socked in by fog. In the Denali area, we stayed at Tangle Lakes Lodge at the eastern end of the (dirt) Denali Highway and then stayed in McKinley Park for a tour into and around the National Park.