CRUISETOUR : COPPER RIVER

ANCHORAGE TO COPPER RIVER

ALASKA CRUISETOUR DAY 1

Day one of my Princess Cruisetour of Alaska, and we were heading to Copper River.

If you have read my Princess Cruisetour : Alaska blog post you’ll already have an idea what to expect from a cruisetour.

Back in May 2019, as I waited to depart in Anchorage, it was all new. I was ready to learn the ropes of cruisetour life.

Our instructions for the day were to have bags inside the door of our hotel rooms by 8am. We weren’t leaving until 10.30am, but by that time our cases had been collected and were outside the hotel ready for us to load onto our respective coaches.

As I boarded I said hello to the bunch of strangers, who were about to become friends, and headed for a seat near the back of the bus.

It was time to explore Alaska. We were off to Copper River.

PALMER, ALASKA

First stop on our journey from Anchorage was the city of Palmer.

This is apparently the ninth largest city in Alaska. Palmer has a population of around 6,000 people, which says a lot about the size of places in Alaska.

Our road trip so far had taken us along good highways into the Matanuska Valley.

The roads were lined with tall, green, coniferous trees, that had a changing backdrop of river beds and mountain ranges.

We kept our attention ever vigilant for the signs of movement from the local wildlife.

Once in Palmer we had a short walking tour, guided by our knowledgable driver who doubled as the tour guide.

The Matanuska Colony Project brought 202 families here from Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota in 1935 during the midst of the Great Depression. Some of their descendents still live around the city.

They weren’t the first settlers. The city is named after George W. Palmer, who built a trading post nearby in the 1890s.

The First Peoples lived here long before that.

Exploring the city it still had the feel of a frontier town. My impression was of a fairly sleepy place, but a pleasant stop to break our journey.

GLACIERS

The official highlight of the day was passing the Matanuska Glacier.

Matanuska Glacier State Recreation Site is one of Alaska’s state parks.

We stopped off here at a small parking area where we had a short time to see the glacier from a distance. There was time to take a few photos, as well as just soaking up the scenery.

It is actually possible to take an organised tour and walk on the glacier itself. We didn’t have time for that on our trip, but you could do it if you were travelling independently in the region.

The journey to Copper River was only the first leg of my cruisetour of Alaska and so Matanuska was only the first of many glaciers we would see.

Its a valley glacier that sprawls before you and is impressive because of its size. As we drove away I especially liked the view we had of the glacier sweeping round a corner of the valley in its stately progress. Nature is full of wonders.

A bit later in the day we had a roadside stop to see the Nelchina Glacier in the distance.

My impression was that this was prettier to look at, even if we only saw it from a long way away.

WILDLIFE

My actual highlight of the trip to Copper River, in fact an ongoing highlight for the entire cruisetour, was spotting wildlife.

Day one was more special because it was all new at this point. As the week progressed the onus changed to spotting the creatures you hadn’t already seen.

If you have read my blog post about enjoying the infinity pool at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore, you will know I have a mantra. “Look with your eyes!”

That was important here because I had a relatively new camera. We were spotting wildlife from a moving bus. And my photography skills sometimes leave a lot to be desired.

The point being that I might have missed getting good photos, or even any photos, of some of the animals we saw, but I know I saw them with my own eyes.

Our day one treats included a bald eagle in a tree and dall sheep clinging to the mountain side.

My actual highlight of the day was spotting moose, a cow and calf, by the side of the road. I managed to get a short video clip which I’ll post on my YouTube channel.

It was a good start to my Alaskan land wildlife collection.

COPPER RIVER PRINCESS WILDERNESS LODGE

Our cruisetour itinerary had suggested we would arrive at Copper River around 3pm. We didn’t actually arrive until 5.15pm.

I don’t think anyone was exceptionally bothered as we had stopped off to see everything of passing interest along the way.

We were on holiday and you don’t always want to be running to a schedule.

That said I had pre booked a tour which was supposed to run from 6pm-8pm in the evening. Unfortunately it was cancelled due to lack of numbers. But they do try to work around their guests if needed.

I think a lot of people just wanted a quiet night. It had been a long day. And of course for most people this was only the second night of their holiday. I had been on my adventures for a week at this point.

Hotel room

I had been allocated room 146.

It was along one of the corridors leading off the main communal hall in the lodge itself.

Nothing exceptional, but nice enough. A double bed. A decent bathroom. Plenty of room for a solo traveller.

We were only staying for two nights, so it was a place to leave your things and sleep really.

You aren’t travelling to Alaska for the hotel rooms.

Food

There was a nice restaurant in another part of the lodge. The two cruisetour coachloads that set out from Anchorage were both staying at Copper River. Even so it was easy enough to get a dinner reservation.

I chose a table for one, but some people were in small groups.

Specialities in all of our stops in Alaska included Alaskan red salmon, in various recipes.

At Copper River I had it both as a salmon fillet main course for one meal and as a paté for a starter on another.

Delicious.

Things to do in the lodge

The evening was quiet both nights in this lodge.

Obviously you have a mixture of people on a cruisetour, so there are the early birds and the night owls. I’m one of the latter.

The first night I sat in the bar and chatted to some locals, who also use the Copper River lodge like a pub.

For the second I took my book to the main lounge, where there was a roaring fire and views over the Wrangell Mountains. A perfect spot for a couple of glasses of wine, the odd local beer and a relaxing night.

Ranger Talks

In the early evening there was a talk by a Park Ranger out in the grounds of the lodge. Its called the Copper River Princess Wilderness Lodge for a reason. Its in the middle of nowhere.

I’ve mentioned the Wrangell Mountains in the distance, which includes Mount Blackburn, the 5^th largest mountain in the USA. After Seattle and Anchorage I was starting to get mountain fatigue.

They were everywhere you looked and each one almost seemed more spectacular than the last. The scenery in Alaska is relentless.

Anyway in the lodge grounds the Ranger told us about local life and the flora and fauna of the area. It was a theme I would hear variations of for the next week.

We spotted moose droppings. They wander through the grounds, though I never saw one on site. A friendly squirrel appeared on cue though.

Then there was our introduction to the ubiquitous spruce tips. You can eat them. The locals do. It has the sort of pine taste you would expect from a tree. They’re also a good source of vitamin C and so the locals use them in all sorts of foods.

My favourite use was discovered much later in the trip, when the cruise leg of the cruisetour reached Skagway. But that is a tale for another day!!

EXCURSIONS

Princess have plenty of organised excursions at their lodges.

I’m not sure how easy it would be to organise them independently on the land leg of a cruisetour, but that was not something I even considered.

There was river rafting, which was booked up well before I spotted it online.

Then the All Terrain Vehicle ride I had booked in the evening had been cancelled. I could have done it the following morning, but I already had a plan.

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Top Tip: Check out the available excursions online as soon as you book. Popular tours sell out.

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Discovery Tour

There were actually only three of us on the Discovery Tour I did. It was a bit like a private tour in our little mini bus.

I tried to balance out my tours over the fortnight so I got a good variety of experiences.

This one was focussed on the environment.

Sustainable living is a recurring theme in Alaska.

I discovered spruce tips can be made into jam. Yep, they made a reappearance.

Moose are fairly regularly hit and killed by cars on the roads of Alaska. Leaving the carcasses would draw in bears. Instead there are local lists of people who are ready and willing to go out, collect and butcher the road kill at a moments notice. It was said to be like winning the lottery if you were top of the list and families filled their freezers with free meat.

Alaska is so remote that sending in supplies is expensive. Nothing is wasted here.

Then we paid a visit to the Alaskan Oil Pipeline, which snakes through Alaska. This was visible from the hotel and along the road for large parts of our cruisetour leg from Copper River to the next stop, Fairbanks. For now though I got to see it up close. A monumental feat of engineering.

After that we moved on to a nature walk. It was a shame we didn’t see a lot of wildlife, but I did add a Great Horned Owl to my list.

It wasn’t a particularly strenuous tour, but it was interesting and I enjoyed it. In particular it was nice to know I had wandered a bit further out into the Alaskan wilderness around Copper River and learned about local life there.

LEAVING COPPER RIVER

After our two night stay it was time for our cruisetour to leave the Copper River Princess Wilderness Lodge.

I think we had been among their first guests since the lodge had opened for the new season.

It showed a little in the service as you could tell new staff were learning the ropes.

But hey, so were we. I was quite content.

I’m glad Copper River was our first cruisetour stop. This lodge was much quieter than the rest of the Princess Lodges we would stay at over our coming adventure.

That would have been apparent had it been a later stop, but being first I just embraced the whole new experience.

You cannot beat just waking up to views of mountains. Watching cloud cover hide them from view, then suddenly notice they are back again.

There are trees everywhere, and as we were now in spring the greenery exceeded the white of the snow. Though that wouldn’t always be the case!

How was this trip going get better after such an excellent first couple of days?

Well we would soon find out as our cruisetour was about to head even further North…

From Copper River to Fairbanks.