There’s no one thing that stands out about Lake Clark National Park, but it might just win the decathlon for most overall beauty. Everywhere you look are stunning mountains, blue lakes, green lakes, tall waterfalls, braided cascading waterfalls, and even steaming volcanic peaks. One cool place that many people seek out at Lake Clark NP is Dick Proenneke’s cabin. If you haven’t heard of it, we hadn’t either. But now we’re big fans.
We visited Lake Clark in June 2021
Getting There
Port Alsworth, on the shores of Lake Clark, is the primary “town” for visitors accessing the park. We took a small plane from Anchorage through Lake Clark Pass, between towering, snow-capped mountain peaks a few hundred feet away on each side. The flight itself was spectacular. There are only a handful of places to stay unless you’re a wilderness hiker, and we stayed 4 nights at The Farm Lodge (more on this place later). They can help plan any daytrip or adventure you seek which was super helpful.
Searching
For Bears
We signed up for a day trip to the Cook Inlet to search for bears. The salmon hadn’t yet started their run into the rivers which meant the recently awakened bears were still mostly along the coast, feeding on grasses and clams. We rode on a very cool tundra plane which our pilot/guide, Leo piloted through the mountains to the coast. Along the way, we passed numerous stunning lakes and mountains, including Mt Iliamna and Mt Redoubt, both active volcanoes (last erupted in 2009). As we approached the bay, we flew over several bears spread out across the area. Leo found a firm, long, sandy beach to land on near a river that emptied into the bay. As we carefully and quietly hiked back along the river, we spied a couple bears in the distance, but they moved on within minutes. Finally, after a bit of waiting, a different pair wandered into a nearby meadow, probably 150 yards away. We think it was a mama and her nearly full-sized, year old, cub. They weren’t terribly close, but close enough for Laurie to capture some cool photos. We were close enough that one of them must’ve smelled us and stood up on its hind legs to get a better sniff. We watched them eat for a while, before they wandered further away upstream. We ate a bag lunch on the shore, back by the plane, and ventured again back up the river afterward. We found another two bears at a different spot across the river and watched them feed for a while. We hoped they’d come all the way down to the water, but no such luck. We returned back to our lodge at Lake Clark, but first landed in the pass between 2 glaciers to take in the glory. In the entire set of hikes, we saw zero other humans. Not as many bears as we had hoped, but it was a good start to our Lake Clark visit.
Although this photo looks like it was taken from above, we’re looking up about a half mile away at these bears on an extremely steep hillside.
Twin Lakes
The next day, we took a float plane from the lodge to Twin Lakes, about 50 miles away, but still within the park’s boundaries. Lake Clark is really pretty, but Twin Lakes is another step up the “wow” scale. We landed on the glassy water of Upper Twin Lake and coasted to the shore, landing at the feet of a local National Park Ranger. Anya was just opening up Dick Proenneke’s cabin and gave us a great historical tour. Dick was a WWII vet who came to Twin Lakes in 1967 and built his cabin with only hand tools and lived there for most of the next 30+ years. His work building the cabin was beyond impressive. Everything was designed and built as precisely as imaginable which allowed him to make it through the brutal, dark winters. And as detailed as his cabin was (the door hinges are just insane), he documented everything. His diaries, film, and photos were made into books (One Man’s Wilderness) and documentaries (One Man’s Alaska). I can’t wait to actually see them, now that we’ve seen the cabin. For a quick education, > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Proenneke
After exploring the cabin, we joined a family and two guides (Jeff and Jared) for a hike up a mile or so to teetering rock, which is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a large rock, about the size of a washing machine, that sits somewhat precariously on another rock and teeters back and forth like it’s about to tumble down the mountainside toward Dick’s cabin. The rock was neat, but the view was fantastic. Jeff had been working Lake Clark for many years and knew all of the legends. More recently, he told us of his unsuccessful attempt to have pizza delivered from Anchorage. He wanted one of the staff at the Farm Lodge to pick up from a place called Moose’s Tooth. Later, during one of our breaks in Anchorage, we sought out the Moose’s Tooth and it was fantastic. Jeff was spot on for trying. Anyway, while we sat there catching our breath from the hike up and reveling in Jeff’s stories, we saw a grizzly mama and her cub working their way along a steep mountainside about ½ mile away. Cool. We hiked back down and ate bag lunches along the lakeshore while some of the other hikers decided to do some fishing. On their first cast, one of them reeled in a nice lake trout, and within 5 minutes, they had caught three fish. Rainy and I think it was the same fish three times because they got nothing for the next half hour. We’ll never know. But we’ll never forget Twin Lakes.
Getting
Lost
One of the hikes from the lodge into the park is the trail to Tanalian Falls. On the way, there’s a detour left to the Beaver Pond Trail that we couldn’t resist. Problem is, we misread our maps. We blamed the incomplete map as they didn’t show the path to left that we mistakenly took. Anyway, after about a mile, we came to a pond with all kinds of indicators of beaver activity. Dozens of small trees chewed off and a large hut on one end of the pond. So we departed the trail and made our way through the bramble to get up close to the hut (lodge?) to see if we could actually see and photograph a beaver or two. We were on a very faint path that was more likely just a game trail. In hindsight, if we had encountered a bear and gotten eaten, I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t have found our bodies for weeks. Anyway, we didn’t see any beavers and made our back to the trail to continue what we thought was the path to the falls. After another mile, we came to an encampment that had a nice view across the bay to the lodge and the airstrip. That’s when we realized we were totally off course. Plus the encampment had a bit of a “Deliverance” look to it, so we reversed course and worked our way back to the original trail. This time we followed the correct path to the Beaver Pond which had zero indications of any beaver activity. At least in our misguided adventure, we did see some pretty cool signs of beavers eating lots of trees. By the time we had looped around the pond, it was getting close to dinner time back at the lodge, so we decided to do the falls on another day and get back for mealtime. Net/net we got in 9 miles in the wilderness. When we finally went back to the falls, it was tremendous. As waterfalls go, Tanalian Falls is a great one. There was a group fly fishing at the bottom of the falls that was part of the Samaritan Lodge. This lodge hosts a small group of wounded veterans each week and gives them a chance to experience the Alaska wilderness. Nice. After taking photos of the falls and the fishermen, we worked our way back to the lodge. This time, 5 miles with no mishaps.
Falling
In Love
As the second leg of our month long Alaska adventure, we loved Lake Clark. But as I think about it, I’m not sure if it was Lake Clark that I loved, or if it was The Farm Lodge. It was just stunning. It wasn’t luxurious, as that would be so out of place in this part of Alaska, but it was idyllic. Our cabin was immaculate and comfortable. Every meal was fresh, plentiful, and tasty (and included a blessing beforehand). The staff was super friendly and attentive. The dining area is set up with 6-10 people per table and like a cruise ship, so you get to make new friends. Almost everyone we met was on a similar quest to visit lots of National Parks, so we had lots to talk about. We enjoyed everyone we met and will keep in touch with many. We were also fortunate that the weather was perfect for 3 of our 4 days. And they were flexible enough to shift our Twin Lakes day tour off of the one rainy/foggy day to the next (perfect) day. It was a pretty pricey trip, but one we’re glad we did and will certainly bore all our friends/family with for years to come. As we sat above Tanalian Falls, looking out at the gorgeous scenery, I asked Rainy “is this worth no Starbucks for a year?” She smiled and nodded.
Lake Clark is another tough park to get to. But once you’re here, if you stay at The Farm Lodge, everything gets easier. There are lots of available day trips, though you’ll need to take a float plane to do most of them. And that’s part of the fun. If you’ve never done a float plane, this is a good place to try. You can even take a trip over to Katmai NP to seek out bears. We loved the trip to Twin Lakes and Dick’s cabin. The hike to Tanalian Falls is really nice. I’m not sure if we’ll make it back to Lake Clark NP, but it’s in the mix if we head back to Alaska again. If you’re looking for a trip to really get the flavor of the Alaskan wilderness, consider 3+ days at Lake Clark.
I have never been to Alaska but I also want to visit all National Parks there. Do you have a full itinerary, day by day, how to plan the trip? Which guides you used, where you stayed every day and what kind of transportation you used. Maybe it is on your web site and I have not found it yet. I love all of your pictures. I have been to 42/63 parks….Thank you.
Thanks and good luck on your quest. We hit the 8 Alaska parks on two separate visits. Denali and Kenai Fjords are accessible by car, so we did those over about 8 days a couple years back. For Denali, you’ll likely want to stay just outside the park, but will need to get a reservation to take the bus into the park past the first few miles. Kenai Fjords is best experienced with a full day boat tour. Just do a web search on that tour. The other 6 parks are not easily accessed and you’ll either need to drive a dirt road (McCarthy Road to Wrangell-St Elias, note rental car companies prohibit you from driving that road) or you’ll need to fly into each park (that’s what we did). I’m not aware of one company that can arrange all the parks for you. If you want, I can email you details on our recent month in Alaska where we visited the 6 more challenging parks. It’s not easy or cheap, but those remote parks are pretty awesome.