How close does your cruise bring you to the real Alaska — and how close do you really want to be? That felt like the right question to ask as I almost stepped in a pile of bear poop.
I was hiking near the head of the line of about fifteen passengers from Alaskan Dream Cruise’s Admiralty Dream — about half the passenger roster for our 7-night, 8-day sailing on the “Alaska’s Ultimate Adventure” itinerary, which launched just this year. It was at least the fourth or fifth poo-pile we’d seen on that trail, each one more recently deposited than the last. That meant we were not far behind the bear, heading the same direction and getting closer. We never did see it, but no doubt it saw us, or at least heard us, as it melted into the forest.
That easy, mile-long ramble through the tall trees and mossy, sound-dampening understory of the temperate rainforest gave us a gentle introduction to hiking in Southeast Alaska. And it was the first of many opportunities during the trip for us passengers to put our heads together and chatter about what we’d seen — something that would, ultimately, become one of the hottest topics for our wide-ranging dinner discussions, as we abandoned any pretense of dining at separate tables. With the help of the stewards, pushed the four-tops into long, banquet-style tables that ran the length of the dining room and made it easier to visit with one another.
How many miles would an Alaskan hiker?
When I first signed up for this trip, I was content to wait and see just how much adventure it takes to reach that”’ultimate” label. Alaskans tend to go hard in the adventure category, but it’s still true that one person’s ultimate adventure up here could be another person’s boring Tuesday, and vice versa. Add in the fact that most cruise adventures tend to exist within their own realm, and it was hard to guess what I was getting into.
So I didn’t even try to figure it out — until I suffered a serious knee injury that will take at least a year to heal. It left me fretting whether I’d be able to participate in the cruise activities — especially the hiking.
Happily, I needn’t have worried. Although there is no clear label of how many miles you’ll hike on this cruise, how many boat landings you’ll do, or how long you’ll spend in a kayak, from day one, the crew is taking your measure and tailoring the activities to meet your desires and mobility levels. There were easy, medium and hard — or in one case, “extreme” — options for every hike, and plenty of crew on hand to escort passengers in every group.
Never leave your wing…kayak?
The sole admonition when kayaking was to not paddle out of sight of the Admiralty Dream. But as long as we didn’t stray too far from the mothership we were free to explore. So we promptly scattered in the mild, rippling waves of the protected bay we’d been deployed in.
Some of us homed in on a nearby salmon stream, ducking our heads to spot groups of fish congregating before they forged their way upstream. Others scooted along the cliff edges, alternately gazing down into the water then….
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