Destination Ketchikan: An Alaskan UTV Excursion

Описание: With new scenery around every corner, even a 10-mile loop feels like a daylong trek.

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Having grown up in the Pacific Northwest, I never put a trip to Alaska high on my priority list. I’ve caught salmon and seen bears in the wild—and Oregon has plenty of mountains. They’re not as big as the peaks in Alaska, sure, but they’re big nonetheless. Despite my indifference, however, when my dad and brother started kicking around the idea of a father-and-sons outing to Alaska a little over a year ago, I was all in.

An avid fisherman and our in-house travel agent, my brother lined up two of our three days to be spent on a fishing charter out of Knudson Cove Marina near Ketchikan, Alaska. While I do enjoy fishing, my approach to travel and visiting new areas is more “when in Rome…” So rather than double up on a single activity, I wanted to explore my options. With all that untouched wilderness out there, an off-roading adventure seemed like just the ticket.

Fortunately for me, I lucked out and discovered Ketchikan AdventureVue, a guided UTV excursion company just outside of Ketchikan. Owner Bethany Lickfield had space on a tour and was happy for me to jump on and join them.

It’s important to mention that much of the economy of port cities like Ketchikan, Juno, and Sitka revolves around tourism. Hundreds of thousands of visitors flock to these cities from April through October by plane as well as cruise ship, and many have only a few hours while in port to jump on a fishing charter, or in this case, ride a shuttle bus 10 or so miles up a very remote mountain road to their excursion.

After an epic day of salmon fishing to kick off our trip, my brother and dad went out for round two, while I made my way up the mountain to the AdventureVue base camp. Since I wasn’t on the cruise-line schedule, I arrived early to meet Beth, chat with her guides, and just get a taste for how the whole operation worked. In a former life, I spent several summers as a white water raft guide, so I’m accustomed to the whole “tourist” thing and I was curious to see how that played out in the UTV world.

I have to say, the AdventureVue staff has it down to a science. Two separate tourist groups arrived by van, straight from the port to base camp—a very remote but nicely outfitted building with souvenirs, apparel, electricity, and Wi-Fi courtesy of a massive generator outside. After getting checked in and signing waivers, we met with our two guides, Miles and Melinda, who gave us details on the day’s activities, fitted everyone for a helmet, and gave us a quick overview of our equipment for the day: the Yamaha Wolverine X2 850.

Our excursion would cover 10 total miles of trail with a few stops along the way for people to take pictures and enjoy the scenery. There were three couples in my group so that meant I got a machine all to myself, and Miles was gracious enough to remove the 25-mph governor prior to leaving base camp. This proved helpful and allowed us to catch up with the group each time I stopped for photos, but honestly, 25 mph is plenty fast for these machines, especially when you factor in the terrain and the fact that the majority of people on these tours have never driven a UTV before.

We filed into line and rolled out of base camp, making our way a mile or two up the hill to a lookout of George Inlet. This provided a spectacular view of the ocean, where periodically you could see orcas playing in the water below. After a few photos, it was back to the machines and on up the trail.

As you might imagine, the trail consisted primarily of old logging roads, very weathered and washed out in places but not difficult to traverse by any stretch of the imagination. There were several bridges over rivers in which you could see salmon spawning.

Our final stop provided a view of Mahoney Falls and a short walk to Lower Mahoney Lake. This felt like the Alaska I had imagined. A perfectly calm, crystal-clear lake with rocky peaks in the background. Melinda shared that occasionally the tours will stumble upon a black bear fishing down at the lake, but we had no such luck.

After a short break at the lake, we filed back to the UTVs to begin our 5-mile descent back to base camp. The amazing, but not surprising, thing about Alaska is that just changing your vantage point provides a completely new and unique view. The word that kept coming to mind was “big.” I especially liked the view of George Inlet as we emerged from the trees on our return trip.

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