Welcome to the last frontier of America and the only place that you can see
the Northern lights or Aurora Borealis in the United States.
Hey, I'm Kristin. I've been traveling mostly alone for the past eight years.
I've been to over 50 countries, and a couple of years ago I met this awesome human named
G. 2021 looks a little different for most of us. So, this year we wondered where we
could go that would still be adventurous and awesome in the winter. And we chose Alaska.
Now, how do you actually plan a trip so that you can see the Aurora? Basically,
you're just taking a chance because there's no way to guarantee it's gonna happen. You really
need three things in order to see the Aurora Borealis. One of them is clear skies. So, that's
obviously something you can't really know until you come to Alaska. The forecast has been pretty
much wrong the whole time we've been here. So, there's just no way to know until you
literally show up in the place if you're gonna have dark skies that night or not.
We didn't have luck seeing the Aurora in the Fairbanks so we drove two hours south just outside
of Denali National Park in Healy, Alaska.
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God.
All right. We made it. I can't believe how clear it is. This is definitely not forecasted. So, I'm
super excited. And this place is really cute.
This room is so nice. This view though, holy...
this view is amazing. Look, stay here if you come to Denali National Park, it's so beautiful.
I think that's Denali, too, over there, I think so.
This room has everything you need. You've got a little place to eat your meals besides bed,
TV we're not gonna use. This is a little, like,
where you can make breakfast, but it doesn't take much to sell me when you have this view.
So, I've been totally stalking the Fairbank's Instagram and reading all I can about seeing
the Aurora here. Although again, it's like such a gamble and you never know what you're gonna find.
So, if you do plan a trip to see the Aurora in Alaska,
plan other things to do too because you don't know if it's gonna happen or not, and you don't
wanna go expressly to see the Aurora and then not see it and be really disappointed. It's time to
venture out and try to enjoy some of the daytime activities around here like snowshoeing.
Okay, here we go to Denali National Park. The drive from Healy to Denali National Park is about
15 minutes. Wow, this is, like, all boarded up, all closed in the winter. It's a ghost town.
G: Even the gas station. Christine: The gas station isn't even open.
This is, like, next-level beautiful. I was reading online and I did talk to a few locals asking,
like, if it would be worth it to come down here in the winter. And I pretty much was told no,
but we came anyway and it's already worth it, just driving around and looking at these...
I feel sunshine on my face. This is amazing. I'm so excited there's blue sky. This is awesome.
G: Hey, there, you need to see some moose. We are just coming around the
corner and the most delicious food. Hi, hi, friends? Oh, my gosh, hey?
Yeah. How often can you just get out with no one around?
Yes. I was trying so hard to be pretty.
There is nobody here just us, which is pretty cool honestly.
Shall we hike?
Don't hear any traffic or people or anything,
ready?
Yeah. That's definitely a moose track.
G: That's a moose knuckle, for sure. What's a moose knuckle?
G: Right here.
Are you sure that's the moose knuckle? G: Yeah.
One hundred percent sure that's the only meaning of moose knuckle.
The snow is, like, squeezing and almost crunchy, it's super fluffy.
It's a dry cold here in Alaska which is much nicer, I guess than a wet
cold. Not that I've experienced one. Oh, and the wind chill is fucking brutal.
I've never been to Denali National Park before now, but I can only imagine that in the summertime
you've got, like, tons and tons of people and we've passed one other car today. So, that's
one major benefit of coming in the wintertime. As cool as it was to experience Denali National Park
without any people, the biggest question we had was where are we going to see some Aurora? For
that we needed a couple more things to happen. The next thing is you need the Kp-index to be in
your favor. The Kp-index measures how strong the solar wind is going to be,
and it tends to peak every 25 to 27 days. Again, anything can happen. The Aurora forecast
is just a forecast. It's measured in Germany and they are the ones putting out the index.
So it's going to be at least in our case, nine hours ahead of where we are in Alaska. I've tried
to look at their website to kind of understand all of the measurements, and it was so far over
my head, but they do have this really handy image where they show the Aurora's swirling over the
Arctic circle. So, you can kind of anticipate when it's going to be highest in your zone.
The third thing you really need is dark skies. So, that's why in general, you're not going to
see the Aurora in the summertime because Alaska is also the land of the midnight sun. And
that is true for pretty much everywhere in the Arctic, hence us being here in the wintertime,
braving these super cold temperatures because we'd need dark skies. So, there's not really a lot of
restaurants open around Denali in the winter. So, we went to Fred Meyer in Fairbanks before we
came here and bought salad stuff, and we do have this lovely little eating nook.
So, we're all good. Okay. It's like 9:30, is very hard to get motivated at such a time to
go out there because it's so cold. So, I've got thermal wear [inaudible 00:08:06] right here.
G: [inaudible 00:08:08]. Christine:
This thing really stays hot forever. Buzzy layer, a wool jacket layer.
[inaudible 00:08:25] layer, this is also fleece-lined. And I don't think I could
survive without this. Fleece-lined beanie, snow pants, thick-wool hiking socks, heaters
in my mittens, got snow boots. Damn, it's really getting it moving.
G: [inaudible 00:08:49]. Christine:
That's crazy. Let's get this shot.
It's not as bad as I thought overall, the roads have been clear. It hasn't
been too cold and I'm really enjoying this without so many people around.
Normally these would be, like, streetlights, but they're totally off too, like the town
around Denali is closed for the winter. And as far as destinations go where you can see
the Northern lights, I think Alaska has to be one of the most affordable because otherwise
you're going to the Nordic countries or Greenland and all these places are really expensive.
The Northern parts of Canada can also be really expensive. And if you're from the States,
especially the West coast, getting up to Canada is not that bad. I think we paid 450 for our flights.
Now that we're in Denali in the low season, I'm pretty sure the rooms are cheaper.
So, I think that this is actually one of the best places to see Aurora if you are American
because you're not going to spend as much for the privilege. And this is the low season in Alaska,
but it would be high season in, say, Lapland.
So, I'm really pleased with this trip so far, I'm liking it more every day and we've got four days
left. So, I'm really hopeful for some clear skies tonight because the Kp looks like it could be a
four or five over the next few days and it would be so cool to see that. Plus we have a hot tub.