June 14th: Our flight landed in Minneapolis at 7:38 AM. We both got to sleep a little bit on the plane, now we are waiting for our 10:00 AM connection to Boston which is scheduled to arrive at 2:00 PM.
Overall a good trip, 157 total species seen. I had about 19 life birds, Paul had 22. If we were to do it over again, we would go to Nome a little later, spend 1 less day in the Pribiloffs and maybe go there a little earlier. The wildlife viewings in Denali were awesome the first day, but not great the second due to the rain. There is only one road thru the park so taking the shuttle 2 days in a row, is a bit much, even though we didn’t do the same distances. We probably would’ve rather spent a night closer to Paxton to try for the Smith’s Longspur as Birdquest does. After talking to others, we realized that we could have done this trip on our own or with another couple to share the car/gas costs. Anyone can book at the Pribiloffs through the St. Paul Island Tours website, though it may have been a little more expensive. We are not really sure how much of a group discount we got, if any. So if we return to Alaska someday, seems like Gambell and/or Barrow should be on the list in order to get the Loons and Eiders we need and at probably a later date, say mid June at the earliest. We heard that at Gambell, people can rent ATV’s from the owners directly. This is how the High Lonesome tour group got around.
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