I'm listening too..

 

There is no economical way to do it. I know people who tow all the way there. I know people who ferry from Bellingham and I know people who drove em up thru the inside passage. It’s all super expensive

I’d say put it on a Lnydan barge (AML) in Seattle and send her up. But those rates may be way up nowadays. 10 years back it was reasonable. So towing behind your truck thru Canada then Ferry from Prince Rupert might be the cheaper? Don’t know
Driving via inside passage is super cool but can be busy in the summer. I do it for a living so I go thru there once or twice a month. There are some tricky areas with lots of current.
I imagine your fuel capacity could be the limiting factor there. It’s pretty rural once you get past Campbell River.

Derrick

 

Whittier. The Prince William Sound. It is other worldly and amazing.

 

Sounds like a very cool adventure. My dad had a friend that lived on a 48’ Youngquist that worked as a general contractor. He would take it to S.E. Alaska every 5 years, and he told me it took that long to save the money needed for fuel and supplies as well as the time. Even in that large displacement hull he spent a lot of time anchored up in moorage waiting for weather to lay down. I was able to join him for one leg of the trip from Prince Rupert to Juneau. I fell in love with S.E. Alaska on that trip in my mid 20s, sadly never been back. I used to fantasize about building a cabin on one of the smaller islands, but age and demands of life have ended that mental pursuit. I would like to make the time to go back and fish, we only dropped lines a few times for rockfish to feed ourselves.

I have friends that ship a large boat each year via barge to Sitka out of Seattle, and others that have bought and shipped boats to Craig and Ketchikan. AML as stated above is the barge system of choice, I assume for price and service but I have no first hand knowledge.

The guys I know favor Sitka and Craig for fishing. Both are close to ocean highway for migrating salmon runs and something’s available Early May to Late August. They have enough islands that you can find a place to fish in all but the worst weather. Rockfish, lingcod, and halibut are available in both ports and only rockfish have much of restrictions on harvest. By contrast, a lot of the inner passage areas have limited salmon season and runs, and much more restrictions or limited areas to access bottomfish. Last, Sitka has an active fishing fleet, good port facilities, and easy access to direct flights from Seattle or Portland if people join you. Craig has a lot of logging activity and good port facilities. The activity and size tends to help with prices of supplies and fuel, versus smaller more isolated communities.

Good luck and post lots of photos for those of us that live vicariously.

 

My buddy and I are planning to take a boat up from the Seattle area to Alaska and are looking for advice, recommendations, and any wisdom the hive mind can share! Our goal is to spend at least a month up there, ideally in a spot that’s not too crowded or overly touristy, where we can enjoy the experience without breaking the bank.

We’re hoping to find the most economical way to make this trip happen—whether that’s route planning, fuel stops, places to stay/rent while up there, or just general tips on logistics, permits, or potential challenges.

If you’ve done a trip like this or have any thoughts on must-see spots, best ways to transport the boat (vs. running it up the coast), or anything else we should consider, we’d love to hear it!

Appreciate any input, and thanks in advance!

We've been cruising/fishing SE Alaska and/or BC for more than 30 years. Did it for many years in smaller boats we towed from Utah to launch in Puget Sound or at Prince Rupert. For the last 9 years in a 37-foot Nordic Tug, starting in Puget Sound. We stay 80-90% of the nights at anchor in some beautiful cove.

Recommendations would depend on what sort of a boat you have and how fast you travel, how much time you have, and whether you prioritize fishing, vs scenery and critters. If you have a towable boat, have only a month, and fishing is the main mission, I'd tow to Prince Rupert and fish the Craig area. The whole Inside Passage trip is lovely, and wandering all over SE Alaska is delightful, but you're either going to use a lot of fuel if you go fast, or take at least 2-3 months if you go slow. Happy to discuss further,

 

Last trip was 20 years ago. 4 couples drove to Alaska. Figured out driving was cheapest. My rig was slide in camper and 2004 2500 Duramax. one rig with 30’ 5th wheel and two with trailers, one pop up and one 19’ travel trailer. Putting rigs on barge was expensive, using Alaska marine highway system very was super expensive. Example, was costs $116 from Haines to Sitka for my truck and 2 people. 45 minute trip. From SF Bay Area we put on 8800 miles. Drive up Alcan to Whitehorse is decent, but lots of boring views. Flat mostly and lots of dead trees then. Beetles. Fuel in BC is expensive, but I think only one leg was sketchy on distance between fuel stops. Both diesel and gas were available. We drove via Chicken Alaska so about longest drive to anchorage You can do.

 

Following this one, from my bucket list.

 

First you need to pick a spot, Alaska is a BIG state. Southeast has some spots that are easy to get to. The Kenia area has Seward and Homer to fish, good and easy. The spots on here are around 1000 miles apart.

 

Good point, will edit to reflect. Looking at SE.

 

We did it 4 years ago. We own a place on POW. We ferried from Bellingham with the first boat; 27' SeaSport Kodiak, being pulled by a Ford Excursion. Including three beds, it cost about $6k for the 38hr ride. Absolutely one of the most beautiful trips I've ever taken. The Inland Passage is breathtaking. The following year we pulled up another boat. We initially intended to hit River's Inlet then catch the ferry to Ketchikan. The only issue was that the Canadians didn't have the employees to man their ferry and it wasn't running. We decided to pull up to Skagway, about 900 miles north of our target, then catch the Alaskan Ferry and go back down to Ketch. This added a couple days to the trip but again a beautiful trip. It ended up being cheaper but not by much. If Rivers Inlet Ferry is running that's how I'd do it if you're looking to save some money.

 

6k 4 years ago..hmmm..as said above..not gonna be cheap..and you better have time..sounds like a 6 to 8 week trip to do it right? Please keep em coming..very interesting..

 

fun thread

 

What boat are you planning on bringing? Will it have room to sleep everyone on it?

I live in Juneau, spring of 2023 we bought a Duckworth 24 offshore without a trailer and ran it up to southeast Alaska. We made it from Anacortes to Ketchikan in 2 1/2 days. Last summer we spent 40 nights on the boat in Southeast Alaska and plan on about the same this year. It's pretty bare bones. We use a coleman stove on the filet table for cooking, a yeti to keep food cold, a 5 gallon bucket for a head, and harbor showers. I can't remember the minimum range you need in Canada, I want to say we were fueling every 160-180 miles. In southeast Alaska the longest stretch between fuel docks is Juneau to Petersburg at about 125 miles or Tenakee Springs to Petersburg, I want to say 180 miles though I can't remember off the top of my head. Fuel last summer was in the $4 gallon a range most places, the most expensive fuel we bought was in Thorne Bay. It's down in the $3.50 a gallon range currently.

AML is the main barge company servicing Southeast Alaska, last time I got a quote on shipping a trailer up it was $3k from Seattle to Juneau. The marine highway is the ferry from Bellingham, it's about $3k for 25' from Bellingham to Ketchikan. You can load a boat in Bellingham and pay someone to unload it in Alaska if you don't want to pay the expense of shipping your truck. Every ferry office should have some contact info for locals who will load/ unload trailers from the ferry. If you don't want to run the boat up the closest US port on the road system to the lower 48 is Skagway. I'd contact the harbor department though leaving a truck/ trailer there should be pretty reasonable. The Lynn Canal (Juneau to Haines/ Skagway) doesn't have great fishing or a ton to see, I'd plan on lauching from there and spending the majority of your time further south. There's the option to tow to Prince Rupert though I don't know anything about it, there's also Hyder Ak/ Stewart BC which may be closer than Skagway

If you can't sleep on the boat accommodations can be hard to come by and expensive. The best bang for your buck is forest service and state cabins at $45-$65 a night. The best ones are already booked for the summer though there's plenty of less popular options still open. Most will require a dinghy with 20' tides beaching isn't really practical unless your boat is light enough to drag a couple hundred feet up and down beaches. Tent camping is doable though not very common, some towns will have campground. Slips run $20-$30 a night without power for our boat. Most harbors have fresh water, bathrooms, and coin op showers. There are some free float docks throughout Southeast Alaska though they can be hard to find without local knowledge. We've started spending more and more nights on the hook there's a lot of great anchorages. Navionics is a great tool to find them though take the reviews from Yacht people with a grain of salt. We sleep on our boat and is a big reason we upgraded was the lack of lodging. Many times we'll plan on 1 direction and weather will force us another.


I wouldn't commit to 1 spot. Here's a couple notes on various spots
-Juneau fishing close to town isn't great, getting around without a car is hard, Stater harbor is a whale watching **** show though if you come in mid day you can find a spot to tie up. It does have the only costco in Southeast and a fair amount of marine supplies. Down town harbors are walking distance to down town Juneau and a grocery store
-Baranof warm springs, one of our favorite spots to spend a night or 2, well worth the stop if you can make it work fuel wise, the hot springs are amazing
-Petersburg is a fishing town and very boat freindly, great harbor, walking distance to the grocery store, hardware store, and resturants. The Wrangell narrows are an awesome stretch of water. People have great luck with halibut in the area
-Visit at least 1 glacier by boat, bobbing through ice burgs is a blast.
-Elfin cove is a sport fishing paradise. Free state dock, there's usually showers avilable at the general store. We go every June for Kings and September for Coho, decent halibut fishing in the area.
-Phybus bay area is where we've caught our biggest halibut
-Prince of whales is huge with some decent harbors and spots to stop
-Ketchikan isn't our favorite spot to spend time though they do have decent fishing, we just haven't spent much time fishing down there. The safeway is walking distance from Bar harbor for a resupply.
-Salmon fishing is usually going to be better the closer you are to the outside (open ocean)


Let me know what other questions you have.

Here's some random pictures from last summer

 

What a post..might be the most informative post I've ever read here..Thank you for taking the time for that..would be cool to buddy boat with some one who has done exactly this..Bravo Sir, Cliff.

 

This is a dangerous thread!! Where are the "moderators" when you need them!!

 

Anyone thinking about an inside passage or Alaska trip do it while you still can, you don't need a monster boat or $50k budget.

Last summer my parents who are in pretty good shape in their early 70's came up for 2 weeks. My wife and I brought them to Baranof Warm Springs. We had been there the previous fall and didn't think anything of the trail to the natural hot spring. Trying to get my parents to and from the hot spring was an adventure, I'm not sure they could make it in another 5 years.

As far as boats go you don't NEED a monster offshore boat or big yacht style trawler. Every section of the inside passage is run by smaller 20-22' boats almost daily during the summer. There will be some days you won't want to go out though the majority of the summer from May to mid August will have nice weather windows. There's options for different routes depending on what the weather is doing. There's 2 unprotected sections coming up through Canada. Something reliable and relatively seaworthy if the weather does pick up is really all you need. We run a single with a kicker and don't feel the NEED for twins. We have a 120 gallon fuel tank and before upgrades averaged 1.8mpg. We did carry 30 extra gallons running through Canada and never needed it.

Having a spot to sleep on board out of the weather is just about mandatory, trying to plan around lodging would really limit the trip. When it comes to sleeping on your boat you are going to want some ways to battle condensation. We have a diesel heater we run most days for at least a couple hours to dry out the boat and leave a 12 volt fan on 24-7 while we are on a trip. Having soft surfaces such as carpet and headliner really cuts down on the condensation, we've seen people put up a makeshift tent inside an ocean pro to battle the condensation rain. We also have snap on curtins in the pilot house which help cut down on condesantion and provide some privacy. We get by with a cooler, a camp stove, a 5 gallon bucket for a head, harbor showers, and laundromats. There's places to buy food an ice along the way.

Our frist season on the inside passage in our boat we tied up to docks all but 2 nights. Lately we've been spending a lot mroe nights on the hook. We carry the smallest Achillies inflatable with a 2 horse honda as a dinghy and a paddle board. We travel with our dog and launch the dinghy to get her to shore. I wouldn't consider a dinghy mandatory though we are finding more and more cool spots a dinghy is opening up to explore.

While the inside passage is remote we never feel alone. Usually you'll see other boats on the horizon with someone in radio range if you do run into issues. We carry a Garmin inreach and epirb for emergencies. At&T works the best up here, you'll run into pockets of cell service in BFE. There's 1 towing service out of Juneau who accepts tow boat USA and covers most of northern southeast Alaska. When on the hook we are usually alone or sharing an area with 1-2 other boats. Float docks are hit or miss on how busy they are depending on hunting and commercial fishing seasons. Most harbors will find you a slip when you show up, if you are pushing 60' or more reserevations are probably a good idea. We've never not gotten a slip calling for a slip in a harbor on the VHF as we are pulling up.

Pacific Northwest Style sportfish boats make great inside passage boats. While they lack some ammenities they handle our weather well. We just don't have the time off to run everywhere at 6 knots, yes we probably miss some wildlife viewing though we are able to cover a lot more ground and spend a lot more time fishing. When the weather does pick up being able to pound through at 15 knots is a lot less painful than 6 knots. We saw a famly last summer having a blast running it in a 30ish foot Northriver complete with a cat on the dash and a pile of gear on the back deck.

The fishing can be amazing. Halibut and rockfish are good all summer. Non charter fishermen are allowed 2 halibut any size every day, rock fish limits have been increased for some species. Salmon are around most of the summer though non resident king limits are usually pretty limited we usually fish for Kings in June and Coho in mid Aust through September. Shrimp and Dungies are around all summer. We've shipped fish with Costal Cold Storage out of Petersburg, they are awesome to work with.

 

Wow this is really turning into some detailed information! Thank you all for taking the time to respond, to share your knowledge and provide the depth on how to make this a reality.

I have a Parker 2120, 100 gallons capacity for those asking.

 

Can you and your buddy sleep comfortably on the Parker? If so it'll be a bit cozy though not a bad boat for the trip. It should be decently economical on fuel. It's enough boat as long as you pay some attention to the weather. I'd think about rigging up a tarp for the back deck with some chairs and a table for more living/ eating space. Spending some nights at Forest service cabins would give you guys some room to spread out.

The interactive mapper from AK fish and game is a great planning tool. Sport Fisheries, Alaska Department of Fish and Game Recommended halibut and salmon spots are highlighted when you zoom in, they are decent starting points for prospecting areas. If you zoom in enough it will show you every state and forest service cabin. The cabin descriptions have Easter eggs on information such has hot springs, mooring balls, float docks, and recreation opportunities hiding in their descriptions.

 

This thread is so informative I'm ready to trade all I have for a boat, drop out, andive to the inside oassage. I can't believe how many good writeups there are for this activity. Kudos to all!

 

Are you leaving the boat there? How big? Renting is probably way easier.

 

I actually was thinking about leaving it and trying to sell it up there maybe?

It's definitely way easier to rent but not sure I would be able to get to see the whole inside passage that way which is something desirable. As for the boat it's a 21 foot Parker, 100 gallons of fuel.

 

This ended too soon...

 

How about a follow up..please

 

No follow up to give, dreams crushed by Tuna fishing this summer. Next summer appears in the cards, I have connected with a boat broker who is looking into finding a used trailer over the course of the winter. A few ports of option, oddly enough Suzuki is out of favor in a few ports and in favor in others, for mechanical repair availability primarily.

 

I love this thread and hope it has long legs!

We are currently finding out if the drug my wife will be on for the rest of her life (for cancer) will allow boat travel/camping. If it does, I’m headed north in the next couple years!

 

Good luck to your wife, hopeful you get good results with the ability to travel. Just purchased the Wagonners travel guide for planning, maybe this is a pipe dream but I usually am able to follow through with the hair brain ideas I get!