Alaska Guidebook: Hope

If you are visiting Anchorage, but want an Alaska Bush experience, Hope is your best bet. If you drive just a few miles south of Anchorage, you'll be able to see Hope across the inlet. But it takes about 1.5 hours to get there. Hope is a small gold mining town that predated the Klondike gold rush by about 30 years.

Accommodations:

I recommend staying in a cabin. It's cozy and homey. The upstairs is great for your toddler. She'll beg to go to bed (though may not actually sleep for awhile). And the little ones will love learning to use the "outhouse potty"!

(Our cabin even came with a sweet fort built in the back. When I brought Celia over to see it, I said: "Look! It's a little house made out of trees." She said: "Yup. It is. Now let's go back.")

Dining

Hope has a selection of two restaurants. We chose the Seaview Cafe right on historic mainstreet. The food was delicious and the apple pie was perfect.

This cafe is also where the Goo Goo Dolls recorded Broadway in 2002 for their Live in Alaska album.

Other Dining options include: Tito's Discovery Cafe (pictured by the Hope sign) and a pizza/ice cream shack that seems to be closed most of the time.

Amenities

Jerky, chips and candy can be purchased at the local gift shop (where you can also get your picture taken in one of these paintings):

For any other food, you'll have to choose a restaurant or cook on the camping stove. Pancakes are always a big hit with the kiddos:

The Hope gas station has also been abandoned. A local woman told us that the 150+ Hope residents drive into Anchorage for everything. Sometimes they run into eachother at Costco.

The Sights

A walk down Mainstreet is quite enjoyable and the views of the inlet and the town are breathtaking.

The Hope Museum is an outdoor collection of original buildings from historic Hope: a bunkhouse, a barn, and the original school.

Then visit Hope's second school just down the road. The kids will love the old slide and swingset. Even the babies will love to play in the grass. (Hope now has a gorgeous school further out of "downtown." Opened in 1986, it just recently became K-12 and graduated its first student in 2000.)




Oh, and be sure to enjoy some of Alaska's famous wildlife.

Recreation

Hope marks the North end of the Resurrection Pass trail from Cooper landing. Most people take 2-3 days to hike the 38-mile trail in its entirety. With kiddos, we just hiked in a little bit. We saw rock piles left over from the heavy gold mining days. Though there is still gold to be found in Resurrection creek, it takes all day and some heavy machinery to get about ten dollars worth of gold flakes (according to the prospector we talked to along the trail who showed us his $10 flakes in a vial of water... they made a cool "tink"ing noise when he shook it).

For any hike with a baby, we recommend a baby backpack so the baby can enjoy the sights:

Though she woke up with marks on her face, you can tell she had a great time: