We did it this year.
We were in Washington for a Rally and when we left, we decided we would take the ferry from Prince Rupert to Haines. Leaving Washington, we went north to Sumas and crossed into Canada there. We went through Kamloops, Golden and Banff. From the Banff area we toured the Icefields Parkway north through Jasper and continued north and then west to Prince Rupert.
The ferry was nice because we had an outside cabin with 3 berths. We only used two but having the extra room was nice. We got off in Haines after 30 + hours and stayed in a B & B there.
We rode to Beaver Creek, North Pole and visited with Santa, panned for gold north of Fairbanks, toured Denali on a bus but never got to McKinley until we headed south to Talkeetna. Just north of Talkeetna, we were able to see Mt. McKinley peek through the clouds so we could capture her with our cameras. Great photos.
While in Talkeetna, we looked up K2 Avaition and took a flightseeing tour with a landing on Ruth glacier. This was the best thing about our non-motorcycling part of the Alaska trip. I recommend the K2 Aviation DeHavilland Otter (it seats 9 and you are not cramped for space) (it is the second time we have used K-2 ... first was in 1989)
Touring further south, there are so many things to do in and around Anchorage, Portage, Whittier, Seward, Homer, Soldotna, just to name a few.
I was in the Air Force stationed at Elmendorf AFB from 1958 to 1961 so I was familiar with the State. The only thing about it was it has improved so much since my last visit in 1989, the only things that had not changed was a few street names.
If I were to go again, I would go before August, since it rains so much during that month, it curtailed a lot of our things we wanted to do/see again.
We left Anchorage the middle of this August and it had rained 7 straight days.
Go early June and stay through July if you can.
I agree that Destruction Bay (Lake Kluane area) is a very bad stretch of loose gravel ... I think it was about 6 or 7 miles and I was glad we got through it OK. We had no problems but we wore our rain gear most days in Anchorage.
Have fun and by all means do the K2 Aviaton Flight out of Talkeetna. When I can go back, I will go in June/July and do the K-2 thing again.