Alaska

The final days...

We caught a bus out of Anchorage at 7:00 in the
morning, and we were ready to leave.  Biking around
was a blast, especially because we were fueled by one
dollar draft beers.  We had fun at the hostel,
randomly ran into our friend Joycelin, and even saw a
beautiful sunrise, but Denali awaited and Anchorage
was a little overwhelming.

This hostel in Anchorach charged us 36 dollars to pitch our tent in the yard.
We cleaned up the hostel the next day to pitch it for free.

Anchorage sunrise.

Mural on the hostel.

Chilkoot Charlie's is a huge and apparently famous bar in Anchorage. We had a blast this afternoon drinking dollar pints.

On the way to Denali Nat'l Park, Mt. Denali is behind the clouds.

This igloo on the road to Denali was built by a man who did not follow building codes (eg. fire escapes), and so it has never been used.

Another pretty view on the way to Denali.

We arrived at the edge of the park in the afternoon
and quickly watched a video and talked to a ranger in
order to obtain a permit.  Then, with backcountry
permit in hand, we hopped on one of the green camper
buses and began an unbelievable 3 days in Denali.

Denali has only one road and cars are not allowed on
it beyond a certain point.  Some of the buses are for
tours while others shuffle backpackers and day-hikers
all over the place. There are no trails, so hiking is
challenging, and camping is restricted to zones
that divide up the terrain.

The first night we hiked up Primrose Ridge and set
up camp.  At around 40 degrees in the tent and with a
strong wind coming across the ridge, it was the
coldest night we had in Alaska.  Besides
ground squirrels and caribou, there
was not much wildlife around.

Sunset pic taken from Primrose ridge of the Alaskan Range

The Alaskan range with the only road through the park. The autumn colors were so nice.

Julia the following morning, tired from the cold night.

We had breakfast with a Caribou chilling nearby.

After breakfast we headed deeper into the park, all the
way back to Wonder Lake, at mile 85.  This campground normally
requires reservations far in advance, but because of
all of the rain/mudslides/road closures, we were
fortunate enough to secure a spot for a couple of
days.  This campsite turned out to be the jewel the
Lonely Planet describes it to be.



Our busdriver on the way to Wonder Lake was so excited
by the color of this bush that he stopped the bus, ran up the hill in the cold rain,
and picked a small sample to find out what it was.  It was some type of
dwarfed birch...

The colors were magnificent, as it was the beginning
of Alaska’s short-lived autumn.  Also, there were wild
blueberries and cranberries in abundance.  This
campsite (Wonder Lake) is one of the best places in the park to
catch a view of Mt. McKinley, known as Mt. Denali in the
politically correct terminology and so called by most
Alaskans.  Even though Denali was socked in most of
the time we were there, we were able to catch a
glimpse of the 20,320 feet peak through a series of suckerholes.

Wonder Lake

Nice rack, huh?

Blueberries, yum

Check out the bag of blueberries, and, David is mesmerized by this plant,
which seems to be wild cotton!

Some great people we met at the campground. Shin, Mayu, and Takeshi from Japan, and the
man on the left rode his bike the 85 miles on gravel in the rain to Wonder Lake.

Great sunset

Sunset

Sunset, final night at Wonder Lake

Pretty ground covering

After two nights at Wonder Lake, we  were back on the
camper bus.  The weather had significantly improved
and the 7 hour ride was incredible.  Not long after
leaving the campground, the bus happened upon three
grizzlies only about 20 to 30 yards away.  These
bears were quite the entertainment, scratching their
backs against a signpost and scarfing down berries.
Later on the bus we saw herds of Dall sheep along the
tops of the mountain ridges, and this loner wolf out
hunting squirrels to bring back to the den.  Then came
the complete double rainbow as we were leaving the
park.  Finally, just as we were getting dropped off,
we discovered a moose hanging out in the brush.

This grizzly is really loving the backscratch.

Hey bear.

Hunting wolf

Nice

We spent our final night in Denali at the edge
of the park with high spirits and fancy
amenities like Milwaukee’s Best and
marshmallows roasting around the fire.

Fancy campground, fancy rainbow.

Early the next morning we began our journey to
Fairbanks where we had our final two days of the trip.
Just when the north-bound trickle of traffic, loaded
with retirees in RVs, began to seem like a hitchhiking
bust, Elizabeth came to our rescue.

We squished in the folded down backseat of her car,
and spent two lovely hours of  sunshine, conversation,
and music on our way to Fairbanks.  Elizabeth
apparently enjoyed the ride as well.  She invited us
to lunch at one of her favorite local spots and then
gave us a nice tour of the area and her yurt.

Pretty yurt. No plumbing.

This is Elizabeth's previous residence, a geodome.
She could tell we were interested in this place,
so she brought us here to see for ourselves. This
residence is also without plumbing, and is heated with a
wood stove through the cold winters.

Elizabeth's yurt from the outside (no longer mobile as traditional yurts are)

Elizabeth with her cat, Julia with one of her two dogs.

This is the spring where a large portion of Fairbanks obtains their
water. You press a button and a natural spring is piped into your
canisters. It is about 10 minutes driving from Elizabeth's yurt.

These are the buttons you press.

We had to visit the pipeline. It's way big.

See? Big.

The last night in AK, we rented a car!!! Although Elizabeth showed
us around Fairbanks unlike most towns we visited, we had out hearts
set on sitting in some hotsprings, and with a flight to catch the following
day, we needed a car to comfortably get there and back. We chose Chena
Hot Springs. We were not exactly thrilled about it, because it was
advertised as a resort, but it ended up probably being the neatest resort
we have ever experienced. The resort grows much of the produce they
serve in the restaurant, and produces most of the energy they use from the
thermal pools and solar panels. They are also in the process of building windmills.

The drive to Chena Hot springs was divine.

One of a few moose that we spotted.

The hot springs

Julia exploring the pools

This sunset painted the hills above the resort a great pink. This is the sky
that we were able to see the most out-of-this-world show of the northern
lights later that night. We were unable to take a picture of them, but they
were moving and painting the sky for a couple hours. It was insane.

The outside garden. There are also 3 large greenhouses.

Breaking down the roadrunner for the last time.

On the way back to Fairbanks we did a hike to some neat
granite rock formations, called Angel Rocks.

Hey David

Angel Rocks

One of the last things we did with the car was head to a
small town 15 minutes from Fairbanks called North
Pole. It is basically a tourist trap, but we got some nice
pictures of St. Nick.

Alaska is totally amazing.

Glaciers by sea, glaciers by land.

Greetings from Alaska fellow Earthlings. The picture to the left is from the Yukon Bar in Seward. It is a popular hangout, with dollarbills covering the ceiling and walls, and live music almost nightly. On the night we spent too much money here on beer, we listened to a local band, and watched a local at the bar, who had perfectly teased white hair under his cowboy hat, and sat with a purple velvet pillow on the bar in front of him, where his miniature canine was proudly displayed. We ended up jogging home from a house party in a down pour at 4 am and woke up with the worst overhung experienced thus far.

We spent the following days in Seward exploring Kenai Fjords National Park which houses the country's largest icefield (a group of glaciers [32 in this one] that form a large sea of ice).

The first day we did so by boat. We had been putting off the boatride because the weather had been bad (mountains + clouds = no views), and the seas had also been very rough, but we were running out of time and had to take our chances. The day we decided to go out there were 6-10 foot swells and it was cloudy and raining as we headed out. They warned us that sometimes the boats do not even make it to the fjords and will turn around if too many people are sick. David was one of these people, throwing up off of the back of the boat only minutes after we hit the open ocean.

Green face

Here is the boat, man was it cold!

The weather cleared up as the day went along, just in time for us to get some nice views of Northwest Glacier caving.

The water was nice and calm when we got into the fjord of this glacier.

sidenote:
fjord is a natural deep waterway in this case (and often) carved out by a glacier, as opposed to a canal, which is man-made (think Panama [hi Adam])

Ice was everywhere in the fjord and we crashed through chunks of all sizes.

The glacier

Caving!

Checking out the views.

The next day was clear skies, with nothing but sunshine. We wanted to see the icefield from the top, and so we did the popular Harding Ice Field hike. This hike climbs approximately 3500 feet over 3.5 miles as it follows Exit Glacier up to the ice field. This hike was incredible and afforded the views below. We even had the chance to observe a couple of black bear cubs feeding!