Alaska Part 1
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| Mom, Dad, & Melissa met up with us for 10 days in Alaska |
When we finally got to Anchorage after almost missing our connecting flight in Salt Lake City and we met up with Mom & Dad at their hotel around 1am. Luckily with all our bags! First thing the next morning we went and checked out the famous taxidermy from the show
Mounted in Alaska. Dad didn't get to shoot anything on this trip, but we got to see some of his heros. They were really interesting and showed us all around the shop and talked to us for awhile. After that we headed north to
Trapper Creek. It's just south of
Denali National Park near the beautiful town, Talkeetna. It was overcast and rainy on the drive up to the cabin where we stayed for 2 nights. The first morning
2 moose walked right past our cabin while we were sitting around eating breakfast. They were only 50 feet from the porch. It was incredible. That day we checked out Talkeetna went on a boat ride and nature walk then met up with
Brucker and his friend Jeff at the Brewery in town. They stayed with us that night back at our cabin and in the morning
we woke up with a sunny day and a view of Denali!
We went on this nice hike to get a better view, but by the time we got there is was covered up in clouds. We did get a few good pictures later that afternoon. It's such an impressive mountain. It means "the high one" or "the great one" in the native Koyukon Athabaskan language. It's 20,335 ft and the highest in North America.
Our next stop was in
McCarthy. It is off the beaten path of most people's tours through Alaska. It's in the Wrangell St-Elias National Park, 60 miles back on a dirt road. Then you park 1 mile outside of town and have to cross over on a foot bridge and walk the rest of the way in. It's an old mining ghost town, and it's neighboring town, Kennecott, is famous for it's copper mine. After the first day we felt like locals in town. Lots of people are up there for the summer and everyone goes to the one & only bar. They have a softball game on Friday night that we were invited to and played a few innings in the field with the best view in the world. You are looking right at Mt. Blackburn from the outfield. It even beats out PNC park with that category of beauty. The field wasn't exactly proportional, but everyone was out there enjoying themselves, sharing their drinks, and we had our pick of gloves from the wheelbarrow to join in.
Brucker & Jeff met up with us there the day after we showed up. Our cell phones weren't working in the town and the guys were camping on the other side of the bridge so Brucker walked over and found us just by asking where the girls were. The 5 of us did an incredible 9 mile hike up to Bonanza mine which was on top of an impressive mountain. Mom and Dad hiked around the glacier while we went up. They even saw a black bear while they were hiking. We had another perfect sunny really uncommon beautiful day to do the hike.
The views from the top were the most awe-inspiring, sublime, breathtaking views I've ever seen. Mt. Blackburn was in full view, it's 16390 ft, the 3rd largest in Alaska. Wrangell Mountains include 12 of the 40+ Alaskan peaks over 13,000 ft and we had a front row seat to them. Then, when we were back down amongst the shubbery there was a plethora of wild raspberries and we ate our weight in them. Once we got back down to Kennecot we had a 4.5 mile walk back to McCarthy because we missed the last shuttle. It took Melissa, Brucker, and me 1/2 hour to go less than a mile because we kept stopping every few seconds. Of course at this point mom is back in town getting worried that we weren't back from our hike yet. Fortunately a pickup truck came our direction and we hitched a ride back into town. Everyone in town was relieved that we made it back in one piece. lol They all heard we were MIA.
We also got to go on a little bush plane with Mom and Dad in and around the mountains. It was so cool. There are a half dozen huge glaciers and a handful of smaller ones all around that mountain range. We even saw a few mountain goats from the air while we were flying. Then when we were back on the ground we got to walk right up and hike around on the glacier.
We even drank some fresh glacier water. It was glorious. We all got to see a
bear on our hike back to town from the glacier! It was a cinnamon colored black bear with a black head. We watched it for a few minutes. It was indulging itself with berries, just like we were earlier. He could've cared less that we were 50 yards away. Sunday morning on our drive out it was a rainy stormy morning and there was a tree down a couple miles out on that 60 mile dirt road. There were a few cars lined up and fortunately someone was there with a chainsaw by the time we got there. We all got out to help clean up the tree to clear the road. It felt like home.
We met a really fun family,
the Youngs, while we were in McCarthy. When we got to Valdez we went out and drank some great Alaska brewed beers and ate seafood pizza at the Fat Mermaid until they kicked us out.
Valdez was probably all of our favorite place in Alaska, and maybe the planet. It's tucked down along Price William Sound and the mountains are coming right out of the ocean. Huge mountains! With glaciers on all of them. I think Annie and Melissa counted 14 different ones from the end of a hike/ mountain bike trip we did one day.
The best day ever started off with kayaking around icebergs and then it just continued to get better. Kayaking around the icebergs were definitely the coolest activity we did on this trip. We were a few miles from Colombia glacier, which is a tidal glacier that is in catastrophic retreat mode. Losing meters of ice everyday because about 30 years ago the salt water got underneath and that is causing the breakup. It creates an awesome playground to kayak around all the icebergs though! They were giant chunks of ice, some bright blue, others white, and others brown and full of dirt. The color mainly depended on what part of the glacier it broke off from. The day started really foggy, overcast, and rainy. We weren't expecting anything different though. Somehow the sky cleared and the sun came out and it turned in to another uncommonly sunny day. We stopped and walked around for a minute on one of the islands and found some wild blueberries. It was the perfect day.
We got back to the harbor around 5 and went to the fish hatchery where the salmon are all swimming back to spawn. We were on the search for bears. Luckily for us we saw
2 small black bears at the creek catching salmon. Then driving back we found 2 grizzlies playing in a gravel pit. They put on a show for us for about 1/2 hour. Then we go back into town for dinner. Dad invited our guide and he recommended the perfect restaurant for us. It had a great view of the harbor, and the most incredible halibut and king crab I've ever tasted. That was when Melissa made the comment how she just couldn't imagine anything getting better than kayaking, then we saw the bears, and she didn't think it could get any better. Then we had such a wonderful dinner and there was no way it could get any better. So we are sitting there looking out over the harbor and the mountains and out pops a full moon from behind the mountain. It was a day that will be pretty darn impossible to beat.
The next morning Melissa Annie and I went on a mountain bike ride and hike. It was Melissa's first time riding in the woods. At first she thought we were crazy that we like to do that for fun! She got a little more confidence and didn't hate it after awhile. We found mom and dad walking around the harbor looking at boats dreaming that he'd buy one and move up there someday. That evening we went to the grocery store picked up some beer, wine, cheese and crackers and drove back to watch for beers. haha I love my family. We only got to see one that day. It made us realize how fortunate we were seeing all the others the day before.
The salmon run is a pretty incredible thing to see. These fish are working so hard to get back to where they were hatched to lay their eggs. Then there are thousands of seagulls poking their eyes out and eating them up. S
eals and sea lions are in the water and
bald eagles are feasting on them too. It's the circle of life right there in your face. The salmon are swimming to their death and fighting there way to get there.
We took the ferry across to Wittier and the plan was for Annie and I to get dropped off at Jeff's in
Moose Pass and they would turn back around to Anchorage to catch their plane that night. Well we didn't think we were going to make it. Moose Pass doesn't have a gas station and Seward was another 30 miles away. Luckily it was mostly downhill and we were able to coast our way down to fill up with gas. Everything worked out in the end. Annie and I have 2 weeks now to do some couch surfing and explore the Kenai Peninsula.
When we finally got to Anchorage after almost missing our connecting flight in Salt Lake City and we met up with Mom & Dad at their hotel around 1am. Luckily with all our bags! First thing the next morning we went and checked out the famous taxidermy from the show Mounted in Alaska. Dad didn't get to shoot anything on this trip, but we got to see some of his heros. They were really interesting and showed us all around the shop and talked to us for awhile. After that we headed north to Trapper Creek. It's just south of Denali National Park near the beautiful town, Talkeetna. It was overcast and rainy on the drive up to the cabin where we stayed for 2 nights. The first morning 2 moose walked right past our cabin while we were sitting around eating breakfast. They were only 50 feet from the porch. It was incredible. That day we checked out Talkeetna went on a boat ride and nature walk then met up with Brucker and his friend Jeff at the Brewery in town. They stayed with us that night back at our cabin and in the morning we woke up with a sunny day and a view of Denali!
We went on this nice hike to get a better view, but by the time we got there is was covered up in clouds. We did get a few good pictures later that afternoon. It's such an impressive mountain. It means "the high one" or "the great one" in the native Koyukon Athabaskan language. It's 20,335 ft and the highest in North America. 
Brucker & Jeff met up with us there the day after we showed up. Our cell phones weren't working in the town and the guys were camping on the other side of the bridge so Brucker walked over and found us just by asking where the girls were. The 5 of us did an incredible 9 mile hike up to Bonanza mine which was on top of an impressive mountain. Mom and Dad hiked around the glacier while we went up. They even saw a black bear while they were hiking. We had another perfect sunny really uncommon beautiful day to do the hike. The views from the top were the most awe-inspiring, sublime, breathtaking views I've ever seen. Mt. Blackburn was in full view, it's 16390 ft, the 3rd largest in Alaska. Wrangell Mountains include 12 of the 40+ Alaskan peaks over 13,000 ft and we had a front row seat to them. Then, when we were back down amongst the shubbery there was a plethora of wild raspberries and we ate our weight in them. Once we got back down to Kennecot we had a 4.5 mile walk back to McCarthy because we missed the last shuttle. It took Melissa, Brucker, and me 1/2 hour to go less than a mile because we kept stopping every few seconds. Of course at this point mom is back in town getting worried that we weren't back from our hike yet. Fortunately a pickup truck came our direction and we hitched a ride back into town. Everyone in town was relieved that we made it back in one piece. lol They all heard we were MIA.
We took the ferry across to Wittier and the plan was for Annie and I to get dropped off at Jeff's in Moose Pass and they would turn back around to Anchorage to catch their plane that night. Well we didn't think we were going to make it. Moose Pass doesn't have a gas station and Seward was another 30 miles away. Luckily it was mostly downhill and we were able to coast our way down to fill up with gas. Everything worked out in the end. Annie and I have 2 weeks now to do some couch surfing and explore the Kenai Peninsula.
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