Ahhh Hot Springs, Burr Tors!

Another two days off brought another adventure!  This past weekend there was a Bluegrass Festival in the small town of Anderson Alaska.  Steph, Alex and I headed up on Saturday afternoon after work to meet up with friends and check out the music.  We were just at the festival over night and part of Sunday morning before heading to our next location.  We had opted not to spend the whole weekend at the festival and instead make our way north to Fairbanks.  None of us had been north of Denali Park yet so it was a new adventure for us.  We Passed Fairbanks and headed towards Chena Hot Springs which is Northeast of Fairbanks.  

It's been at least 3 months since I have sat in a hot body of water and could not wait to slip my body into the hot spring.  Driving down Chena Hot Springs Rd we passed at least 4 moose right off the road with their heads deep in the water eating the grass. I got a picture of the first one we saw.  We pulled into the Hot Springs Resort around 3 and went immediately to the rock pool.  After surviving probably the smallest changing room ever we got into the pool.  An amazing 107 degree sodium and bicarbonate water heaven greeted us.  This was my first time in a hot spring and I loved it!  The water was really hot and in spots it got even hotter.  There was a neat fountain in the middle that rained cool water on you so you could stay in longer.  Even with the fountain though I had to get at least 3/4 of my body out every 10 minutes.  After relaxing for a couple of hours we headed out to make dinner and find a camp spot.  We all agreed that we wanted to come back later on so we found a dinner spot nearby.  

Steph, Alex and I have started inventing our own backpacking food creations.  Usually consisting of some kind of flavored rice mix, ramen and whatever else we have in our packs.  That night we came up with chicken rice + oriental hot and spicy ramen noodles = goodness!  I had also bought a loaf of bread and so yummy dipping oil at the festival so we had that too along with some white wine.  We were sitting on rocks on the side of a pullout keeping away the mosquitos but still managed to have a classy meal! After dinner we went back to the hot springs for a few more hours.  Then we drove back down the road and made camp near the Chena River.  

We had decided earlier that day to spend all day Monday hiking on a trail to see some large Granite rocks called Tors.  It's a 15 mile round trip hike so we packed up enough food and water and headed out.  Unfortunately the rain came in about 4 miles into our trip.  Like all the weather we've experienced so far we figured it would blow over and possibly come back.  As we continued to hike and gain in elevation the weather worsened to full out downpour.  All of our jackets were saturated with rain.  We felt as though we were making good progress towards the halfway make were there was a shelter so we continued on.  Then we saw the mile markers which were always a good mile shy of where we thought we'd be.  By milepost 6.2 instead of saying "hey bear" we started saying "hey shelter!"  Finally Alex spotted it and to our delight it was completely enclosed and had a wood-burning stove with wood!!!!! 

We were able to get a fire going and make some lunch.  Then out of nowhere the Tors appeared through the mist just ahead of us.  It was really neat seeing them and finally getting to the main attraction of the hike.  I got some pictures of them through the mist which was probably cooler than seeing them in the sunshine.  They have a very erie quality about them, the shapes and color and rough edges poking out of the mist.  After getting our jackets "dry" we headed back out again to finish the hike.  Our feet were soaked instantly but we were in much better spirits.  We hiked towards the Tors and were yelled about by a pair of Voles protecting their home in a crack on the rock.  

We finished out the remaining 7 miles of our hike in good spirits, and not quite as wet as we started!  The hike was really pretty for many different reasons.  In 2002 a wildfire went through the area and we were actually hiking through the burned sections.  It was really awesome to see how it was recovering and the process of a forest's recovery.  When you see the pictures you'll see a lot of black trees which are all burned from the fire.

After our hike we headed back to Fairbanks for the night to treat ourselves to something none of us had had in several months, fast food!  I know it's the not the best reward but let me tell you when you're hiking 15 miles in the rain uphill a Western Bacon Cheeseburger from Carl's Jr sounds like heaven!  After enjoying our meal we went to Wal-Mart to do some shopping.  I really don't know how I'm going to adjust after this summer is over to normal life.  Wal-mart was incredibly overwhelming to me and I found myself completely lost as to where to go or what I needed to get.  When you're so far away from things like that for an extended period it's hard to remember how to manage them!   After the shopping trip we headed for the campground in the middle of Fairbanks.  It was still raining so at 1am, in relative darkness and pouring rain we had to set up our tents.  It was really more of a speed challenge than anything.  My tent was still soaked within 30 seconds but hey I was speedy!  

The next morning we headed out to find some thrift shops Alex and Steph had researched.  We found Value Village close by and for the first time since May I actually went clothes shopping!  The selection as we suspected was interesting, here we are in the middle of the largest states and almost one of the most remote, the clothes were all over the place.  I found a couple of things I really liked, one of which is a Military sweater I purchased for $5!  

Arriving back in Denali we discovered that they had received just as much if not more rain than we did over the weekend.  This week has been a little crazy as a result.  Until yesterday it rained for 4 days straight!  The river rose about 20 ft and was surging so we stopped running one of our rafting trips for safety reasons.  Then the northbound train to Fairbanks was shut down because of a landslide on the tracks.  It's still shutdown because the tracks are flooded about an hour north of us.  There were also some rock slides on the park road at Polychrome Pass as well.  Needless to say the front desk has been busy correcting rumors.  We've been under a flood watch for the last week now but yesterday the weather cleared up and we're all crossing our fingers it stays that way for awhile!  This summer has been one of the coldest and rainiest on record.  I've done my best not to let the weather stop me but I would really enjoy hiking without my feet soaking wet for a change.

This weekend Steph, Alex, Ashley and I are going to try and do the Denali Hwy.  It's a stretch of unpaved road south of us that's supposed to be amazingly beautiful and full of wildlife.  I'm pretty excited about that. Also yesterday there was a job fair with other seasonal employers looking for winter workers.  Both Sugar Bowl and Northstar at Tahoe were there.  I put in applications for Ski Instructor positions as well as Ski Patrol.  I really don't know where I'll be or what I will be doing after September but if it includes skiing on a regular basis I will not complain!

I can't believe that it's already August too.  My summer is half over and it's becoming clear here that summer's on it's way out.  The nights are getting significantly darker, last night we saw our first stars!  The colors are getting ready to change too.  I can't wait for Dad to get here on Thursday and show him everything!  Keep leaving comments I love reading them!

Backcountry

Well I finally did it! I went backpacking in the park! It's taken 2 months for me to get a trip orgranized but I finally went. It was a great trip, unlike any backpacking I've ever done. In Denali there are no trails so where you backpack you are making your own trail. It's hard to get used to because you're not supposed to walk in a straight line because that will eventually create a trail. The rangers work very hard to keep this park as wild and pristine as possible. We started out in Section 34 just past the Eielson Visitor's Center at mile 66. We hiked along Moose Creek to the edge of Section 33 where we had reserved our camping permit for. It took us 4 long hours to get to the ridge but we were rewarded with an awesome camp spot. We had also been really lucky on the bus out too, the wolves here are very hard to see because there are not a lot of them. Alex had been talking all morning about just wanting to see a wolf and the mountain and he'd be happy. About 2 hours into our ride a woman spotted a wolf in the woods and we were able to watch it for awhile. We were all really excitied and happy about that spotting until an hour later when we saw another wolf walking down the road!!! It came within 5 feet of our bus at a nice trot and I got a great picture of it. That by far made the trip a success before we even broke trail.

We rode the camper bus out which is specifically for people heading out to camp, it will drop you off at any location along the road. Our driver has been driving in Denali for 31 years and was a wealth of knowledge. The bus system in Denali is probably one of the coolest thigns I've been able to experience here. If you ever come to Denali make sure you ride a VTS shuttle and talk to the drivers they are amazing people with a lot of information to share.

Hiking to our site was rough because it was through wet tundra which soaked all of our feet within 15 minutes. Also going uphill on tundra is exhausting because it's like walking on a sponge. You go to step up and instead all of your energy is absorbed into the ground. Once we got to our campsite we spotted 4 bears in the area. They all were pretty far off and didn't come towards us so we ate dinner and watched them graze for a bit. We were all pretty exhausted so after a couple of card games we called it a night. We woke up to rain and clouds which was too bad because Sunday had been a really pretty day with broken clouds and sunshine. As we made breakfast I spotted 3 bears, a mother and 2 cubs, we had watched them last night but this time they were much closer. We cooked and watched them for a bit. Then 2 Caribou crossed the cubs path and startled them which was really fun to watch. Then the bears started to move towards us and we retreated to our tent site. The seemed aware of us but after about 30 minutes it was clear they weren't going to come and shake our hands any time soon. We packed up and headed out but it was a tad nerve racking to be as close as we were to them and try not to cross thier path on the way out. The hike out was nice, mostly downhill and on a river bed. We were acutely aware of potential bear areas and doing our best to avoid them. After having lunch we had to cross a river and ended up stumbling upon a bear carcass. That was by far the most unsettling experience of the trip. The bear's skull and claws where laying ontop of a pile of skin and fur which was on a strange pile of branches. We opted not to exlpore too long because the site looked more like a kill site than a place where the animal laid down and never got back up again. We hustled out of there and hiked along a canyon river to an opening where we met up with the park road again. The next day we returned our bear can and told the ranger about what we found. She said it looked like the bear had been dead for awhile but if anything killed it it would have been another bear and then they would have stashed the meat under the branches.

All in all the trip was awesome, I got close enough to bears but not too close. The Denali bears as Alex puts it, "are really friendly." Which they are because the rangers work so hard at keeping them wild and not exposed to human food.

I hope you all enjoy the photos of the trip. I've changed how I am posting the photos, I am now making each trip a set so you can view them in order if you'd like. Once the photos are posted I will add a direct link at the bottom of this post that you can follow to see the photos of just this trip. Hopefully tonight I will have those photos posted for you all to enjoy!

Click here to see the photos from Backpacking!

Talkeetna

Last weekend my friends, Steph, Alex, Ashley, Mindy and I all decided to go and check out Denali State Park which is south of here.  Alex had heard about a couple of cool hikes to waterfalls and a lake called Byers Lake where you can kayak.  So we headed out Saturday afternoon and drove from beautiful sunshine straight into a thunderstorm.  That's the thing about Alaska and the mountains the weather is really unpredictable and changes very quickly.  After driving for about an hour or so we crossed into Denali State Park and found a pull out where a trail started.  This trail was supposed to lead us to a really neat waterfall and provide some bear sightings.  Well it was drizzling down rain and I was in shorts and the trail was lined with alder bushes.  These aren't your regular brush by bushes these are the snap back and bite kind.  Needless to say after hiking for a long time and finding no waterfall we were getting a bit discouraged.  However Mindy started to hear water so we pressed on.  I ended up leading and managed to come across bear scat which completely freaked me out and I insisted that someone else lead.  While I've seen plenty of bears from the bus I am yet to encounter 1 with nothing but distance between us.  Unfortunately, or fortunately we did not run into any bears.  We did finally find the waterfall however we weren't able to find a way down to the pools just overlooks or a trail to the river.

After that we were soaking wet and had been pretty well chewed up by the mosquitos so we headed down the road to Byers Lake to find a campground.  We pulled in and set up camp and tried to dry out a bit while keeping the mosquitos at bay which let me tell you is a challenge up here.  These arctic mosquitoes are determined and abundant.  We tried to dry our shoes and pants by the fire but it was pretty cold so we were mostly just making them steam alot.  

In the morning we woke up and rented kayaks for 4 hours.  We kayaked around the lake and then headed up the inlet river against the current to try and find a suspension bridge Alex had heard about.  It was a beautiful river but at times it was exhausting to kayak.  I was in a single while Steph, Alex, Ashley and Mindy were in doubles.  If I took a break I ended up losing ground so I was getting pretty tired but I was constantly entertained by Ashley and Mindy's attempts to get up river.  It was their first times kayaking and the steering nuances were becoming problematic for them.  We were all getting pretty tired  and decided to push forward for 30 more minutes and try to find this bridge.  We rounded a few more bends before coming upon the bridge which felt like a huge success.  We took some pictures and then headed back with the current and enjoyed the easy part of the ride until having to cross the lake against the wind.  

After eating lunch we decided to hike to the waterfall that the suspension bridge led to.  The hike was really pretty and short to the waterfall so we opted to continue and circle the entire lake.  The day had started out cold and cloudy but ended up being warm and sunny.  We stopped on the other side of the lake and tried to see the mountain.  On a clear day Denali would stand directly above this lake.  It wasn't clear enough to see the entire mountain but we're pretty sure we saw some it through the clouds. After our hike we were all exhausted and ready for a good dinner.  We hopped in the car and headed to Talkeetna.  Talkeetna is the climbers town, that is where all the climbers doing Denali start from.  It is a cute little mountain town with 1 main road.  We pulled in and set up our tents at the end of the main road in the campground.  We had thought about camping for free on the river but decided that being 10 feet from the bathroom and running water sounded better than trying to figure out a safe place by the river.  We went and got dinner at the West Rib, named for a section of the mountain and enjoyed a cold beer.  After that we walked down to the river and set off our fireworks since we didn't get to see any on the 4th of July.  Being next to a National Park fireworks were strictly forrbidden and anyone seen with them was going to be fired on the spot.  After about 20 minutes of "ooo" "ahhh" we  headed back to our campsite and got some beauty sleep. 

The next morning we woke up and wandered the gift shops.  Talkeetna has great little shops full of local artist's work.  There were beautiful photographs, clothing, jewelry and other items.  I ended up buying a really pretty scarf and the cutest hat for a friend's baby, it looks like an acorn.  I also purchase the most unusual candy, Jalapeno Habenro Pistacho Brittle.  I had to try it because my motto this summer has been to experience as much as possible, including the flat out weird.  It starts out sweet then warms up to the point of a strong burn.  Can't say I'd eat a lot of but I defiantly craved Mexican food for the rest of the day!  We didn't get to hang out too long because Mindy needed to be back for work.  The weekend was a nice break and great distraction.  The work week went by pretty quickly and I actually went back to Talkeetna yesterday for a music festival which was fun. I'm also off today and got a last minute offer to go to Fairbanks but declined so I could get caught up on my blog and photos.  I hope you are all well and enjoying my stories and photos!

Byers Lake Photos

Seward

So it's been awhile since I've updated this so let me start with my first adventure. I got to take a trip down to Seward Alaska. It's 3 hours south of Anchorage on the water, it's a place I've been wanting to visit long before the summer job idea came around. I went down with 3 other co-workers and spent a night in Anchorage at the Backpacker's Inn. We went out and hung out at a bar called Humpy's, in reference to the pink salmon that are called Humpy's. The next morning we caught out bus down to Seward. We slept most of the way but while I was awake the views of the Seward Highway were amazing. You travel next to waterways the entire time. The mountains shoot straight out of the water too which makes it all the more gorgeous.

Arrving in Seward we wandered around to find a campground. Admittedly I got us a bit turned around but we found a great spot and set up camp. We ate some lunch and discussed our plans. We had been told that the Kenia Fjords tour was a must so we arraged tickets for that then checked out the downtown. The crusie was amazing! It was a 6hr water tour through the fjords. Anyone finding themselves in Seward this is a MUST activity! We saw a lot of marine wildlife, several humpback whales, sea lions, seal, Puffins, lots of other diving birds, an otter with her pup and the most elusive of all we say Orcas!!!! Aka Killer Whales!  Please be sure to check my flickr account for the Seward set and see all the animals.

After the cruise we headed back to our campsite and enjoyed smores and the first gorgeous sunset all summer.  In Seward it actually got dark enough to use my headlamp for the first time this summer outside!  That was a little strange but made sleeping very easy.  We woke up the next morning and made our way to the Alaska Sealife Center which was established after the Exxon Valdez spill to research and rehabilitate marine wildlife.  We got to see a lot of really neat fish that inhabit the bering sea.  I never realized how colorful many of the creatures are!  We also got to touch sea anemies, sea cucumbers, starfish and eels in their tide-pool exhibit.  The water is pumped in directly from the bay and after touching about 2 things I had to give my hand a break! After that we walked into the marine bird area which includes a large tank of water that extends down at least 40 feet.  While you're standing just below the water level you can watch the birds fly off the rocks and dive down into the water.  Then you can see them swimming around under the water grabbing kelp and other items.  It was really neat because there were many nesting Puffins close to the edge that we could look at.  We then headed downstairs to see the sea lions and seals swimming around their tanks.  I got some great photos of them as well as an octopus that decided to climbing the glass.  

After the Sealife Center we got lunch and discovered that we had missed all the kayaking opportunities earlier that morning and made new plans as to how to spend our time before our bus at 6:30.  Friends had told us about Exit Glacier and how you could actually walk up and touch the glacier.  So we headed back and packed up camp then called for a taxi to take us the few miles to the glacier.  On the way to the glacier there are sign posts with years on them at different points along the road.  Each sign post delineates where the glacier was during that year.  It was really cool to see how far it had retreated during different periods.  The signs continue up the trail also.  It's a short hike the edge of the glacier but then a slightly more interesting hike to be able to touch the glacier.  We had to cross a braided river and one of our friends decided not to join us.  This glacier was very different than the one we saw on the cruise because it didn't say much and wasn't dropping ice like the other one.  It was still really neat to see it and see how compressed the ice was, it looks very different than the ice that comes out of your freezer. After touching and licking the glacier we headed back and caught our taxi.  Our taxi driver ignored our requests to go straight to the small boat harbor and catch our bus.  Instead she insisted on showing up spawning salmon which was interesting but we just barely caught our bus.  Oh well alls well that ends well especially since she made $60 off of us for a 20 minute round trip ride.  

In Anchorage we went to Wal-Mart and picked up supplies.  After being in Denali for 2 months being back in civilization was very overwhelming.  I'm not used to lots of cars or having whatever I need just an aisle away.  I defiantly wandered around Wal-Mart for at least 15 minutes trying to get my brain around it. We all slept most of the way back to Anchorage the next day and I had to head to work but the trip to Seward was worth every penny and all the time. I really needed that trip to remind me just why I'd come up here in the first place.  I came to see Alaska and do things I could only do here.  Seward renewed my excitement to be here and now I have even more fire to get out there and see Alaska!

More to come...

Hi folks, so it's been a while since I've posted.  Life's been really crazy, I went to Seward came back and then went to Talkeetna a few days later.  I will post about both of those trips tomorrow but the photos from the Talkeetna trip are up on flickr as well as photos from my last Eielson trip with Steph and Alex.  Enjoy!