Seward, AK: Exit Glacier Hike

Wow!  Doesn’t that look amazing?  Hiking right up steps carved into the ice?!  Well, too bad that’s not us.  Our hike today did not involve crampons or ice helmets.  Although there was one section that required somewhat decent balancing skills.

The Exit Glacier is the only area of Kenai Fjords National Park that you can access by car.  There’s an easy hike to the terminus of the glacier, but the actual ice area was roped off so we couldn’t walk right up to it and touch it, which was disappointing.  However, there was a more challenging trail leading up about 1200 feet to an overlook of the whole glacier.  The views all along the trail were pretty great, and the katabatic winds coming off the glacier kept us cool for most of the hike.

A local company will guide you out onto the ice (for a fee, of course).  They offer two options: a glacier hike, or an ice climbing excursion.  If you look closely at the photo below, you’ll see the ice climbers in the lower left corner.  They look like tiny bugs.  We took a close up shot, too, in case you don’t want to strain your eyes.  Ice climbing looked pretty fun; we’ll have to try it sometime.  (The glacier walks/climbing excursions are supposed to be cheaper in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, so we are waiting ‘til we get there to give it a try).

The Exit Glacier is one of many fed by the Harding Ice Field, which stretches across 200 square miles of the Kenai Mountains.  Like most of the world’s glaciers, Exit is receding.  It’s losing ground at a rate of about 100 feet per year.

Well, we’ve had enough of glaciers for a while, how about you guys?  Are you getting tired of seeing countless photos like this one?

Yeah, I thought so.  Well, tomorrow we are going to start heading further down the peninsula towards Homer (D’oh!) to see if we can find some salmon somewhere along the way.  We are too late for the king salmon run, but maybe we can get in on the sockeye or silver runs.  Wish us luck!

Seward, AK: Kenai Fjords National Park Cruise

Kenai Fjords is a tough National Park to get into.  The entire park is covered by Harding Ice Field so there is no road going through it.  Only one glacier (Exit Glacier) is accessible by road; to see any of the others you need to either take a plane or a boat.  We looked at our options and decided to take the Kenai Fjords cruise – a six-hour tour.  Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale…

When we checked in for the cruise, all passengers were advised that there was rough weather today – 25 knot winds and seven foot seas.  All of us were given the option to postpone our tickets for another day or to get a full refund.  Kevin and I weren’t too concerned – we’d seen those kinds of conditions (albeit unintentionally) back when we lived on our forty-foot sailboat.  We figured the eighty-foot motor vessel would handle it just fine, and so could we.  So we climbed up to the second level of the boat to get seats near a window.  Our seats faced another pair of seats and between us was a table.  A nice elderly couple sat down across from us and we were all joking about enduring the rough weather ahead.  The wife held up her wrist and said, “I’m sure I’ll be fine, I remembered to put on my motion sickness bracelet this morning.”  Yeah…that’s foreshadowing, folks.  Dun-duhn-DUHNNN!

The cruise began on the very calm waters of Resurrection Bay and the crew decided that would be a good time to hand out lunches.  Since it was noon, most people were hungry and everyone chowed down.  (You see where this is going, don’t you?)  About forty-five minutes later the boat steamed out from behind the barrier islands into the churning waters of the Gulf of Alaska, and many passengers desperately regretted eating those Chicken Caesar Salad Wraps.  Including the lady across from us who, without warning, discreetly upchucked all over the table.

Luckily that table was there, otherwise poor Kevin would’ve ended up with a lapful of nastiness.  Nothing landed on us, thank goodness.  The crew were able to clean things up quickly and move the lady to the lower stern deck.  And they finally figured out that it might be a good idea to hand out barf bags.  But the damage was done and from that point on it was pretty much the Vomit Voyage for a good dozen passengers. 

Ten miles later the boat finally rounded Aialik Cape and found calm water once again.  The Holgate Glacier wasn’t nearly as active as the Sawyer glaciers we saw on the Tracy Arm, but the wildlife sightings more than made up for it.  Humpback whales bubble feeding:

Pectoral fin slapping, filtering fish through its baleen, tail flukes

What thrilled me the most was seeing orca swimming in their natural habitat.  No Shamu shows here!  Throughout the course of the day we saw four distinct resident pods of orcas, about thirty whales in all.  The killer whales were difficult to photograph, since they seemed to move a lot faster than the humpbacks.  Unlike at SeaWorld, there was no announcer to tell us to get our cameras ready when they were about to do something cool.  Nine times out of ten, they’d just surface long enough to breathe so all we’d get was a photo of a dorsal fin.  We’d get a little lax with the camera and then it would be the tenth time – when one of the calves breached completely out of the water, or when one of the adults “spy-hopped” us (sticking their head up out of the water for a closer look).  Sadly, all of those amazing things happened when our camera was pointed elsewhere.

Still pretty super to see them in the wild, if you ask me!

The Seward Highway and Alaska Sea-Life Center

The 100-mile drive down the Seward Highway from Anchorage is one of America’s Scenic Byways for good reason.  Even on an overcast day like today, the Turnagain Arm (a glacial fjord) is pretty spectacular.  Today the wind was howling, and as we drove down the highway we could see about twenty kite-boarders enjoying the ride.

We pulled over to have a closer look at one of the roadside trails in the Chugach National Forest.

Seward is the gateway to the Kenai Fjords National Park.  We are looking forward to exploring the park a little bit, but we got into town too late to get over there today.  Instead we walked downtown, had a late lunch, and stopped in at the Alaska SeaLife Center.  Our Lonely Planet guidebook describes it as “more than just one of Alaska’s finest attractions…[it’s the] only coldwater marine science facility in the Western Hemisphere”.  So we thought we’d be seeing something really cutting edge.  Suckers!  Turns out it’s just another one of the SeaLife chain of mediocre mini-aquariums.  The Scripps Oceanic Institute it is not.  But since we had gone to the trouble of walking over there, we went inside anyway.  Because they had some adorable puffins, of both the horned and tufted varieties:

We did come across a window overlooking their rescue facility, which had a couple of injured sea lions and harbor seals in some rehabilitation tanks.  There were a bunch of other above-ground tanks that were visible, but we couldn’t see what was inside them.  Supposedly they were rehabbing a baby walrus in there somewhere, but we didn’t get to see it.  Lonely Planet promised we should “plan to spend the better part of one of your best afternoons here”.  Hmm…we were done in about an hour.  Maybe we missed something?  It was okay, but we’ve certainly found better ways to spend our afternoons in Alaska.

“Meh!”

Great Alaskan Road Trip: Week 11 Roundup

The beergarden at Denali Brewing Company in Talkeetna, Alaska

Each Friday, I post some relevant (and not-so-relevant) stats about the trip, as well as a little write-up of what it’s like to live out of a van for weeks on end. Here’s where we are overall:

• Total miles driven: 7192
• Total miles by ferry: 489
• Total days on the road: 74
• Total nights in a hotel: 4
• Total miles hiked: 90.79

Right: Denali the day after our flight – not a single cloud around the summit!  It figures!

Here are some interesting stats for this week:

• Fuel stops: 2 (diesel: $4.06 in Hilltop, AK, $3.97 in Fairbanks)
• Technical issues: 0
• National Park Service sites visited: 1 – Denali National Park (via aircraft)
• Bears sighted: no bears this week!
• Moose sighted: 1 (with antlers!)
• Wolves sighted: 1 (crossing the Dalton Highway, near the Arctic Circle)

While we were in Talkeetna we did a mini pub crawl, visiting just 3 of the 13 bars in town.  At the West Rib Pub we had just ordered our drinks when in walked a young guy with a sunburned face wearing only socks on his feet.  We overheard him talking to the waitress and he said he was one of the last three climbers off of Mt. McKinley this season.  He was part of a Danish expedition, and he and his two fellow climbers had been swept several hundred feet down the mountain by an avalanche.  They were rescued from above 17,000 feet by helicopter.  His companions were injured and were air-evac’d to Anchorage.  He was unhurt, but he claimed he’d lost his ID and everything else in his pack in the avalanche.  The waitress was skeptical – she didn’t believe he was over 21 and was giving him a hard time about ordering a beer.  But she eventually believed his story and he got his much-deserved beer.  (We later verified the story on the internet – all true.)  Meanwhile, a guy at a different table ordered the Seward’s Folly – a gut busting 4-lb burger with ham, bacon, caribou and a pound of cheese (it has been featured on the TV show Man Vs. Food).

We spent a few days in Anchorage, seeing some of the sights – including the Saturday Market which was one of the best Farmer’s Markets we’ve been to on the trip.  At Ship Creek, there were about thirty anglers hoping to catch some salmon.  They would have had more luck at the market – check out the huge salmon this little girl caught.

While we were in Anchorage, Kevin decided to do an oil change.  We’ve driven something like 10,000 miles since it had last been changed so it needed to be done.  Rather than pay $300 to have it done by the only authorized Sprinter service center in town, Kevin opted to do it himself.  It was kind of a pain in the butt though, because we still had to go to the service center to buy a special oil filter (trip 1).  Then we stopped in at O’Reilly Auto Parts (trip 2) and discovered that the oil was $10 a liter.  We need 10 quarts, so we thought we’d have better luck on the price at Walmart (trip 3).  Walmart did not carry the right kind, so it was back to O’Reilly (trip 4).  Okay, all set – back to the RV park to get to work.  Except…when he went to undo the bolt on the oil pan, Kevin’s flimsy socket set broke.  Back to O’Reilly (trip 5).  After that, things went without a hitch and the oil was finally changed.  Great job, Kevin!

So last week I did get one question (thanks, Jamie) via the comments, which I will answer in next Friday’s Roundup.  If anyone else wants to know more about the van or life on the road (we are about halfway through the trip now), please feel free to leave a question in the comments.

Mount McKinley Up Close (Finally!)

We have been keeping one eye on the weather hoping for a good clear day to see Mt. McKinley.  It’s on our “must-see” list and we won’t be satisfied until we can check it off.  We woke up to sunny skies this morning and it seemed like today might be the day – we had fairly decent views all the way down the Parks Highway.

But we weren’t completely happy with the views from the highway, and our patience with “The Mountain” was wearing a little thin.  As the day wore on, the skies got clearer – except for the area around McKinley.  Seriously, by the afternoon there wasn’t a cloud in the sky except for all around the base of the mountain.  There was only one thing to do – drive ourselves to a little town called Talkeetna, about 60 miles south of Denali.  Most of the McKinley climbing expeditions take off from here, and when I say “take off” I mean that literally.

We booked ourselves on the 6:15 flight with Talkeetna Air Taxi.  They were having an internet special that offered a free glacier landing with each ticket.  I was hesitant about that part, but Kevin was psyched.  We climbed aboard a tiny 10-seater DeHavilland Otter and off we went.

Once we were above the clouds, we finally had an almost completely unobstructed view of Mt. McKinley.  There it was in all its glory – all 20,320 feet of it (well, except for the part that was blocked by that thin line of clouds, whatever…).  If you’re curious, Mount Hunter on the left is a mere 14,573 feet.

Our pilot went in for a closer – a much closer – look.  The plane snaked through the lesser peaks of the Alaska Range, twisting and turning as we made our way around the jagged mountains surrounded by glaciers.

Looking down, we could make out distinct features in all the ice below.  Bright blue meltpools looked so tiny from hundreds of feet up, but looks can be deceiving – we could see whole icebergs floating in them.  Monstrous icefalls appeared to cascade down the sheer cliffs like waterfalls.

I was enjoying the stunning scenery when without warning the pilot turned the plane and we began descending right down to the glacier surface below.  By the time I realized what was happening, we had already landed on the Ruth Glacier, a sheet of ice 3,800 feet thick.  Where we landed, the glacier was covered in about six feet of soft, powdery snow.  (Perfect for making snowballs, as Kevin demonstrated.)

The view from the glacier was mind-blowing.  The sheer scale of the nearby mountains made us feel very insignificant in comparison.

This is probably the closest we are ever going to come to the summit of Mt. McKinley in our lifetimes, so we soaked it up.  Our close-up photos are a little hazy, thanks to some wildfire in Siberia mucking up the air quality.  But we didn’t mind too much.

Kevin put together a little montage of the flight, including the takeoff from the glacier which was like the fastest scariest downhill skiing I’ve ever done…times a hundred.

Talkeetna Air Taxi flight

Once we were airborne, the plane tracked the Ruth Glacier down through the gorge.  Ruth moves quickly (for a glacier) at about 3.3 feet per day and it stretches out over 35 miles.  Even though it lacks the immediate “wow” factor of Mt. McKinley, it’s pretty impressive in its own right.

Watching the Alaska Range recede behind us and melt back into the clouds, we said goodbye to the Great One, and mentally checked it off of our “Alaska To-Do” list.  What’s next?

Chena Hot Springs and Aurora Ice Museum

About 60 miles outside of Fairbanks is the Chena Hot Springs complex – they have a hotel, hot springs, sustainable gardens, and an ice museum.  It was a surprisingly hot and humid day, so we started off at the ice museum.  Everyone had to don huge parkas before going into the 20-degree building.  I was pretty glad that I’d thought to bring my mittens and toasty warm knit hat (thanks Dar!).  The interior was a cavernous space filled with sculptures by 15-time World Ice Carving champion Steve Brice and his wife, Heather (herself a 6-time champion carver).

Most of the sculptures were amazingly detailed.  This carving of knights jousting won the World Championship a few years ago.  Each large piece (like the knight’s shield) was carved separately and then “glued” on using hot water.  In our low-light photo it looks like a hologram, but I swear it’s life-sized and really impressive up close.

Originally they intended to also use this space as an ice hotel (but they can’t because the building doesn’t pass fire code – no sprinklers).  But they still have the four hotel rooms on display so that visitors can check them out.  I have always wanted to stay in the ice hotel in Sweden, so I was curious as to what it would be like to sleep in a room that is below freezing.  I discovered, not surprisingly, that it would be pretty damn cold.

If you are thirsty, you can order an overpriced appletini in a souvenir martini glass carved out of ice.  There are no other beverages served at the bar, though.  They tried serving cokes once but soon discovered that coke at those temperatures just turns to slush.  (Coke slushies don’t sound half-bad to me).  The bar seating areas were adorned with globes that had lights and detailed carvings inside, giving them the appearance of blown glass.

The resort gets most of its electricity (including the power to keep the ice museum running) from two unique geothermal generators powered by the natural hot springs.  Their philosophy is to use sustainable practices wherever possible.  While we were touring the generators, one of the staff drove by in an ancient Ford truck that has been converted to run on wood-chips.  They had a good supply of antique autos lying around the property – even those that didn’t run anymore were still put to good use.

 

In keeping with the resort’s sustainability philosophy, the kitchens are supplied from several enormous greenhouses that provide year-round fresh produce – tomatoes, strawberries, herbs, and other fruits and vegetables.  These hydroponic lettuces take only 52 days to go from seedlings to table-ready.

After touring the property and cooling off in the ice museum, we changed into our swimsuits and gave the hot springs a try. But it was a warm and humid day and with the water temperature a sweltering 103 degrees or more, we didn’t last very long.  Too bad they don’t have a hot spring pool inside the ice museum.