So as many of you know, I am starting grad school at the University of Alaska in a few days. I will use this blog to keep everyone update with what I am doing.
Dad came out with me for the first week to do some sightsee
ing around Alaska. We arrived early in the morning on Tuesday, August 25th. We found
a hotel in Fairbanks and got a few hours of sleep. The following morning we explored Fairbanks and walked around campus for a few hours. We then took off for Denali National Park which is about two hours south of Fairbanks. We signed up for a hike in the park at the visitors center, found our hostel about 15 miles down the road and went to bed around 7 (11 in our heads).
The following morning we woke up to catch the bus for our hike. We missed the bus by minutes, but it turned to work out well!! We went out to Eileson by bus to mile 66. It took us 4 hours to get out there, but we stopped on the way at rest stops and whenever anyone saw a wild animal! On this trip we saw 2 grizzly bears, a few caribou, a wolf, a golden eagle, sheep at a distance, both bull and cow moose and a few magpie (birds). We did a short hike...a mile one way and 1,000 ft up. This gave us spectacular views of Denali, even though it was in the clouds and we only saw pieces of it at a time. There is a picture of the view below. We caught the bus back to the visitors center, had dinner at a salmon bake, went back to the hostel and went to bed.
Thursday we woke up at the hostel and went back into the park. We were headed to do a short hike before we drove to Anchorage. Personal vehicles can only go into the park 15 miles while busses can go in over 90. We were on our way to mile 15 for the hike, when we turned a corner and a grizzly bear was chomping on some grass on the side of the road! Dad slammed on the breaks and we sat and watched it for a few minutes. When we stopped, it was about 30 feet from the car but kept creeping closer to us as it ate. Then, it turned and crossed the road right in front of us! When it got to the other side, we rolled up our windows and sped off! It ended up getting 15-20 feet away from the car! A little close for comfort, but he really wasn't interested in us at all. This is the bear:
We then drove on, and saw a big white mountain in the distance. We pulled over and found it was Denali 75 miles away! There was not a single cloud on it like there had been the previous day. We then continued on to our hike along the Savage River. This was a beautiful loop about 3 miles long along the melted glacier water stream. Then we got into the car, had some PB&J's overlooking Denali and drove to Anchorage where we found a hotel. On our way, we drove south next to Denali and had some amazing clear views of the mountain. We were able to see the mountain almost all the way to Anchorage behind us! That was a long drive and didn't get there until pretty late. We went to a close-by restaurant called Gwennie's for dinner where the food was good and the service was not. Dad had ribs and proceeded to get a huge sauce mustache and dropped his glasses right in the sauce! Below are dad and I pointing to Denali off in the distance...
The following morning was drizzly. We decided to try to make the most of the day and headed to a town called Portage at the end of Turnagain Arm south of Anchorage. By the time we got there, it was down-pouring with super high winds. We checked out the visitors center and decided we had to go see a glacier even though we would get wet. We put on our boots, rain pants and jackets and set off to find one. It was about a half mile walk to Byron Glacier, but we found it! We walked up it a little ways and just admired it. Below is a picture of me on a glacier with one in the background...
When we got back to the car, our raincoats had soaked through! On our way back to Anchorage, we stopped at a stream where it said we could see salmon. We were a bit skeptical, but it brought us to a shallow glacier stream where huge 2ft salmon were swimming upstream. Some were bright red and others not. Then as we were driving back along Turnagain Arm back towards Anchorage, we saw a bear running on the beach in the distance! This brought our bear count up to 4. We returned back to our hotel and dad took a nap and I posted some pictures on facebook. We then went into Anchorage to check out the downtown scene. We ate at a great restaurant called The Brewhouse where we had our first King Crab legs and fresh alaska salmon! We took a walk along the water and retired for the night.
Saturday (today) we left Ancorage and drove back up to Fairbanks. It was a very long drive, but very pretty with Denali and other mountains always in view. On our way, we saw cars stopped on the side of the road which tends to lead to wildlife close by. On the side of the road was another bear! This brings our current count up to 5! We stopped in at the park again and we ate PB&J's along a stream in the park and went for a short hike to Horseshoe Lake. There, we saw a swan, a bunny and some squirrels! We finished our drive back North and arrived in Fairbanks around 6pm. We went to dinner at The Pump House which was very good. We had chowder and steak and watched the paddle boats go by on the river.
I am sure I missed many bits of what we have done sofar, but hopefully this gives a short summary of what we have been up to! I will be sure to keep posting my events here to keep everyone update with what I'm up to!
