Alaska: The Last Frontier. So about 2 months ago, Mel and I traveled up to AK with her family to partake in the family vacation, or as her Dad called it on our extensive itinerary (seriously this trip was planned far better than most government operations, we even had an exit strategy!) "The Great Alaskan Adventure". The trip started with us flying into Anchorage (flight arrived around 2 am AK time) and spending the first day in Anchorage. Frankly, the best thing I saw in Anchorage was the phenomenal view of the Chugach range from the museum top floor, other than that it was very gray and not terribly exciting. The next day we drove down to the Kenai peninsula, specifically Seward. This peninsula is famed for its wildlife, gorgeous views, whale watching and glaciers. The whole of the peninsula is still being actively carved away by sea ice on one side and internally by an icefield that glaciers pour down hillsides, grinding away the mountains as they work there way to the sea.
Now I'm usually not a huge fan of big touristy tour type stuff, so I wasn't too excited that our first day on this mythical peninsula was going to be spent on a boat with an all you can eat salmon or steak buffet (not kidding), but I figured that's the price of coming on a family vacation, you can't spend the whole time hacking through the bush. I was blown away by how well done this tour was. It was marketed as a Sea Wildlife tour and holy cow was it. Species that have been pushed to the brink of extinction in the lower 48 came swimming straight up or flew straight past the boat. Within the first hour I'd lost track of how many Bald Eagles we'd seen, on top of seeing Dall's Porpoises, Sea Otters, Sea Lions and puffins as well. And the scenery was like wandering into the Lord of The Rings. Glaciers came spilling straight down to the ocean, curved spires of jagged peaks poured upward into the fog and cloud filled sky while tendrils of clouds wrapped themselves towards the ocean. Truely, a phenomenal experience. I'll shut up for a moment and let the pictures speak for themselves(unfortunatly most of the wildlife photos did not come out as I don't have a good enough lens-must buy telephoto).
So after spending a night in Seward and eating some surprisingly disapointing salmon (my one major complaint about Alaska; the fish bought in restaurants was really not that fresh tasting, the best salmon we had by far was caught by Mel's Dad and Grandfather-other than that in restaurants the Fish and Chips were better than the Salmon), we woke up the next morning to head out to go sea kayaking with Sunny Cove Sea Kayaking. True to its name the sun came out while we were out in the boats as well. This was super fun, great to get some exercise and an awesome opportunity to see the geology of the peninsula up close. Unfortunatly, I forgot the disposable camera we'd bought for this part of the trip in my life jacket so it got left in Seward and then promptly got opened and stolen while it was being mailed back to us in Colorado (people...). So thus there are no pictures of this part of the trip. The best part of this was that while we were here, the salmon run was in full swing (early run) and during part of the kayaking we went up a river where there were literally hundreds of salmon directly below us in the clear blue water spawning and thrashing about. The guide told us a detailed description of the physiology of the salmon and I found it fascinating, I'll try to recount it here.
Salmon actually have mercury in their heads so essentially they act like living compasses, they also have an intense memory of what their exact river stream that they were spawned in and even though in their lifetime will have traveled all the way around the world, the second their spawning instinct kicks in they head directly for that river bed. Now the moment salmon start to spawn, they start to die as well, physiologically they lose all motivation to eat or rest and the only instinct that survives is that to spawn and to eat other salmon's spawn or eggs. We literally saw salmon that had almost all but fallen apart (no eyes, emaciated, losing fins) but were still swimming around spawning. Incredible.
So after viewing the salmon and heading back to port, Mel, Robin and I got in the car and headed toward Talkeetna. On the way we stopped at the Palmer Glacier (I think..) and Girdwood, home to Alaska's only ski resort Alyeska. This glacier had some of the best views of crevasses and the infamous blue color that the compressed ice adapts.
To get to the prime vantage point we ended up scrambling through a tight grove of Alders that provide an awesome idea of exactly what the brush in Alaska during summer time is like. While one may think of Alaska and think of a frozen wasteland covered in snow, this opinion is totally wrong. During the summer time Alaska has one of the best growing seasons around (it's light all the time!) and is absolutly loaded with moisture. Plants that seem like they've been dead for months grow to exponential sizes. We ended up bushwacking through about 200 yards of alder to see the vantage points of the glaciers above.
Having grown up spending time in Denmark at the northern parts of the world, I've always known the beauty of the lighting as you get towards the poles. I don't think I've ever seen as good an example as when we were leaving Girdwood and heading along the Seward highway towards Beluga Bay and Anchorage. The shots below simply don't do the golden color that highlighted the ocean and the mountains justice.
Next up, Talkeetna and Denali State Park and some very typical Alaskan weather!
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