from the big city to glaciers and fjords 21-25 july

anchorage was not only our staging point for the katmai bears, but it was also the largest city (~300,000 residents) we had been in in a long time.  it was a place to rotate our tires, buy a new coach battery (ensuring our dry camping days to come), stock up on food and consumables, hanging out with not only mary and andrew (thanks again for everything!!), but we also met up with another old pal of aly's.  sue and aly had not seen each other since peace corps botswana in 1993.  it was so much fun catching up with sue, her husband stuart, and their family where we all enjoyed a delicious fresh fish dinner.

sue and stuart

after leaving anchorage we headed south to the kenai peninsula and stayed in the small fishing village of seward.  seward is located at the end of resurrection bay, was one of the cities destroyed in the 1964 earthquake, is mile 0 of the iditorod trail, also knows as the seward-to-nome mail trail, and is home to the alaska sealife center, dedicated to research, rehabilation and education.  weather was cool with low clouds, so one of the days we spent in the sealife center.

fogged in resurrection bay

tbe old seward dock

the bay

more resurrection bay

down town seward

the alaska sealife center has a fascinating collection of sealife forms that live in these very cold waters, some of which include starfish, feather fish, jelly fish, and aly's favorite was lulu the octupus who is protecting hundreds of thousands of possibly fertile eggs.  she will die soon after the hatching takes place--very similar to the spawning of salmon.

lulu with her hundreds of thousands of eggs--they are the hanging white things on the left of the photo

jelly fish that survive in this freezing cold water

we also saw the gorgeous and funny puffin,

we were lucky to have clear weather the day we visited the kenai fjords national park only 4 miles from seward.  what an amazing place.  the park covers 669,983-acres and over half of that area is covered by the harding icefield, named for president warren harding when he visited the area in 1923.  the ice is several thousand feet thick, can you imagine?  there is only 1 road into the park, and that ends just a short 8 miles in at exit glacier, where you can walk another 1+ miles to get up close to the glacier.

flowers on the trail

exit glacier

look how close we are but look at the folks just behind aly's head and how tiny they are at the end of the trail

this is a HUGE glacier

this is how close you can get to exit glacier

the views driving back to anchorage

from the kenai peninsula to get anywhere north, you have to pass back through anchorage.  so that we did and this time we were en route to denali national park.  1st we passed through wasilla, a northern subarb of anchorage and the home of the iditarod race headquarters.  the original iditarod trail was blazed in the early 1900s to tansport goods and people to and from the port of seward to the alaska interior.  the sled dog race takes on that same route today, and the winners now do the 1,000+ miles in less than 9 days with their dog sled teams.

the dogs were incredible, and no this is not gravy!

the sleds are amazing--new ones can be made of titanium

and the puppies were gorgeous!!

a stop at an art gallery in the little town of willow (at one time this town was considered to be the capital of alaska) found us both playing around and enjoying ourselves.

aly learning to mush

buddy before breakfast

our favorite moose mount--carved wooden head with real antlers--really beautiful

we are anxiously awaiting our first views of mount mckinley, also known as denali or 'the high one' in athabascan (the native language), the highest mountain of 20,320 in north america.  that post will come next we hope as only 20% of all visitors to denali actually see the mountain.