Day 5
This was definitely one of the highlight days. We headed out to Matanuska glacier, a couple hours north east of Anchorage. This is a glacier that you can actually walk down to and walk on. Unfortunately, being very early in summer, the ice was still really slick, so we couldn't get as far as we might have wanted. But CP's younger brother and I managed to get a good ways back, even without proper shoes, and had the pleasure of getting to the rim of a pretty large ice valley with a river of melting snow and ice running through it. Really spectacular, and worth the risk to our ankles and necks
A truly awe inpsiring experience, not soon forgotten by me.
Day 6
This day was a bit of a bummer as CP's brother got a call while were on the glacier to come in to work in the morning (despite the fact that he had this vacation time planned well in advance, and they already owed him for doing the exact same thing to him the
last time he had vacation). But he was able to get stuff done and be back by noon, so the day was not lost. We stayed in town, visiting the Alaska Wild Berry Producst store which houses what they purport to be the world's largest chocolate fall, a 20 foot tall fountain of melted milk chocolate. I was very diappointed to not find cups for dipping. But CP's younger brother did manage to purchase a moose turd on a necklace as a gift for their other brother who couldn't make the trip. Yes, actual moose turd. There is a disturbingly large industry of stupid tourist gifts made with moose turd in Alaska. Go figure.
Day 7
Another drive up north to visit an abandoned gold mine. We got up there to find that they hadn't really opened for the season yet (there was still a lot of snow on the ground, though all the roads had been well cleared). Not a huge deal since that just meant that the gift shop wasn't open, we could still walk around and see the mine. But it did mean a good half mile uphill walk as the last stretch of road to the parking lot was blocked off. But well worth it. It was an impressive mining town, complete with rushing river, huge barracks, a crumbled power generator building that ran on diesel, rusted mine cars, and rickety train tracks suspending across perilous mountain gaps. Sadly the camera battery gave out JUST as I was about to take the best photograph of those tracks, with the spare battery in CP's purse a couple hundred feet bellow. Oh well, still got some good shots.
Our dinner that night was at a nifty restaurant in Anchorage called "The Bridge". It's built right across a large creek, with people fishing for salmon (though with the real runs a week or more away, the pickins were slim). The food was really good, but the side they put us on faced the sun and was uncomfortably warm. And the service sucked. Bleh.
Day 8
Our final day before out flight, and boy did we make the most of it. This was the one day we actually had a plan for going in. We booked a river rafting trip down the Kenai canyon river. Mom and Dad pawned the kids off on auntie, and off we went. And, as a good omen, we finally saw a moose and her calf in the wild on the drive there, a first for the week.
What an amazing trip. There were 4 rafts, a total of 23 people. And we just sat back as our guides did all the rowing. 19 miles down the river, not a nother sould in sight. Within a week, the banks of the river will be shoulder-to-shoulder with fisherman, the waters teaming with salmon. But not that day. Just the river, the rafts, and the wildlife. Beautiful. We saw bald eagles galore, 5 or 6 of them. I got a couple really good photos of them.
We stopped for lunch on a small island. We were expecting some carppy lunch like granolla and water. But these guy knew what they were doing! They put out a hell of a spread. Bagles, rolls, reindeer sausage, turkey, smoked gouda, pepper jack, homemade pickled onions, smoked salmon, smoked halibut, salmon spread, hot and cold drinks galore! It was an awesome meal. But even before the meal started, as they were explaining the drill for getting food, someone spotted a moose across the river. We all stopped to watch as she came to the waters edge...and just walked right into the river! As the current swept her down stream a bit, she just calmly swam her way across, and the next thing we know, she climbs on shore about 100 yards (maybe less?) from us! Paid us know mind, just stood there for a minute and wandered into the woods. It was awesome.
So we got back on the rafts to complete the 19 mile trip down to the lake that the river empties into. We went though some rapids...if you can call them that. Pretty tame, they're considered a class "2+" on the scale from 1-5 of passable rapids. And they only got the "+" because the water temperature in the river is bellow 40. Honestly, if those were class 2, I'd call Grizzly at least a class 3. But we had a really good guide who made the most of them, splashed us pretty good and got us pretty close to the rocks that he could safely. When we reached the lake (Skilak lake), they fired up the motors and we spent another hour on the lake (HUGE lake, 17 miles long, 4 miles wide) until we reached their landing where we piled into vans to take us back to base camp. Unforgettable journey all around.
So there ya have it. Our trip in a nutshell. A very large nutshell. Photos will be forthcoming (I promise to not be
too lazy about that). They tell the story far better than this endless boring trip report ever could.