Just Another Sunny Sunday!

Another day in a string of beautiful and relatively warm, sunny days and our first hike of the year -- still with Katoolahs, the little spikeys that stretch around hiking boots and give us traction in the snow and ice still on the trails. We chose a trail that we hiked in the fall, though we didn't know how far we would get with the snow still on the mountains.  This hike is along Cook Inlet, so you'll see pictures looking out over the water and the Chugach Mountains.  The trail takes off from the highway along Turnagain Arm, so there are plenty of places to have scenic views.  

Often there are Dall sheep this time of year coming down to the cliffs in the sun, though we didn't see any today.  This is also big bear territory once they wake up, and we saw three bears, a mother and two cubs on this hike in the fall.  We did see two moose once we were back in the car and starting for home.  They were right up on top of a ledge along the highway, up high.  We also saw plenty of signs of moose along the trail that we were walking -- moose droppings they leave in neat piles of "nuggets."

We're looking forward to hiking again - it's been a long ski season - sorry east coast!  We're also looking forward to visiting friends east again, probably beginning the last week in June.  And Alex, Brian's son will be here a week from Wednesday for a few days -- where the heck are the rest of the reservations for our guest room?  Every week is open!

Next weekend -- plans to hike up in the mountains from Prospect Heights or Glenn Alps to get back in the mountains -- or will it be biking?  We still have our studded snow tires on the bikes, and Brian biked the other day.  Or one last ski?!

Our Evening Walk

Work, work, work since we got back from Fairbanks, but we had a nice walk tonight with Lance and Mary, our landlords, along the Ship's Creek Trail.  We saw a moose on the way out, lying (or sitting really, with its legs tucked underneath) by the creek, just like she was watching the world go by.  Then a little further on, we saw this pair of eagles WAY up in the tree.

Brian was down in Whittier today working on our new boat (with two partners), Kakwik.  Carl, one of the partners, was with him, and as you can see, they still spend a part of each day that they go down there shoveling out to get into the boat.  They have had a PILE of snow there this year, and it seems to still be coming down every few days.  We ARE only about 3 inches away from a record annual snowfall.

Here you get to see spring in Whittier -- not quite there yet!  But we've had beautiful, sunny days with blue, blue skies and mid to high 20s in the afternoons -- plus it's light til nearly 9:00 at night now!  Brian's son Al is coming to visit April 4th, so we're excited about his visit!  And Brian ran for the first time in a while yesterday (Judy not yet) because we both registered to run the Boilermaker (Brian long, Judy short).  Maybe we'll have some funny looking pictures of us running soon.

And on the way out of town!

Our last activity in Fairbanks -- a fur auction on our 18 degree below zero walk!  We were tempted to bid on a skin and make our own mittens (at least Judy was) but we decided to read up on it first -- some were tanned, some weren't, etc.  It was a beautiful high 20s when we got back to Anchorage, so out for a skate ski this time!  Gorgeous sunny day skiing with the mountains in front of us and a couple of moose for scenic interest!  The creek water is opening, and there is much to look at anyway!

Three Days in Fairbanks!

Not the traditional Spring Break someplace warm and beery, but Fairbanks - 18 degrees below zero this morning!  Fortunately, it hasn't been quite that cold since we got here on Wednesday.  We flew up on a 7 am flight, and it's less than an hour to get here.  We already posted about Day 1, so Day 2, Thursday, we went to see the ice carvings in the morning, "ice art" - we published them all on Facebook but will give you a couple of them here.  We went back at night to see them lit up, and that's what we included here - it will be hard to choose the ones to show you -- go to Facebook and see the whole album if you can!

In between our two ice carving trips, we went skiing again - this time on trails behind the university -- really nice cross-country trails, all groomed for skate skiing and classical skiing.  We came back tired and cold and had soup in our microwave and salads we picked up on the way back before going out for the "evening viewing!"  We also found a place to watch the Northern Lights both this night and Friday night, which made the trip for Judy -- she's been dying to see them!

Friday we went to the Museum of the North, a very nice museum at the University of Alaska Fairbanks that houses an art collection, artifacts and stories of each of the geographic areas of Alaska, and other Alaska Native artifacts and features of the wildlife here.  Then we drove to North Pole, Alaska, which is quiet this time of year but must be wild during tourist season!  Santa Claus Dr., Mistletoe Lane, St. Nicholas Drive, and all of the other accompaniments that go with Santa Claus!

We had lunch there, and we had intended to ski again, but we got lazy when the temperature stayed below 10 degrees, with a light wind.  Instead we went out to dinner at the Pump House and then to an Alaska Native event with fiddlers and dancing for all ages from babies to the almost-90 Native man, an elder, who was as lively and dancing as anyone and a lot livelier than most people there! Wish we had taken pictures!

We'll have to make sure we do something today before we leave on a 3 pm flight - who knows when we'll be back in Fairbanks!  We'll be back in Anchorage at 4 pm, just in time to have a ski there (where it's warmer - about 26 degrees today)!  It's been a great trip to the interior and a look at another aspect of Alaska - it's such a big place to explore!

Fairbanks - Day 1 Chena Hot Springs

Exploring another part of Alaska - the interior!  We flew to Fairbanks early this morning, picked up a rental car and had breakfast, then drove to Chena Hot Springs to hang out for the morning.

This is a natural hot lava rock pool, and they've begun using the hot springs to heat the buildings and now to produce electricity.  We had lunch there and after driving back and checking into our hotel in downtown Fairbanks, we had a late afternoon ski (after it warmed up!) at the Birch Rd. trails.  That was a nice and extensive set of groomed trails for classical or skate skiing.  We only brought our classical skis with us, as we thought they'd be better in the colder weather here.  The Northern Lights are supposed to be out tomorrow night and Friday night so here's hoping!

A Weekend Outdoors!

More snow, more mountains, more skiing -- we know, you're tired of hearing it, right?  No pictures of the Northern Lights we finally saw on Thursday night for the first time since we've been here, but we do have pictures of snowshoeing and skiing this weekend.  Friday night we skied after work on the Chester Creek Trail, our usual just down the street from our house.  Only one moose sighting, just off the trail, and we diagonal skied about 10k.  Saturday morning Judy always does a yoga class early, and we decided to drive down to Girdwood, about 45 minutes or so south of here and a gorgeous drive along Cook Inlet and right through the Chugach Mountains.

We snowshoes the Winner Creek Trail, which goes out to a hand tram, unused in the winter but active to pull yourself over a gorge in the summer.  It was a beautiful sunny day, about 16 degrees or so, and enough work on snowshoes - they'd had lots of snow!  In fact, this is at the Alyeska downhill ski resort, and they've had a ton of snow for the winter!

After snowshoeing, we made our way to the Silvertip Grill in Girdwood for a late lunch - it's a little place with great food -- and right at the corner we bought fresh shrimp and frozen scallops from Kodiak!  Ahhh - it's been a while since we had shrimp freshly caught - we brought those home and ate a little more than a pound by themselves for a later "snack" or dinner - boy, were they good!  We can't wait til Brian and Carl are out on Prince William Sound pulling those in again.  They picked up the new engine for our Prince William Sound boat on Friday -- plans are progressing - now they have to fabricate new mounts for the engine to fit back into where the old, useless one came out.  

Today we went back to Girdwood after the usual grocery shopping, laundry, all those necessary but unwelcome tasks, and skied.  After skiing we met our landlords for dinner -- today was Mary's birthday, and we met them at the Double Musky, another favorite of ours when we're in Girdwood. These were different ski trails than we've been on before, and it was hilly but fun - the downhills anyway!  Again, temperatures probably around 18 degrees. 

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Tomorrow back to work for Judy and for Brian, back to work on the boat.  Wednesday we're going to Fairbanks for a few days, and we'll see the Ice Carving Championships there -- and go to Cheena Hot Springs . . . more pictures, more blogging! 

Ceremonial Start of the Iditarod

First, Banff Film Festival World Tour at UAA last night -- lots of "do not try this at home" stuff - Slacklining?  Free form over canyons?  Death wish!  Fun to watch though!  We followed a father and two little boys out to the parking lot, and we said, "Better watch out for them tomorrow!"  We could just picture them setting up their own death-defying feats!

Today - watched the "ceremonial" start of the Iditarod from mile 4 on the trail behind someone's house - with their annual party, complete with a trumpet salute for each musher - and singing of O Canada and the Norwegian national song at appropriate times!  There was a fire going and hot drinks, and everyone was having a great time.  The "real" start of the Iditarod was moved to Willow several years ago, but the dogs go 11 miles from downtown Anchorage on Saturday, then are picked up and moved to Willow for Sunday's start.

That's Judy in the white down vest watching.  We were going to go right out and ski afterwards, but we'd gotten cold standing there watching the teams, so we went grocery (and wine) shopping instead and are headed out to ski now that we're warmed up.  It's in the 20s here with a light snow, and we've gotten a couple of more inches in the last few days.  Tomorrow is the Tour de Anchorage, which Brian did last year (25, 40, or 50k).  He's not doing it this year because we both were sick in February and traveled to NY, just not in shape for it.  We'll be there watching because Lance Mearig, our landlord is skate skiing it for his first Tour.

See the rest of the album for the Iditarod start on Facebook.