Wrangell St. Elias National Park in eastern Alaska is bigger than Switzerland! There aren't trails in Alaska's national parks so we had a topo map, compass, and Falk's sense of direction (mine has been on the loose for awhile now).We backpacked a teensy section of Wrangell-St. Elias along the Root Glacier, up the wrong pass, back down the wrong pass, up the right pass, down the right pass, along a water fall, and down to the McCarthy River back to the town of McCarthy.
Alaska now has palm trees due to global warming! Who knew.No....not yet. We had a layover in LA on the way there and spent it with Endie and Jens (Falk's cousin).
Hortense's sun hat.
Climbing rather than doing a river crossing...This campsite was my favorite. You can see the ice fall behind it. We arrived in the pouring rain at 3am the night before (it never gets dark!) and dried out the next day.
Backpacking on the Root Glacier near McCarthy.
Kennicott copper mining town. The town was so isolated that, after the industry faded, the town wasn't ransacked.
There were more twin moose this year supposedly because the cows were better nourished.
Backpacking in Denali National Park west of Wrangell-St. Elias.
Falk reading, appropriately, John Muir's Travels in Alaska.
The silt and debris from the glacier causes the river to braid like this.Afternoons, the flow was heavier so we tried to do any big crossings earlier in the day.
At the beginning of the day, I tried to keep my boots dry, but it was more efficient to just cross, get wet, and stay wet.
For the bigger crossings, we would hold onto each other with both hands in a locking hold and only one person would move at a time so one was the stabilizer. We never fell in, but all our gear in our packs was in plastic bags just in case. At one crossing I got wet up to my belly button!
Yes yes there were a lot of mosquitoes indeed. Watching the hunting spiders eat the mosquitoes on our tent was like having a TV.
Allison, my college roommate, asked me to officiate in her marriage to the guy in the kilt Jesse.
They rented cabins on this lake and we all stayed there.
Her Dad "walked" her down the aisle.
Our favorite local brew.
Bear prints everywhere! We saw some bears and one even tried to secure a breakfast invitation. Mmmm oats are good. It was a juvenile grizzly and s/he took some big sniffs and then wandered away again.
Bear bin to the left.
There aren't enough trees to hang the food up high, so we used this bin instead.
Copper RiverOnly locals are allowed to use this fishing method called dip net where you basically scoop the fish out with a net.
Since there's so much silt suspended in the water, you can't see the fish. I wonder how the eagles caught them?
View from the Richardson Highway. Gas prices didn't seem to hinder the RVs.
Bushwhacking and long days & nights of hiking took its toll on our bodies. Falk still screams if I touch his shins. The tone is similar to the tone he had when I would accidentally bump into his 5 broken ribs after the bike crash.There's also a non-PG picture of my butt after sliding down a rock cliff (available upon request).
We hitch hiked to get around, and the folks in the red Hummer actually picked us up.
The big decision to bring my big & bulky wetsuit was a good one...and Falk was glad too even though it meant he had to carry more (happy Cynthia = happy Falk).
This is Long Lake near McCarthy. Without a wetsuit, I could only stay in ~5 mins. With, I could stay in for hours and got a good look at the loons. They looked like MN loons.
Click here for more pics if you wanna see them.
