We’re camped in Chugach National Forest, the second-largest in the country, I believe. What’s extra cool is that our campground is nestled among amazingly high mountains and glaciers, all around us. Here I am biking back from the iron ranger where we paid for our campsite for a week. That’s a glacier visible from the […]
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They Take Away the Bear Skat to Keep Wedding Gowns Clean
It’s hard to try to wrap your head around how accessible the wilderness is here in Alaska. We’re only an hour’s easy drive from Anchorage, and we’re staying in a national forest campground, not some boondocking spot down a long dirt road. To get to the trail I’m talking about here, for example (the Byron […]
Twin Peaks & Mt Baldy Hikes
Here in southeast Alaska, we did two hikes in a week with big elevation gains—about 1,200 feet each—which for us is whole lotta climbing. I took way too many photos that don’t do any of the scenes justice. I’m gonna show you anyway! Elkutna Lake This gorgeous lake is a popular spot for people from […]
Wild Things around Chugach
“Chugach” is the name for the native peoples in this southeast region of Alaska, and it’s the name of a national forest and the state park we’re in right now, amazingly near Anchorage. Elkutna Lake and Eagle River Close-ups I’m having a hard time posting photos of views that are not sweeping landscapes, so I’m […]
Finally Seeing the Light on Denali
What can I tell you about “the mountain” that you don’t already know? You know it’s the tallest mountain on Earth as measured from base to top. You know the absurd controversy about its name. Maybe you don’t know what it’s like to finally see it after you’ve been a curmudgeon about Denali National Park […]
Attitude Check in Denali National Park
Since writing this, I’ve learned more about the protection of the park through the Wilderness Act of 1964 and have a better attitude! Maybe we’ve gotten used to having glorious nature to ourselves. In Yukon, especially, we’d pull off the road to camp, with stunning views and walks on the tundra in every direction—no one […]
Crossing into Alaska near Chicken
This photo says it all! Although, I don’t know why I’m using an exclamation mark, since this whole trip has been lovely, and Alaska seems like it will be just another nice leg. We will see. Top of the World Highway To get from Dawson City, Yukon, to the border crossing nearby, we drove along […]
The Price of Adventure (at Tombstone)
On our way to Tombstone Territorial Park in Yukon we drove a short stretch of the Klondike Highway and then the infamous Dempster. Up here there’s constant roadwork in the summer, and by roadwork they mean, “bulldozing the old road and pushing a pile of dirt beside it for a new road.” I was too […]
You Keep Watching the Tundra, Then You Remember to Look Up (at Tombstone)
I said this to Tracy yesterday while we were hiking along the mountains in the northern part of Tombstone Territorial Park, here in the Yukon, a little east of Fairbanks. The sub-arctic tundra here is so beautiful—moss and lichen and flowers—a deep cover that insulates the permafrost right below. Even if the ground weren’t captivating, […]
We Live on a Giant Rock in Space
You’ve had a significant epiphany, right? I’ve had a very few, and I remember each one. The time I realized that the meat in my mouth used to be alive, and it dropped right out of my mouth, with no meat entering again for 15 years. The time I was part of a herd (I […]
