Castner Glacier Adventure

High today: 63
Low today: 35

My goal of this day was to get Aviva and Jud to a glacier, special request by Jud. I was going to take them to the Gulkana glacier, since I am familiar with that one, but decided to try to get to the ice cave at the Castner glacier, mentioned to me by Dea, since it was on the way south. She skiied it with a few others about a month ago. Sounds like a plan for next winter!By the time we got to Castner Creek, (at this point we were moving at a very very slow, relaxed pace of life getting out of Fairbanks..), the snow was really coming down and the mountains were mostly obscured which was a bummer. I was still very excited about the snow and was wondering why I didn't think to bring my skis (there really wasn't THAT much snow, but one could wish). We zig-zagged along the creek until we finally found the ice cave at the base of the glacier that was supposedly only a half mile from the road. I think our swiggling made it more like 2 miles.. I wasn't super impressed with the glacier at first, but it did have that cool cave and even though it was small, it was still a glacier. There weren't any crazy crevasses or anything... Next time I'll go back to the Gulkana, although I'm glad we didn't attempt it this time. It would have taken a much longer time, and the Gulkana was still completely covered in snow which makes it unwalkable (unless you're dumb) this time of year. Both Jud and I played around climbing on very solid parts of the glacier a bit.. fun times! The glacier was pretty dirty on top but was crystal clear underneath all that soot.We found a pretty spot on the Castner and Jud proposed to Aviva!! (and he made me take pictures...) She had no idea he was going to do this, since he's been playing off that he didn't want to get married for a long time. It was pretty funny because her first words after a long pause were, "...are you serious????............really???" We'll just says Vives was in a very good mood for the rest of the trip. We didn't get back to the car until 11:30pm (still light out for the most part, even in cloud cover and moderate snow) and didn't eat dinner til 12:30am. Decided to camp out at the end of the little drive in they had off of the Richardson. The snow was accumulating on the tent as we were trying to put it up, but we woke up to the sun shining bright with the mountains towering around us.

Hiking Granite Tors

High today: 61
Low today: 31

Got up early to do a "15-mile" hike with the cousins, Aviva, and Jud. Pretty ridiculous hike, but a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it.. I only say ridiculous because that's the longest day hike I've done.. our GPS recorded 17.5 miles by the end. Everything was very dead at the beginning of the hike, burnt by the big fire in 2004, but neat in some mysterious way.. like you know that it all burned and that's crappy, but it's like a revival of the land, knowing that the fireweed has taken its place and it takes a little while for the old burnt trees to rot but slowly new life will take over and the hillside will be lush again. At one point I felt like we were walking through wheat fields of the Midwest. Not that I know, but this is what I imagine it to look like, except flatter. There was a lot of post-holing in parts of this hike also, like no one had done the entire loop for awhile. Either that, or previous spring hikers found a way to go around the massive wads of snow. The ridge was neat at the top, with the many "tors" that went on for a few miles. They were fun to climb and chill-out on.Sawyer found a friend in the rocks that SHRIEKED - it was a marmot!! Sawyer was ready to take a pounce at him and eat him.
Part way down the ridgeline, the weather turned sour as threatening skies daunted us, and soon there were ice pellets falling from the sky on our heads. It was only temporary, thank goodness, but as usual, made the hike that much more interesting.
Great hike and can't wait to do it again when things are alive and/or when colors are changing in the fall.

On the Way to Fairbanks

High today: 60
Low today: 39

We attempted to climb Mt. Healy from Clam Gulch, but encountered some seriously high winds on the way up. I guess there are no trees in this picture to show you. Got partially up until I literally couldn't stand up anymore without being blown to the side. Kinda bummed since this is a beautiful hike.. but we headed to Fairbanks a little early. Awesome weather on the way up, and came home to greening and life! Everything was still very brown when I left on Friday and so alive when I got here today. Bit of dejavue from last summer coming into town and almost drove to my old home instead of my new one. Met up with Krista (in from PA for a month!) and Jana at Silver Gulch for some deliciousness. Nice face, Jana!

Biking the Denali Park Road

High today (in FAI): 63
Low today (in FAI): 38We drove to mile 23 of the park road to begin what we planned to be a 25 mile ride deeper into the park to the Polychrome area, where we were going to jump off of the road and camp out in the backcountry.

Everything was still pretty dead and frozen at the park, but beautiful and quiet. No buses.. not very many people.. few cars.. Unfortunately, one of our riders hadn't been on a bike in awhile and her body wasn't too happy with biking after 10 miles.. so we turned back for the car. It was a pretty breezy day too so going was on the slow-side. Still a good ride even though it was cut short. I'm really itching to ride the whole road this summer. Once we got back to the car, we drove out to mile 30, the farthest the road was open for vehicles, and then back to try to find wildlife. We saw NOTHING except for bunnies and ravens. Weird. I think the bears and moose and caribou must have been hiding in all of the brown brush. As we're nearing mile 20 on the way out, I look to my right and *slams on brakes*, DENALI IS OUT!! WOOO!Somebody was excited, haha. I haven't seen the mountain inside the park until today.. even though we were still extremely far away. I would have liked to be at mile 65 at that point in time, but there's going to be many other chances to see it in the park, preferably with my bike. After the beautiful day was ending.. we headed back to Riley Creek for the night.

To the Mountains

High today (at FAI): 68
Low today (at FAI): 43


We headed up the Parks Hwy today to our destination of Denali Nat'l Park. The mountains were beautiful as usual. Aviva wanted to hug them.Thanks Gorillapod for letting us all be in the picture!At Denali, camping was free at Riley Creek ($20/night in the summer!) so we stayed there in preparation of our biking trek on Monday.

Visitors from the East Coast

High today: 68
Low today: 43

Headed down to Palmer last night in excitement for two awesome visitors from PSU. The breakup on the rivers down south was neat.The mountains as usual were amazing, and even Denali showed her face at the south viewpoint in Denali State Park. Aviva and Justin have been planning to come visit since before I knew for sure I was coming back to Fairbanks. They flew into Anchorage since flights were $300 cheaper per person to fly there rather than Fairbanks from D.C. As soon as they got into town, we spent a bit of time in REI and then we went up to Flattop Mtn for a hike. Wasn't sure that we would make it to the top with all of the snow they got just two weeks ago. Before going up the trail, I checked to see if my initials were still carved in the wood from 2006, and they sure were! And LeeAnn's are still there from 2005 (btw, special shoutout of congrats to her for getting the job in Missoula!!) The hike was a TON of fun, but difficult since it was completely snow covered and consisted of a some post-holing.(Photo courtesy of Justin and Aviva) We made it to the top though!! I thought getting up that last steep stretch was easier in the snow than in the summer with loose rock. Once we were up there, it was a fun playland of snow and the views were spectacular of the Chugach in the background.(Photo courtesy of Justin and Aviva)Problem though. Now that we were up, getting down would be interesting. Jud had the brilliant idea of sliding down the slope. At first, this seemed ridiculous but ends up it really was a great idea. There was so much snow, none of the rocks were sticking out, there were small trees covered by all of that snow. So, down we went.. it was like sledding but on our behinds.. briliiant! I think we knocked about 800 feet off of our downhill by doing this 3 times.

(Photo courtesy of Justin and Aviva)Of course after Flattop we had to visit Moose's Tooth, the best pizzeria and brewery in the state. Mmmmhmmm!

Cabin Life

High today: 56
Low today: 40
Things are going well adjusting to the dry cabin life. It is nice having my roommate here now.. I'm a lot less paranoid and it's nice having a buddy. We had fun this evening bike shopping (for her, not me, haha) and getting some furniture for the cabin.. OH and a GRILL! woohoo! We grilled some food for dinner. I love cooking on the grill and eating whats been cooked on the grill.

We went over to the water wagon to fill up on lots of water. The water wagon is just like a gas pump except the drinking water only costs 2 cents a gallon... I wish my car could run on water!
After a few weeks of trying to find a futon for sale, I decided that all of the used futons were in Anchorage which was not helping me up here! So we broke down and got the Walmart special and had a fun time putting it together.

Clearwater "Revival"

High today: 58
Low today: 45

Ok, so most of us have heard of Creedence Clearwater Revival, and since Dan and I were listening to them on the way down the Richardson after we lost radio signal, I decided it was only appropriate to name this entry towards that.. since we went to go float down the Clearwater River in Delta and it opened up not too long ago (hence the "revival"). A lot of the local lakes and other rivers are still frozen.

Say hi to my roomie Carrie who just moved here from NC on Thursday! Neither of us have completely unpacked our stuff at the cabin yet, but we still went out of town. We have the next couple of years to unpack, right??? We don't have much furniture yet anyway.
Dan all of sudden without warning, took his shirt off and jumped in the 30-something degree water. What possessed that kid to do that, I am not sure. But it was entertaining for us all. Too bad I couldn't get my camera out fast enough to get a shot of him in the water.
Here's Dan, Carrie and Ted enjoying a calm part of the run.
The river was completely open except for a few chunks of ice like this one.
The weather was spectacular for our float.. there were some really cool clouds. Some of the first convection I've really seen around here this year.
We found some big brown furry friends (moose, of course!) getting a drink.
The mountains were beautiful from the river.
The float we did was supposed to take "4-8 hours" but we did it in 3. I guess it is that long if you are actually "floating" and not paddling. We were pleasantly surprised to be at the lake at the end so quickly.
This is a crummy picture but it is a picture of the mountains in the rearview mirror driving back to Fairbanks. Both Dan and I were thinking, "Let's head south towards the mountains, not back to Fairbanks!"