Roadside Campsite

On the way to Denali we drove until about 1:00am and then pulled over on a roadside rest area. We had an outstanding sunset that lasted for hours and never really set.

Swimming in the Hot Spring

After a long hard day of activities, we soaked in the 105 degree waters of the hot springs. You had to be over age 18 to enter the outdoor spring fed pool, but I don’t thing Keegan or Sara knew that until after because they went in with us and no one asked them to leave.

It was very funny when two Alaskan Geese decided to go for a swim in the pool with us. They would catch some of the people off guard and you were hear a scream and then a fit of laughter.

Horseback Riding

Our next activity at Chena Hot Springs was horseback riding. We spent an hour on the trails around the resort with Kodiac (Bill), Yukon (Sara), Rusty (Michelle), Rio (Conor), Gus (Patrick) and buckshot (Keegan).

One of the best things was that we got to cross streams, ride through the woods, up a side of a mountain (really just a large hill) instead of just a walk in the woods.

I think our trail guide Cali caught the eye of at least one of the boys……

Aurora Ice Museum

Another "cool" thing we did was take a tour of the Aurora Ice Museum. The building temperature is set at 20 degrees all year round to keep its contents from melting away. The museum is home to many beautiful sculptures carved in ice by a master ice artist.

Besides various statues, there are four rooms you can rent out for the night. They can’t truly call it a hotel because they don’t have the rooms licensed, but for $600 you get another room in the resort and are allowed to stay in the ice museum overnight.

Another favorite attraction in the Aurora was the ice bar. Here they served appletinis in martini glasses made of ice. They were very good. They had tried to served non-alcoholic drinks in the past, but they froze too quickly to work, so we were stuck with one of our favorite drinks.

Unfortunately, photos do not do the ice works justice. The flash washes out the beautiful lights that are used to highlight each work.

Dog Kennel Tour

Our first activity at Chena Hot Springs was a tour of their dog kennels. They actually have two kennels. The first is for rescued dogs which are now used to pull the resort guests on sled rides.

The second kennel belonged to a woman named Jess who placed first several times in the famous Iditarod dog sled race. She was traveling, but we met her dogs and saw her sleds.

The hit of the day was a visit to the puppy kennel where we got to play with the six week old puppies. Sara had so much fun that she skipped the rest of the tour to spend more time with the puppies. Luckily, the puppies were counted so when we left, Sara had to return the two puppies that mysteriously were found to be hiding on her person.

Chena Hot Springs

We saw more wildlife on the road to Chena Hot springs than on any other highway in Alaska or Canada so far. Six moose alone!

We stayed overnight in a very nice state campground just outside of Chena Hot Springs Resort and saw a beaver eating and building his lodge.

In the morning Michelle and Bill went on a hike on part of the Granite Tors Trail before breakfast and then we packed up our RV and drove to the resort.

Chena Hot Springs itself is a year round resort that has lots of activities in additional to swimming in the 105 degree waters of the natural hot springs. The entire facility is run on geothermal energy and we have an interesting tour of their power plant and green houses.

The other activities we did, dog kennel tour, Ice Hotel tour, horseback riding and swimming will follow in their own separate blog posts.

Visit to the North Pole

As everyone knows, the North Pole is in Alaska (just south of Fairbanks) and of course we had to make a stop and visit with the man in the red suit. Unfortunately Mr. Clause and his wife were at an international toy conference in Stockholm, Sweden and we did not get to meet him.

We did get to see some of Santa’s helpers hard at work making toys, checking lists and running a huge warehouse. We were asked some questions about people we knew and tried to put them in the best light possible without getting us on the naughty list.

I tried to take some photos, but when I went to download the photos, they were automatically deleted by my computer. It appears Microsoft has some kind of program installed as part of windows that protects the security of the North Pole operations.

Ice Climbing on the Root Glacier

A true highlight of the trip was our hike and climb on the Root Glacier within Wrangell-St Elis National Park.

A group of 10 including the Rice family and the Gramatikas/Wolf Family set out at 8:00 am to get gear and hike 2 miles up from Kennecott (luckily only about 300 feet of elevation gain) up to the Root Glacier where we put on our ice boots and crampons (kind of like old fashion ice skates that little kids had strapped to the outside of their winter boots, except instead of double blades, these had inch long teeth to stick into the ice so you did not slip) and began another mile long hike on the ice.

Once we got to the head wall, ropes were set up, harnesses were put on and we were shown what to expect.

While we waited for the climbs to be set up, Keegan took a little jaunt up an ice stairway and had to be helped down by the guides.

Keegan started us out by being the first ones up one of the climbs.

Conor also opened the harder of the two climbs.

Patrick enjoyed his climb up the ice, however while on the ice we encountered at thunder and lightning storm and it rained hard.

Sara it was cold and the wall was not as challenging as she could have done.

Michelle thought the climb was exhilarating and nerve wracking all at the same time.

The guides called an end to the activity to avoid hyperthermia for those waiting to climb. Bill was the only one not to climb yet, so he talked them into letting him quickly go up and he ran up the climb in record time.

Keegan was planning on jumping into a glacial pool, but he was so wet from the rain that he did not feel it would be worth it.

Special thanks to our guides from St Elias Guides, Jacob and Nealy. Both were experts in the outdoors and very interesting people to spend the day with.

Bonanza Mine Hike

In Kennecott, about 25 of us went for a day hike to see the old Bonanza Mine. We did not know what is where we were going when we started as the trail also was the beginning of the Jumbo Mine trail, but when we got to the fork in the road we chose to go right (not many left leaning individuals in our group!)

It was a beautify sunny day (not many of those for us in Alaska yet) and we all were layered up to keep us warm so the first stop on the trail we stripped off several layers and were ready for the real hike to begin.

The hike was 4.5 miles to the mine and almost 4,000 feet in elevation gain. Some of the group turned back at about the half way mark, but many made it up to the water falls at the 3.5 mile mark. Here we had lunch, picked up pieces of copper ore and saw many old parts of the mining operations that was just left when they closed the mine (The EPA did not start until the 1970s!).

A hearty group of hikers, led by Jeffrey and Ryan Mead, climbed the last mile and a thousand feet of elevation gain to get to the actual mine entrance and even see over the ridge to the other side of the mountain before walking all the way back down to town.

Dinner that night was in the McCarthy Saloon where the most interesting thing on the menu was the “Trash Berger”, a normal hamburger that the chef made “special” depending on the mood he was in. Conor got one with chili and beans. Someone else had steak on his and Someone else pasta on his berger. Eric Siefert took the cake and had his with bacon, onion, cheese, cranberries and the bun was smeared with nutella. Eric did not think his burger would catch on.

The Road to McCarthy

The towns of McCarthy and Kennecott are deep within the borders of the Wrangle –St Elis National Park. It is the site of an old copper mine that died out in the 1930s. It is only accessible by driving down a 60 mile dirt road that they recommend RVs not try and rental RVs are forbidden to drive.

Imagine driving 60 miles at an average speed of about 20 MPH. Every tenth of a mile you need to shift to the other side of the road to avoid pot holes that would scare even a Bostonian cab driver. Bridges allow only one lane of traffic are normally made of wood and one went over a gorge of 350 foot below us. Our only saving grace was that at 6-9am there were only one or two other cars on the road at the same time as us.
 

The Simsbury Crew rented a school bus and enjoyed the ride together. The Rice family drove it in the Dutchman and made it 59.9 miles before getting a flat tire and having to limp off the road at the end into a parking lot. A call to AAA told us that they had no service providers in the area (no surprise there), but we were able to find John Adams up the road about a mile who agreed to fix the tire while we met with the rest of the group and hiked over a footbridge and into town a half mile up the road.

After the bus people dropped off their gear at the hotels they were staying at, we went for a hike.

Trash Soccer

After leaving Valdez, we spend the next night at the Keeny Lakes RV Park on the road that would take us us into the Wrangell-St Elias National Park.

The kids found an old barrel without a bottom and used it as a goal for a fast paced game of soccer were both teams were on offense and defense at the same time and anyone who got the ball through the barrel scored the goal.

Around midnight we turned in (except for the kids sitting at the bonfire, because we had to be on the road by 5:00 am.

Worthington Glacier

After leaving Valdez, we made a quick stop at the Worthington Glacier. They boys were able to hike to the glacier and actually get onto the ice.

Back to Valdez

The caravan of RVs next headed south to Valdez where we had spent the day before. After going to church in town, we headed back out to Alison Point to have everyone catch some fish.

Keegan had fashioned a spear from a stick the night before and used it to catch a nice pink salmon for dinner.Mike Vallen also made a spear but did not catch anything with it.

Lots of the Simsbury Crew caught fish (everyone that tried caught at least one).

The Birdman of Valdez

At one of our stops in Valdez there was a man who rescued bird of pray. He brought a red tail hawk and an owl for people to learn about and hold.

Simsbury, AK

From Valdez, we headed North again to Copper Center to meet up with the other families from Simsbury who flew in and rented RVs to see Alaska.

We shared the pink salmon we caught that day for dinner as families rolled in during the evening. Getting to the campground before us was the Meads (Brad, Dianne, Ryan, Jeff and Lis Phillips and Mike Vallen) and the Seiferts (Martin, Robin, Max, Sam and Erich). Arriving after us were the Campions (Eric, Denise, Zac and Noah), the Bouwers (Frank, Pat, Andrew and Abigail) and George Gramatikas with Shirly, Meg and Kaitlyn Wolf. Missing was The Weathers Family (Kevin, Michele, Ryan and Kyle) who missed their flight because of traffic in New York and caught up with us the next day.

Some of us tried to fish the Copper River for red salmon, but they were not running yet.

Fish – It’s what’s for dinner!

Our next stop was Valdez down on the Alaskan coast. It’s a nice little community right on Prince William Sound. We spent the afternoon at Allison Point where the Pink Salmon were running. There must have been 10-20 thousand salmon swimming against the shore trying to get up a stream that was blocked. The water was teaming with fish like bait fish in Wellfleet Harbor with a school of bluefish attacking underneath!

At the same time we were catching fish from the shore, Sea lions and sea otters were eating their fill from the other side.

Each of the boys caught more fish than we can count and we each kept one for dinner.

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