Alaska

After our bike ride Seattle to Portland, Bryan and I flew up to Anchorage Alaska for our camping adventure.  We spent the first night in a hotel because we arrived late at night and weren't able to pick up our camper yet. We went for a run two days after the big bike ride to loosen up our cramped up legs from all the sitting around on buses, cars, and airplanes.

Our awesome camper van.  We slept in the tent on top every night.  There is room for two adult sleepers inside, but we preferred the outdoors.  It had all the necessities- stove, refrigerator, and sink.  No showers though! Luckily, we found a few along the road.

We went on many hikes.  It was so beautiful.  Our first hike was in Anchorage- flattop mountain. Pretty steep, awesome views.  Then we headed down to the Kenai Peninsula, where we did most of our exploring.  We spent our first night in Whittier.  To get there, you go through this one lane tunnel that opens or closes at various hours depending on traffic.  The next morning we headed to Soldotna to fish for Salmon.

No fish were caught.  Apparently the runs were late this year.  Go figure.  Either way it was pretty fun and the water was freezing.  Then we headed down to the Homer spit.  This is where we saw our first black bear and hiked to Glacier Lake.  We took a taxi across the Kachemak Bay or some may call it Halibut Bay.  We saw lots and lots of sea otter and bald eagles.

After a good nights rest, we headed to Hope for white water rafting on six mile creek.  Probably the coolest part of the trip!

Neither one of us fell into the water, although Bryan was close.  The other rafts full of high school kids were pretty entertaining to watch on the Class III, IV, and V rapids!

We saw a ton of moose in Hope.  This video is pretty cute.  Poor little moose was so scared of us!

Beautiful picture of Lower Russian Lake.  Our plan was to hike to Upper Russian Lake, but we found out that the 2.1 miles was actually 21 miles. Apparently there are many brown bears located there, so maybe it was a good thing we turned around! We did see salmon jumping up the Russian falls. 

This is Upper Russian Lake.  We saw it by plane.  We saw so many brown bear catching salmon from up high.  We also saw seal sun bathing on broken ice from the glaciers. 

Hiking in Seward to Exit Glacier.  Behind me is the Harvey Ice Field.  Forty miles of ice across the tops of the mountains.  It takes people 2 weeks to hike across the field.  It was a great hike. We saw a marmot. 

Our last stop was Girdwood.  I could totally live here.  It is close enough to Anchorage, but far enough to be a hippie town.  We went 4-wheeling and spotted a few brown and black bears along the way.  So fun! I think Bryan liked this the most.  If we moved here, 4-wheelers for sure.

We also stopped at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center on the way back up to Anchorage.  We saw moose, porcupine, elk, caribou, black bear, wolves, lynx, and bison.

Such a fun trip.  Loved the camping.  Loved being alone with Bryan for 10 days.  My parents are the best for taking on the girls for that long!