Alaska
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Northbound to Denali
Proud of his Spider Man birthday shoes! Let’s pretend they aren’t threadbare now! Skipping over more glacier photos to jump to Denali for a bit… The morning of Forest’s fifth birthday we woke up very early at our hotel in Eagle River, north of Anchorage. Coincidentally our friend Eliana had been staying at a friend’s house in Eagle River as well so that made our ability to pick her up and take her with us to Denali a lot easier. The night before we’d met up in Anchorage to have dinner and as we told her our plans for the rest of the week she abandoned her plans to do…
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Cruising Closer to Glaciers | Glacier Bay NP
I interrupt this quiet photo journal with OMG SEA OTTERS!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Into Glacier Bay
Look for the mountain goat! One of the highlights of our Alaskan cruise was that our itinerary took us into Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve. I honestly didn’t grasp the significance of our ability to get into this park via the ship until we started making our way through the bay itself. Cruise ships are limited to one or two a day into the park and throughout our trip there we were the only large ship I saw entering the bay. We saw several fishing boats and smaller touring boats but for the most part the bay was very quiet from ocean vessel traffic. We were also boarded by…
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Smuggler’s Cove | Skagway, AK
After we left Yakutania Point we continued on our way down the trail northward, not quite sure where exactly it would take us. If all else failed we could turn around and follow our steps back the way we came. Squashberry, Viburnum edule Parmelia sp. lichens—these were really cool! The walk down these trails continued to be just as enticing as the walk to Yakutania Point, with spongy ground to walk on and moss, ferns, and lichens covering all manner of things in the forest. Licorice Fern, Polypodium glycyrrhiza The rock slabs here were a welcome diversion along the trail. More wonderful lichens… And I would have loved to have…
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Exploring Yakutania Point | Skagway, AK
Let’s go on a virtual hike since most of us aren’t venturing out any longer. During our brief foray into Skagway, AK we asked some of the rangers in the national park visitor center in town if there was a hiking trail nearby. We’d exhausted our patience for walking up and down the main drag in town and really needed to do something before we got back on the ship for the evening. The rangers gave us some vague directions to get to a hiking trail just past the airport and when we found this sign we knew we’d made it to the right place. Crossing the Skagway River… And…
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Whale Watching in Favorite Channel | Juneau, AK
I had only been whale watching twice before: once in Maine after we finished the AT and the second time when Chris and I went to Seattle for our 10th anniversary trip back in 2012. Only the trip in Maine did we actually get to see whales (and puffins!). This trip I was more optimistic that we’d have luck seeing whales considering we’d seen them several days across our sail from Vancouver. Ideally we’d hoped we’d see orcas on this trip but it turns out that their numbers are actually fairly low in this area and it can be hit and miss, mostly miss, to see them while on a…
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Spotted Tussock Moth (Lophocampa maculata)
As we walked around Skagway and then over to Yakutania Point to go for a hike in the afternoon, we noticed a ton of these wooly bear like caterpillars. They were everywhere! I didn’t identify them until I got home a few months ago and put them into iNaturalist. A more northern and western species, the larval stage of these moths feed on “poplar and willow, but also feed on alder, basswood, birch, maple and oak.” The adults are variations of brown with some patterning like so many moths out there and their larvae are definitely the most colorful thing about them!
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Exploring Skagway, Alaska
If you are anything like me right now you are probably a bundle of nerves. My friend Eliana posted a photo the other day from some travel around Alaska—they emerged from the YK Delta and saw what was going on and had no urge to return to Florida immediately—so they took a trip to Kodiak. The photo was this beautiful sunset photo of oranges, reds, and purples and looking at the photo made me feel like things were normal. They are now heading back to Florida and all this. But since we’ll be at home all weekend I will probably work harder on editing more Alaska photos and getting blogs…
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White Pass and Yukon Route Railway
We arrived in Skagway, AK and had approximately 12 hours to do what we wanted. Our first thing on the agenda was to take the White Pass and Yukon Route Railway up to the Canadian border, cross it, and then turn around and come back down to Skagway. I’ve gotta say, all that made me want to do is take that train all the way to its final destination somewhere in the Yukon. You’ll see… We slowly choo-chooed through the eastern side of town, passing storage areas and seeing the back side of houses along the way. The Skagway River was gorgeous at the lower elevations. And then we slowly…
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Eklutna Lake | Chugach State Park
Digging back into some Alaska posts once again. I’ve felt a little lazy in processing photos these days but I’ll see if I can make more progress on them this weekend! For now, we’re going to pick up from where we left off at Thunderbird Falls and drive around the bend to Chugach State Park and Eklutna Lake. Let’s pretend that I did not, a million times over, keep trying to call this lake Elktuna Lake. Eklutna Lake Road is a gently winding road leading into the depths of Chugach State Park. There are several other entrances to reach this expansive state park but this would be really the deepest…