Alaska - May-June 2008

Right after my graduation we headed off on a grand adventure - a two week trip to Alaska! The first week of it was a northbound cruise on Holland America, leavign from Vancouver, British Columbia. On our way to Vancouver we had a layover in Toronto. Toronto was not really on the way but I didn't complain because it allowed me to see my MTC (missionary training center) companion who is currently living there. Crystal is actually a Canadian, but from Alberta. Our layover wasn't very long and I only got to spend about 40 minutes with Crystal, and she had to travel about and hour each way to see me, (so nice of her,) but it was so good to see her. It had been about 5 years since the last time we had been together. Not only were we MTC companions, but we served in the same branch for our first 3 months in the mission field while we were being trained and also the next 3 months while we trained new sisters. Sharing all these experiences brought us very close, and she is one of my good friends and I love her a lot and wish she lived closer. Anyway, it was so much fun to see her, and Ryan got to set foot in Canada for the first time (and I saw Ontario for the first time.)

Me and Crystal in the airport.

Then we made our way to Vancouver. We LOVED Vancouver. I think we will have to go back there one day as we didn't get to see all of it since we were really only there for a little more than 24 hours. But it is quite clean for a big city - we loved the mountains and the water and all the old houses and the plants. It is just a beautiful city.

We did a lot of walking while we were there, through neighborhoods and parks and by a botanical garden. The tulips were enormous and all the flowers were just really pretty.

Animals in Stanley Park - a white rabbit, Canadian geese, peacock, and a black squirrel

Totem Poles at Queen Elizabeth Park, a house we saw in one of the neighborhoods we walked through (we got lost on our way to Queen Elizabeth park and so just walked through neighborhoods which was really quite pleasant because the weather was awesome and all the houses were different, mostly huge and old - kind of Victorian - with these great yards and beautiful flowers. This wasn't actually my favorite house I saw on the walk, although I do really like it, but the reason I took a picture is because I liked the way they combined the stuco and stone), does this LOVE statue look familiar to anyone else - it made us laugh, view of Vancouver from Queen Elizabeth Park - the highest point in Vancouver (if you are only considering the city itself, not the surrounding mountains)


Just some views of skylines and surrounding mountains, both from on land and also from our boat.

Vancouver is the site of the next winter Olympics - I think it will be a great location. We had so much fun during our one day there and if we hadn't been so excited to start our cruise it would have been really hard to leave so soon.

Our ship, the Zaandam

We had a couple days at sea to start off our cruise, during which time we were entertained with movies, shows, the library, the gym, walking the deck, the naturalist,...

discovering each night how our cabin boy folded a towel for us each night as well as enjoying the chocolates he would leave for us

attending dinners (there were 2 formal dinners held, one they called the Master Chef's night when the chef prepared his specialties and crewmembers kind of put ona show for us and danced about and htey had us wear chef hats, a night where they made sculptures out of food, and a lunch where the Indonesian crewmember dressed in native clothing and served native foods - it was actually a tea party and it was funny to tell them all we weren't there for the tea)

Since we knew we would have another week on land once our cruise was over we never paid for any shore excursions, but we still really anjoyed our land time. We stopped in Ketchikan, Juneau, and Skagway. In each place we did a several hour hike as well as walked around the city. Each place was beautiful and we would leave exhausted.

Mendenhall Glacier outside of Juneau - it was so beautiful - our first glacier, ahh. On our hike up behind Mendenhall Glacier Ryan spotted a bunch of mountain goats, which was pretty cool. They were too high up to get good pictures of though.

Us with Mendenhall Glacier

When we were hiking at Skagway we had gone to this waterfall and on the way back were walking through this kind-of dried up river bed thing or maybe it was just a overflow-zone, I'm not really sure. Anyway, while we were walking we came across these bear tracks and were pretty excited as they were our first encounter with anything bearish.

I can't tell you how many waterfalls we saw in Alaska, hundreds I would guess - literally. Most were like the one on the bottom row, second from the right - I think they probably dry up towards the end of summer, but if you get there when snow is still melting they are all over and when we were on our boat we were always seeing them, so beautiful. We also saw a ton while we were hiking and they were just so pretty we often had to stop for pictures.

Just a few of the pretty views we got to see from our boat. I don't know for sure that I would like all cruises because I generally like to be out doing stuff while on vacation. But you got to see so many pretty things while on the boat in Alaska that I think the cruise was definately a good way to go.

We were super lucky when we were in Glacier Bay National Park - we saw 4 coastal brown bears (this is the second largest type of grizzly.) That is a mom and 2 cubs and 1 medium-sized bear. I don't remember how many thousand pounds the ranger with us estimated the mama bear weighed, maybe 4000 - it was really big. He said we were super lucky, they rarely spot bears from the boats in Glacier Bay, we agreed - very lucky.

Some of the beautiful glaciers we saw while in Glacier Bay. Notice the color of the water - it is this color because of the glaciers - when they melt they bring minerals from the earth with them that give the water this distinct milky color, kind of weird.

This was the biggest glacier we saw while in the bay (well not technically because there was one that was bigger but it was completely brown so it didn't look like a glacier) - I think it was Margerie Glacier

One of the things we really enjoyed about being in Glacier Bay was watching and hearing the galicers calve - when big chucnks of ice will "frac" or crack off - it is really loud and cool - you can kind of see it happening in this picture.

We saw a ton of bald eagles while we were in Alaska, which was really cool - and many of our sightings were while we were in Glacier Bay. (The center picture was taken on a beach in Homer - the southern tip of the Kenai Peninsula.)

We also got to see whales from our boat. While we were in the Bay we saw 4 humbacks, a minke (which looks like a small humback but the hump and the tail are shaped slightly different - they are the most rare to see so we were pretty lucky again) and an orca.

We also got to see several sea lions, seals, and sea otters. These I think are seals, just hanging out.

Our last day on our boat we crusied through College Fjord, named such because all the glaciers are named after Ivy League universities. I don't remember which ones we saw, but it was beautiful and we spent pretty much the whole day watching the water and landscape.

It was a great ending to a fantastic week at sea - we loved our cruise.

So these are some pics of various towns we visited. Top left corner (then going clockwise and end in center) - Alaska State Capitol building - where we first learned about Governor Palin's oldest daughter; the town of Skagway; also Skagway; a pretty stream running through Ketchikan that has trails along it and houses and other buildings off the trails (we were exploring the trails and ran into a couple of missionaries - they were lost, they had both just been transfered into the area the day before - haha, love those experiences); the church we attended in Seward (where we disembarked) - I liked the log cabin structure of it; just a train we saw in Skagway, used to clear snow off the tracks in the old days; Junea, Alaska; the Arctic Brotherhood Hall - one of the most famous buildings in Skagway because of its all wood fromt, I think it was done with drift wood or something, anyway, it was kind of neat to see; me, across the bridge with the same river in Ketchikan

After we disembarked we met up with Ryan's sister Heather and went to church in Seward and we started on our new Alaska on land adventure, which inluded staying in hostels and eating a lot of PB&J and other low budget foods (a big change from our previous cruising lifestyle - eating crab and lobster and steak and halibut and chicken and ice cream on demand and an assortment of desserts each night and omelets and various other scrumptious foods as all you can eat for a week.) It was probably a good change though, considering we had gained 5 pounds each, even though we did some pretty major hiking during that time. Yes, we enjoyed our cruise.

We started out our land time by heading out to see Exit Glacier.

I have read on people's blogs a list of things you are supposed to check off if you have done - one of them is touching a glacier - here is proof that Ryan and I have touched a glacier.

That evening we saw these cute sea otters playing in the ocean, right upclose to the shore, they were totally putting on a show for us. There were actually 3 of them, but the 2 playing together was awesome. When we had been on the boat watching them float on their backs while eating had been one of our favorite things so it was fun getting to see it up close (before we'd been at least 100 feet away).

The next day we did some hiking up on the northern Kenai, then headed down to Homer. We did enjoy our time in Homer (though I was quite disappointed to learn that the eagles only land on teh beach in droves in the winter and we also learned that while the king salmon were running while we were there, they swim so deep that you can't see them - so we missed seeing the salmon run while in Alaska - which has all sorts of effects on other animal sightings as well.) Anyway, on the way back from Homer to our hostel we had our first moose sighting.

One of the reasons you can't see the king salmon, beyond their deep swimming, is the water in the Kenai - it is all glacier fed so has that same milky tint that was in Glacier Bay. But it is also torqoise colored so quite beautiful - the whole Kenai was beautiful, so we still enjoyed our time their despite our disappointment of not being able to see salmon.

Our last day on the Kenai we went to Portage Glacier outside of Whittier. Unfortunately it was a really cold, windy, rainy day so we didn't get to hike around it and actually out to the glaciers like we would have liked to, but it was still pretty. In the bottom right picture you can actually see a glacier right in the center of the picture. The rest of the pictures are just of iceburgs. I think 90% of iceburgs are under water (I may be wrong about the statistic, but I know it was the large majority.)

Since we couldn't hike we decided to head over to the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center - it was kind of like a drive through zoo where all the animals were native to the area and had been rescues (if you couldn't figure that out from the name). It was really quite cool. You could get out of your car whenever you wanted to to get a closer look at the animals as they were all kept in enclosers. Our favorite thing was the black bear. At first we couldn't find any in the enclosure and were close to giving up when finally I spotted a weird shaped blob high up in a tree and started wondering if it was possible if it could be a bear - yep it was, just taking a nap or something. This wasn't actually our first black bear viewing. Earlier when we were on a hike in the Kenai Ryan stopped me, maybe 40 feet ahead of us on the trail was this super cute black bear, I think it had been eating something. It looked at us for a minute, then walked down the mountain. Too bad we didn't have our cameras at the ready because it was adorable, curest face ever - looked like you could have cuddled right up to him (or her.)

We really enjoyed the vegetation in Alaska - here is just a small sampling of some of our favorites.

Far left and center right - Devils Club, just an interesting plant we saw on almost all our hikes; center - Skunk Cabage, we also saw this on almost all our hikes and thought it was really pretty; right, center and top - I am not sure what their common name is but they are in the same family as Blue Bonnets and look just like them except they are 5-10 times as big. Flowers up there are just bigger than here - remember those tulips from Vancouver, tulips in Alaska are just as big if not bigger. Dandelions are 2-3 inches across. Everything is big there. You may think everything is bigger in Texas - you are wrong - Alaskans make fun of the size of Texas.

Mt. McKinley (or Denali as some people prefer to call it) is so tall (the tallest mountain in north Amaerica) that it creates its own weather around it, and so most people never get to see the top of it. Again, we lucked out, seeing the tip from several different views. It was magnificent. When we first spotted it we stopped at a hotel, thinkinf it was as good as it would get. Then we drove farther and saw more of it and the tip and were in awe. Then we drove on to get to the park entrance and got to see it from the other side, still with the tip, also breath-taking.

We did so many great hikes and just saw gorgeous things - every where we went was amazing, both in Denali National Park, the Kenai, and while on our cruise. Here's some of our favorite pics.

So, when we first got near the Denali National Park entrance we decided to drive in and get our barings so the next morning when we had to be there early we would feel more prepared. On our way out a bus stopped ahead of us, and then we realized they had spotted a moose. Not just one moose, but a mama and her baby. Mama mooses are very protective of the calves and can turn quite aggressive and be quite dangerous, but dang it, I wanted to see them and that calf was cute and I don't often feel fear and so I followed them until I got close enough to get the pictures I wanted. I scared Ryan half to death, enough so that he had nightmares all the next night. In truth, it was quite foolish how close I got to them, but I got a great picture - I hope you enjoy it too.

Once again, we were unbelievably lucky while in Denali in that we saw all the major large mammals - fox (3), dall sheep (?), caribou (?), wolf (1), grizzly bear (2), lynx (which was one of the most exciting things because almost no one gets to see them and we saw 2 - one from the bus and one on a hike, about 10 or 15 feet from us), and moose (3).

Top row - the 3 differen foxes we saw; below the right fox is a herd of caribou (an interesting fact we learned is that a reindeer is just a domesticated caribou); left center - the first grizzly; cetner; the first lynx - so cool; right center - the second grizzly; bottom left (and then moving right) - a herd of dall sheep; a snow shoe hare (we really liked these; a single dall sheep I will tell more about; a ground squirrel (these are the very bottom of the food chain inside the park - they are super cute).

The third fox we saw, but also the one we saw the closest, we thought their coats were so pretty.

We were hiking along in Denali and noticed these other people looking through some binoculars and a camera at something. We asked them what they had spotted and they said there was a sheep in the rocks up a ways. He was just lying down on top of the formation. At that point we were quite a bit aways from him - you can tell from the picture in the upper right corner - he is on the rocks in the middle of the picture but you can hardly see him. We decided to go in for a closer look. As we got closer we realized we were on the wrong side of this ravine thing from him and were trying to decide what to do when he got up and got off his pile of rocks and started walking toward the ravine and up the mountain. So we walked up the mountain more and it ended up that he crossed the ravine maybe 20-40 feet from us. I am not a good judge of distances, but he was really close. He didn't seem to be bothered by our presence at all, it was pretty cool.

One of the fun things we did our last day in Denali was go to where they keep their sled dogs. They let you pet some of the dogs and then do a demonstration. They had just had a litter of puppies and I got lucky enough to hold one. SO cute.

After playing with the dogs we did one final hike. While on this hike we saw a couple moose. I didn't get as close as I had with the mom and baby, so it is harder to make out the moose in the picture with me, but it is the brown spot next to my right sholder.

After we left Denali we headed back south, down to Anchorage. We needed some fuel so had to make a stop. We could not believe the cost - OUTRAGEOUS - we put in as little as we thought we could get away with and headed on our way.

One of our favorite things about going to new places is going to temples we've never been to. So we went to the Anchorage temple while we were there and did a session. I really liked the temple, I like how many of the temples reflect the area. The first ordinance room was painted with glaciers and seaguls and was really pretty. It is a mini-temple, but really quite beautiful.

Another great thing we did in Anchorage was visit the Alaska Native Heritage Center. I have never been to the Polynesian Cultural Center, but I imagine it is kind-of the same idea (without the luau). They have an area outside where you can walk around and see what all the native tribe's living conditions would have been like and inside they had a lot of canoes and kyaks. They also had shows of native dances as well as native games. The native games were pretty fun. They developed these games to keep themselves busy during the dark winter months as well as to signal each other while hunting. They do all sort of things - if you are interested you can ask us. The main feeling I came away with from there is that the natives were super resourceful, I was very impressed with them.

Top left then going clockwise until center - totem poll, used to record family history; their houses were these dome-shaped things to keep the snow out and the main entrance was through the top but they had these tunnels out the side that were too small for bears to get through for emergency escapes; the homes of some of the tribes - where people get the idea that the natives lived in igloos because when covered in snow they would look like and ice house; whale tusks; one of the native games is the one-handed kick - they start seated and then kick up from one foot and touch an object with that foot and then land on the same foot - the object gets higher and higher; a whale skeleton; heather wearing snow glasses - they keep out the snow; another native game - the two foot kick - start from a standing position they touch the object with both feet; a buoy made from a seal

Maybe 5 miles from the Heritage Center we spotted a moose and stopped to take pictures and watch it. A minute or two later there was another one across the road. Then the one crossed the road and we were amazed that two bull mooses would get so close together (they're very territorial). Anyway, we enjoyed watching them for about a half and hour.

All good things must come to an end and our Alaskan adventure was no exception. This trip was AMAZING! We did and saw so much and had a wonderful time.