How you live each day…

Is how you live your life.

I work. I work a lot. But when in Alaska even work is magic. Here are a few highlights, although photos can never do justice but instead capture a moment:

Ya know the AK railroad is incredible. Since I last wrote the season ramped up and is now in the process of coming to a close with only five weeks left. And in that time I’ve developed a strange LOVE for the Alaska railroad unlike something I’ve experienced before. My mind has somehow personified the ARR. Fascinated by its history, and feeling as though its history has now merged with my life. I just want to soak up every detail I can about it. Not just the facts, but the stories. The nitty gritty.

For example, I don’t just want to know Sherman City Hall was owned by Mary and Clyde Lovel, I want to know that when they made the journey here they had 11 flat tires and got stuck 4 feet after leaving their driveway.

The Lovel’s have an extreme connection to the ARR of course since their livelihood literally relied on the rail. But because of our connection with the rail I somehow feel connected in turn to them also.

(Creepy?)

I worked with a family recently that stick out. Two daughters taking their mom on her bucket list vacation to Alaska. Essentially her dying wish. As you can imagine, she couldn’t climb stairs and needed to use the lift throughout the day. Instead of being flustered when she needed the lift, I dropped everything to help her with a smile. How lucky am I to be a small part of their vacation that the mother has dreamt of her whole life and her daughters will cherish forever? After lunch they went to the outdoor viewing platform. Mom was leaned up against the corner, looking out with the wind in her hair and the most peaceful look on her face. Their daughters were taking her photo. I got a little teary eyed when I saw this small moment. I offered to take their picture, feeling so grateful to be a fly on the wall for this family’s experience.

While I work often, I also enjoy time off too.

7/26 and 7/27

Heading towards the mountains with a cooler packed with strawberries, kombucha and more goods. We drove through Hatcher Pass, making a pit stop at Summit Lake to walk around the still lake while enjoying a juicy mango. Just a small walk before finding a quiet place to camp for the evening.

We got an early morning start to make our way to Talkeetna to try and get on a flight tour… but not before an awesome wildlife sighting.

Willow Ptarmigan! The state bird!

tour guide squeal

Did you know they’re the only bird whose feathers chance entirely from brown to white in the winter time?

They’re also the only state bird that can be hunted! Probably taste like chicken…

Once we got to TKA all the typical tourist things ensued: holding the therapy bunnies that are always out, meeting mayor Aurora, eating the iconic fireweed ice cream and spinach bread, and walking the street to the Susitna river.

Here I ran into a woman who was salmon fishing. We watched her for a long while. “Aloha” hat covering her from the sun, views of The Family covered by clouds… such an allusive range.

Because of poor weather, we figured we’d try our luck with a flight tour another day, and headed back south and found a lake to put the kayak into. We kayaked around the entirety of the small lake, getting to see an eagle soar above us, and the same duck family from a few weeks prior.

7/28

One of the perks to working with HAP is being able to get discounts on tours if there’s last minute space available. I was able to get onto the Portage Glacier Cruise- which was great!

7/31

Just one day off… but that doesn’t stop me! We started the day with an hour long float plane tour! It was a neat experience seeing how quickly the float plane could take off and land…

We took off from Lake Hood- the worlds largest seaplane airport. In the air we saw a moose, went over a Buffalo farm, and had views of the city from afar.

Afterward we had a breakfast at Gwennie’s. A cliche restaurant with tacky decor but delicious French toast (hehehe).

“It’s such a beautiful day!”

“Should we go jump in the lake?”

“WE SHOULD TOTALLY GO JUMP IN THE LAKE!”

And with that, it was settled.

This was one of the warmest and sunniest days we’d seen the whole summer. We couldn’t let it go to waste! We put our bathing suits on, blew up the tubes, and went to DeLong lake close to the house. It was fun jumping into the refreshing Alaskan lake and soaking up some vitamin D.

8/3

The incredible Vern and Chris ARR conductor/engineer duo invited me to ride on the Chugach Explorer train from Portage to the Glacier Whistle stop.

“Aren’t you so excited you could just… do a hand stand!?” IYKYK

The way they open their doors and allow for pictures with no obstruction, the stops they make for rafters, hikers, and campers alike make this Glacier Discovery Train blend between the train I work on and the Flagstop train.

The 5 tunnels we went through, the huge switchbacks, the views of glaciers, the stunning combination of vista and waterfall on the heavily vegetated mountain side, and even seeing a fault line set this section of the rail apart from the still beautiful section I tour.

“Last week we didn’t make it up the switchback so we had to try 3 times”

8/7

Time to hit the road south! We made a pit stop for some food for the cooler to last us a few days and had little picnic dinner overlooking the Knik.

It was almost dark when we had our first wildlife sighting of the trip

“MOOSE!”

No matter how many times it happens, I still get excited. We quickly turned around so we could catch another glimpse at the majestic mama. It was so quiet we could hear her footsteps as she traced back into the forest, but not before her two babies made a surprise visit.

After that, we drove until we couldn’t any more… the goal was to make it as far as possible the first night to avoid having to drive as long the next day since a lot of activities were getting crammed into just a few days. Ended up at a place just off the side of the road near the top of a pass with fireweed surrounding us.

8/8

We started with a blessed morning with grand views as we drove closer to wrangell st. Elias National park. The mountains were out! We were greeted by Mt. Sanford, Mt. Drum, Mt. Wrangell, and Mt. Blackburn.

We stopped at a few different pull out locations to snap photos. A moment captured in time. As if I was getting swept off my feet and twirled around with our laughs in the air and jaw dropping Alaska views around us.

Last minute we stopped at Copper River lodge just to check it out and were surprised when they not only said they could accommodate us for a night but could also get us on an employee covered glacier cruise out of Valdez.

As we continued down to McCarthy we stopped whenever we wanted. Waterfalls? Stop. Old tunnels never fully developed,  because of political turmoil? Stop. Eagles? Stop. Black bear strolling along the road ? Stop.

Man let me tell you, this is the life. I could make peanut butter banana sandwiches on the side of the road while snapping photos of an eagle peaked above the eerie and foggy river… well. I could do that for a long time.

We decided if we wanted to have time to explore why we were ACTUALLY on the trip we needed to get going. We made the turn to start heading the 60 miles of dirt road that was once railroad leading trains to Kennicott mine. How cool! You can even see railroad ties still peaking through every so often.

When we FINALLY arrived to the parking lot for McCarthy it was pretty late. Usually no big deal, but the last shuttle to come back from the glacier was at 7pm. It was 3:30pm and we wanted time to see both the glacier and the mine. That was the WHOLE reason we were there. We figured worst case scenario we’d hike the 7 miles out at the end of it all.

The shuttle leaves every half hour. And of course we missed it. What happens when two extroverts miss their shuttle to take us to the glacier? We go walking around the shops striking up conversation. We walked inside a small art gallery and talked to a young girl from Indiana named Ashton. She had gotten her tourism degree a few years prior and had been coming to McCarthy for 3 years. She gave us an insider tip on how to catch a spare shuttle up to the mine, and even shared her phone number in case we needed anything.

McCarthy is the only community within a national park. 50 year round people. The short shuttle ride away is Kennicott, and old Copper mine with a highlight of a 13 story mill. Coming from my gold mining background, this was cool for me!

We only stayed at the mine for about 30 minutes so we could make sure we had plenty of time at the Glacier. We hiked two miles in, and were fascinated with picturesque views the whole time (of course! We’re in Alaska).

Once we arrived at the glacier we put our micro spikes on and delved right in. Hiking on a glacier was on my Alaska bucket list!! We hiked to a high point, drank glacial water melt off, and overall just explored the magnificent part of nature. Here are a few photos:

We were the ONLY people on the whole glacier. Everyone had left because they wanted to make the final 7pm shuttle.

A storm was starting to brew, and we had spent about an hour and a half hiking around- we were content- so we made our way back.

Pondering things like the Dr. Suess type flowers surrounding us, how to create a balanced “home/adventure” lifestyle, and everything in between on the hike out…

Ashton saved the day by picking us up and taking us back to the footbridge near the car- it all comes full circle.

It was time to find a spot to camp! With the storm starting but also wanting to get as far out of the 60 mile road as possible we ultimately settled on a nice camping spot underneath an old bridge from the railroad.

WOO! What an ADVENTURE PACKED DAY!

8/9

Another early start: we had to make it to Valdez in time for our glacier cruise!

Not before having an early morning adrenaline rush. I think the challenge to getting onto this foot path underneath the 238 drop bridge built in 1910 made it all the more worth it. We worked together with a few grunts, and carefully placed steps to make the climb. Deep breaths were essential. 10/10 would do again! However, we realized after crossing back over the bridge on the vehicle that we probably could’ve gotten onto it much easier from the other side.

We almost didn’t do the Stan Stephens Glacier Cruise because it was so foggy and we didn’t want to waste our time if we weren’t going to see anything. We decided we might as well go talk to the front desk anyway, and I’m SO THANKFUL that we did! They assured us it was actually more clear out on the water.

Sure enough, not only did we get within 2 miles of an incredible glacier (nothing compared to having walked on a glacier the day before, but it was still beautiful), but we also saw a TON of wildlife.

Humpback whales, Orca whales, otters, puffins, seals, porpoises…

8/14

After a day of work we decided to go camp by the Knik. The colors of the sunset made for a great end to the day…

But our wake up call was even better than the colors of the sunset: WE’RE GOING TO SOUTH AMERICA AND ANTARTICA…

wink wink

Life just continues being good to us. Karma is good to those who are good. We watched the scruffy Alaskan men fish briefly before heading to Talkeetna again in hopes of getting on a flight tour.

…

Waiting.

Anticipation.

Standby.

“Okay you guys. All 6 of you got onto a flight. And you all get to ride with your partners. Oh… and you’re landing on a glacier!”

Oh, and more bunny therapy as a cherry on top.

Cheers,

Tay