Tag: Alaska

Kenai , Alaska

SEWARD, AUGUST 1997 – The kenai penninsula is known for its marine wildlife and glaciers that end up into the ocean. The best way to experience all of this is by taking a boat trip… But as always with wildlife watching, you have to be lucky to see something… and the weather can block much of sight onto the glaciers.

That morning, it was misty and rainy. Not exactely a big day for this kind of trip. In the beginning, there was not much to see, except for the puffins, several sea birds, and the funny sea otters… When on the deck of the boat the wind and rain were challenging the quality of your raincoat. Not exactely a great trip. But this all changed when the sea lions came into sight. Hundreds of them lying on the rocky coast. The boat stayed at a ‘safe’ distance, in order not to interfere with these animals. The sounds of the sea lions were however reaching us loud and clear. Later on, someone spotted some dolphins swimming along with the boat. Dolphins seem to like to do this. Sometime later, the ocean had another surprise for us : whales ! Everyone rushed to the side of the boat where they where spotted. Big exitement on the boat, rain and wind were forgotten now. The captain of the boat tried to follow the whales, from a distance, but this seemed a rather difficult task : you could never tell where they would surface from the water again. However we had a couple of minutes till they were gone – some very special minutes in the company of the giants of the ocean.

Along the way the boat stopped to eat some Alaska salmon, which is always great food. After lunch, it was glacier time. One of the big attractions on such a boat trip is to pass by a glacier (not too close however) at the moment a large chunk of ice falls into the water. The sound and movement of the water is thrilling ! Since it was misty, only half of the glacier walls were visible, but still, these were impressive masses of ice. Notwithstanding the bad weather, this was still a trip I can higly recommend.

Big glacier

July 29, 2018

Root Glacier, Alaska

KENNICOTT, JULY 1997 – On a cloudy morning, I went to the old powerhouse in Mc. Carthy. This site is now used as the home base of the St.-Elias-Wrangell mountain guides. There I adapted a pair of crampons to my hiking boots and signed the paper declaring ‘guides are not responsible for eventual accidents’, as is usual in most cases when there is little bit of danger attached. I surprisingly could pay for the hike (in advance) by credit card.

We took the van that operates between Mc. Carthy an Kennicott village (only a few miles away) and then walked on together with our guide along a small path leading to the Root glacier. Once on the glacier – after we had attached the crampons to our boots – the glacier experience could start. Since this was my first glacier walk ever, I had to practice walking with crampons a little at first, but after a while this was an almost ‘natural’ way of walking.

The Root glacier and morenes

The ‘landscape’ on the glacier is absolutely fabulous. There are steep descents, crevasses, ‘moulins’ (melting water running into a hole into the glacier),… It’s really amazing to stand on the edge of some crevasse or to walk on narrow edges. Having a pick-nick on a glacier is also something special ! After a while you really loose every feeling of orientation, especially when it’s a little misty, but our guide knew this glacier very well. What struck me also are all the shades of blue, white and gray… At some point we came into some natural amphitheatre made of ice,… this is really a trip into some other world.

Standing on the edge of a 'moulin'

July 29, 2018

Mc. Carthy, Alaska

MC. CARTHY, JULY 1997 – Alaska is the land of the goldrush. Nowadays, the real goldmines are all but a few little ones closed. Now black gold is the primary treasure, as is illustrated by the Alaska pipeline you encounter along the road on several occasions. Deep into the Wrangell mountains, in the beginning of the 20th centrury, a mountain of copper was discovered. This was the foundation of the little mine town Kennicott and the village of Mc. Carthy. The only connection with the civilised word was the railroad, used to transport the copper.

The train left Kennicott for the last time in november 1938. People that wanted to leave the wilderness could come along. There was no time to pack a lot. This created the ghost town of Kennicott, which is now pretty much like back in 1938.

Chitina, begining of the Mc. Carthy road

The rails were removed later and the railroad was filled up with gravel. This is now the only road to go to Mc Carthy. The road starts in Chitina, the last ‘village’ of the civilised world (only a couple of wooden houses) . From there on, for about 100 km, look out for iron bars and nails used to hold the rails sticking out of the road, as heavy rains and melting ice bring them constantly back to the surface. You don’t want to have more than one flat tire over here – next to the road one finds now and then an abandoned car wreck. This trip took us more than 6 hours and we stopped to collect 14 nails (which are about 15 cm long)… But it was the trip of a lifetime, it’s really going into the wilderness. We crossed magnificient rivers and the sight of the Wrangell mountains was fantastic. The railroad bridges used to be scary to cross by car (wooden planks missing and no fence) but this is not the case anymore, since the end of the eighties they are ‘modernised’.

End of the road, there’s only a parking lot and a camping area. To go to Mc. Carthy, the only way is by foot, as you have to cross the river – there are only a few cars in Mc. Carthy, brought there in winter when the river is frozen. There used to be a cable crossing the river with a ‘tram’ attached to it (and you had to operate it yourself, manually). This is now history, the cable was still there in 1997, but the ‘tram’ was not operational anymore since a few years. There now is an (ugly) iron foot bridge. The real goldmine for Mc. Carthy is now tourism. And the guys just before the footbridge are the first to sell you tickets for mountain bike tours, glacier tours, plane trips, nature walks,… On the campsite, there is no running water, no sanitary facilities, no electricity… this is close to the real wilderness experience.

The Mc. Carthy village is pretty much like it used to be, albeit ‘adapted’ to tourism demands. The lodge and the hotel are both ‘old style’. The lodge has a sign “showers”, which is more than welcome after a few days, but showers are only possible in the evening and you have to bring your towel. Entering the lodge, there is also a sign asking visitors ‘to declare their guns at the bar’. Drinks are expensive, but what did you expect… ? The pizza house next to the hotel sells ‘the best pizza in America’, and I can tell you this is not a very big overstatement.

A trip to the Kennicott mine village, some miles further, is even more like going back into time. Half of the buidings and houses show clear signs of decay, the other half is being repared gradually. You can enter the houses, but not the old mine – since this is dangerous, it’s only possible with a guided visit. There used to live several hundreds mine workers here. Now a real ghost town. The debris of the copper mine activities are still there, large piles of rock. Not to be confused with the morenes (huge !) of nearby Root glacier. Drinking a cup of coffee in the ‘Kennicott Glacier Lodge’ can help your imagination going back into time.

I’ve also done some mountain biking and glacier walking (see next story) during the couple of days I was in this fantastic area. It was hard to go back to civilisation after a few days…

July 29, 2018

Denali basecamp, Alaska

TALKEETNA, JULY 1997 – Seeing Mount Mc. Kinley was one of the things I dreamt about before coming to Alaska. Native Americans used to call this mountain ‘Denali’ (‘the great one’). The name is absolutely appropriate – with its 6194 meters this mountain is not only the highest in North-America, measured from the lowlands that surround it, it has a vertical relief considered being the highest in the world, even higher than that of Mt. Everest.

“Wow, this must be an awesome sight”, I thought, already in dreams standing on the grassy lowland looking up to the mountain… There’s only one little warning : you have to be lucky to see it. Chances seeing this giant are one out of three, at other times there’s nothing but clouds.

I was lucky to see a glimpse of the mountain top during a plane flight – later in the Denali N.P. the mountain did not show it’s grandeur anymore to us… From the town of Talkeetna, there are several companies offering a trip of half an hour to a couple of hours with a small Cesna-like plane. Such a flight is a true adventure. Taking off from the ‘landing strip’ (and landing hopefully) is quite ‘bumpy’ and sometimes the ‘runway’ is made of gravel. The little plane brings you above tundra landscapes with glacier rivers, across huge glaciers and between the peaks of the Denali mountain range. It’s really spectacular and sometimes you wonder how the pilot manages to fly over some peaks or fails not to touch the rocks when flying through some small passages.

Ruth Glacier

I took a trip with included glacier landing to a place near the basecamp mountaineers use to climb Mt. Mc Kinley. The landing is not always possible as the plane must be able to take off again (the snow that covers the glacier the plane lands on, must be solid enough). Our pilot decided he could manage but only when using the ‘skis’. When we had landed, we could wander around a little to go and visit a camp made by mountain climbers, which were practicing mountain survival skills. They were brought up here by plane, but would have to hike down again as glacier landing would not be possible anymore soon, when mid-summer arrived.

Mountaineering camp

July 29, 2018