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Published: July 25th 2012
Monday, July 23rd was Donna's birthday. After our bear tour the day before we slept in a little and left Anchorage heading south down the Seward Highway. It was 53 degrees and raining! We had hoped to do several hikes along the route and geocache along the way, but it turned out we just drove straight to Girdwood. The rain eased off so we went to the Crow Creek Mine in Girdwood. It was a cute little old mining village on the creek, with a lot of buildings that were older than Alaska. We watched people panning for gold down on the creek.
We checked into our little cottage we rented and headed off to Bird Point to meet our ATV guide. We had reserved a guide for a 4 hour ATV adventure in the Chugach National Forest. We absolutely had a blast! Our guide is a wildlife guy and periodically stopped us so he could pull out his scope and tripod for bear sightings! We watched a Sow and cub once and then another later on. We also did a couple of hikes to waterfalls. It was an amazing adventure and we soaked in (yes, we were
mud soaked) all of the truly "off the beaten path" beauty of Alaska.
Tuesday, July 24th we were up and out earlier. We headed out of Girdwood, south on Seward Highway. Our first stop was at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. This is a rehabilitation and specialized breeding center. Specifically, they have 3 rescued brown bears, a one wing eagle, musk ox, injured or lame reindeer, orphaned baby moose and a huge herd of Wood Bison who are part of a re-introduction program in Alaska. It was here we finally saw the sun come out! We enjoyed reading the animals profiles and watching them in this huge natural setting where they will be protected.
After AWCC Dylin was very excited since we were heading to hike to a glacier. We headed down to Portage and did a beautiful 2 mile hike to Byron Glacier. Not only was the glacier amazing, Dylin was in heaven because the snow was still all on the morraine below the glacier. We had a great snowball fight.
The weather stayed really nice and topped out around 62. We continued down Seward Highway stopping to look at
the splendor of Turnagain Arm and the Kenai peninsula. Our next hike was to another very well known glacier, Exit. Exit Glacier is in Kenai Fjords National Park. We hiked over 2.4 miles to visit this beauty.
We continued on down Seward Highway finally arriving in Seward. We rented a WWII Train Car that has been converted to a hotel room. We will be here until Friday. Tomorrow we are taking a 6 hour Kenai Fjords Tour. We are excited to see Alaskan marine life.
Enjoy the random photos I took the last 2 days. There are more pictures at the bottom of the page so keep scrolling down.
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John
non-member comment
Snow Balls????
As usual, great picks! Love "Lots of Mudd" and Dylin throwing the snow ball. The narure shots are gorgeous. Looks like you're having a great time. Terrific! Picture #100 is so Donna! She hates people :)