Blogs from Alaska, United States, North America - page 221

Well last night’s sleep was interesting, it never got really dark and twilight was probably a better way to describe the 4 or so hours of night. This morning we caught the 10:30 am 6 hr return bus into the Denali Nat Park and almost immediately, critters started appearing. First a gray wolf (gray to white) trotted on the road just in front of our bus for about 50m before catching a small rodent and disappearing into the grassy undergrowth - we know wolf sightings are quite rare so what a start to today. Then we came across a mother grizzly with two 2 year old cubs (they are all light brown to cream coloured) and she also trotted along in front on the road for a while, soon after that we met up with a ... read more

We left Anchorage about 10.30am for Denali National Park about 250 miles inland after obtaining some quick food stocks from our local mall. The drive was uneventful passing thru suburbs and towns. We did see a few businesses advertising building log cabins with examples out front; we saw float planes on a river bank and on a lake. Whilst mentioning this, Alaska has the highest number of float planes than anywhere else in the USA (we saw them at the side of the main Anchorage International Airport where they have a water runway and at the local airport where I assume they also have a water runway). The road traffic up here is much less dense than in the lower 48 states. Slowly the predominant silver birches gave way to medium density spruce (skinny Christmas trees) ... read more

We're new bloggernauts - playing around a bit here. Think we might communicate via travelblog from Thailand. I'm uploading pics of our 10 week roadtrip from south Texas to southeast Alaska during summer 2006 for starters. We backpacked across the gamut of Rocky Mountain national parks. Highlights included a 40 mile backcountry hike in Banff, and getting dropped by floatplane off Admiralty Island to kayak into Pack Creek brown bear observatory. So, I'll sign off with an excerpt from natural history writer Dave Quammen's "Monster of God" (hopefully, the relevance is apparent) . . . "Six billion humans currently weigh upon the planet. According to the most authoritative projection now available (from the United Nations Population Division), five billion more may be added within 150 years. With every additional child comes additional pressure on the productivity ... read more

Times camped before: A handful Consecutive days expected to camp on this trip: 42 Times felt inadequate as a man: Several People to cook for: 16 Hours of darkness per day: 0 Portaloos cleaned out: 1 Dollars wasted on the most pointless day tour of all time: 38 Days spent travelling to and from said day tour: 5 Bears encountered: 1 Wolves encountered: 1 Items lost: 1 (bandana)... well 2 really but see the last paragraph for the story behind the second Houses sold: 0 Cars sold: 0 Blog-in-a-Sun-word: Exposed Baxter: Leave these people alone. They mean you no harm. Bear: We Bears are a proud race. They must pay for their intrusion. Baxter: On my journey I met one of your kind. His name was Katow-jo. We became friends. Bear: Katow-jo is my cousin. Go ... read more

This beautiful sunny morning we were 50 degrees north of the equator in Glacier Bay, Alaska. Glacier Bay is a deep narrow inlet where many millions of years ago, a giant glacier receded to let the sea come in. Usually two cruise ships enter this bay each day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. A National Parks Ranger boards the ship and gives a permit to enter and then makes a running commentary of the area from the ships bridge. We headed to the end of the inlet to Margarite Glacier and to Grand Pacific Glacier. As we sailed in, either side of us the mountains were snow capped to about half way down, then some scattered trees and some scrub before the stone covered shoreline. In the sea, a few small ice ... read more