at seward day 2

we got up and quickly put together a short ocean kayaking outing. the kayaking place is right in back of where we are lodging. we just zoomed up the beach to a cool waterfall. it took about 3 hours but was a cool experience. then we went up to exit glacier and did the 4 mile hike up to the harding ice field. it was a fairly strenuous hike (gained 3100 ft) but we made 'er. it was a cool view up there. we were both too lazy to hike down to the actual ice...we thought it might take way too long. looking back, maybe we should have. would have been cool. after we got down, we did another short hike where we viewed the glacier from the bottom. all in all we hiked about 10 miles. we just got back and showered up and now were about to go pamper ourselves. i'm gonna take the lappy and hunt around for an open wireless connection. hopefully i'll get these last posts up. i've taken tons of pics and vids. so many that i had to switch to my 2nd 2 gb sd card.

at seward

today was a great day. it was our glacier/wildlife cruise into kenai fjords NP. most of the park is only accessible by water. the trip was sweet. we had two chicas for our guides...one was the captain, the other the deck help. there were only 6 other passengers aboard so it was a very personal tour (not packed like some of the other boats we saw out there that had 50 + on the decks). we saw some sea otters, sea lions, tons of birds including a bald eagle (some birds dive down 600 ft for fish), a black bear on an island (must have swam across)...um...i think that was it for wildlife. we we're bummed not to see a whale. i guess they are scarce this time of year. we picked up a kayaker who had been kayaking/backpacking out there for 5 days. the scenery was unreal. we finally got to aiakin (?) glacier. i think they said it was the largest in the park. we pulled pretty close to it as saw and heard some calving. on huge section broke away right after we go there. what an experience.
we got back and went to a sea life center which was actually quite cool. birds, sean lions, seals, fish, etc. quite fun.
tomorrow we're gonna got exit glacier and hopefully do the 3.5 mile hike up to harding icefield. we also want to work in some kayaking...we'll probably just dink around the bay for a few hours. should be cool.
the weather has continued to be sunny and nice. from what people say, we've been extraordinarily lucky to have this much sunshine. we'll take it! lucky!

to seward

still no wireless access. we got up and prepared for the ferry ride from valdez to whittier. we had some extra time to kill before the ferry left so we went to the docks and watched some people fishing for silver salmon there. it was quite cool. the docks were probably 100 ft. off the water so when a fish was hooked, they had to lower a net down on a rope to retrieve the fish. the fish were good size and had to be whacked on the head after they were brought up. the whole thing was interesting to watch.
we loaded our car on the ferry and sat back upstairs in comfort as we crossed the price william sound. the sight seeing was great all the way across the sound. many cool mountains, a few huge glaciers, some doll porpoises (sp?) etc. it was a 3 hour journey that took us to whittier.
we then drove to seward. on the way we tried fishing a few times. once at kenai lake and again at ptarmigan creek. kenai lake was huge and we couldn't cast out to the fish that were rising. it was still a nice scenic stop. the we stopped at a weir and watched the salmon trying to jump up a mini water fall and get upstream. for some reason i was highly entertained. i took a video of course. ptarmigan creek was tough to access without waders plus there were quite a few other fly fisherman around...so we decided to bag it.
we stopped here and there and finally got to our place. it's a cool place right on the water with spectacular view. we checked in and got some dinner. dad got salmon and i got the halibut fish and chips (steve strong would have loved them!).

to valdez

We slept in a bit and woke up to the sound of the helicopter bringing in supplies to the lodge. We drove the rest of the Denali Highway and then continued south to Valdez where we are tonight.
Along the way we fished and saw various sights. Fishing wasn't good. Only caught a few dinkers. We saw plenty of great mountain views, though...and some of the rivers are crazy looking. They have lots of glacial powder so they are grey/milky/thick. pretty bizarre...no fishies in these ones. many of the mountains are super jaggedy. i was thinking, in one day i've probably seen as many jaggedy peaks as i've seen in the tetons, olympic NP, N Cascades, Wind rivers, and glacier NP combined. So many glaciers up here. we saw one way cool one. it was called worthington glacier. we also saw numerous waterfalls.We also drove down the east side of Wrangell-St Elias NP. there are some sweet looking mountains there, too. there were some monsters we saw rising above everything else. all snow-capped. the wrangells have all of the next highest peaks behind denali. unfortunately we were only able to stop at the visitor's center. it's such a huge park and it's not very accessible.
valdez is a pretty cool location. right on the prince william sound surrounded by towering mountains. we tried to get to the alaskan pipeline terminal here, but there are tight on security these days. there's a pretty cool little boat harbor here, too. the big mountains make for quite the backdrop. tomorrow we catch a ferry that'll take us across the sound to the kenai peninsula.
the weather continues to be absolutely gorgeous here. hi 60's and mostly sunny! we'll see if it coninues...

Flight seeing day

today is monday. we stayed at the hostel near denali NP again. we got up fairly early as we had a flight-seeing trip scheduled. after a quick briefing we were up and away in a twin engine with 8 other people. it took about 20 minutes to get near denali but there were some cool sights on the way. at 13000 they had us put on oxygen masks as we were on our way to 20000+. we got to denali, circled over and around a few times and took it all in. quite the site. i was snapping pics and taking videos left and right. i'm sure they'll all be pretty lame...can't do the flight justice at all. it was way cool, tho. the pilot said it was -20 outside the plane and that we were zipping around at 200mph. it got kinda bumpy a few times but the pilot got us out of it quickly. no climbers on the mnt (too late in season). glaciers, icefalls, etc...it was all quite cool.
after the flight, we traveled east on the denali highway. it's a remote gravel road that has some decent scenery. we did a little fly fishing and i caught 4 graylings. pretty fun. we saw a huge bald eagle. then arrived at our lodging for the night. tangle inn. we had some grub then went out on the lake in a canoe with our fly rods. apparently only lake trout and burbot are in the lake and we weren't prepared for deep fishing, so no luck. it was still cool to get out on the water. another great day of weather.
tomorrow we head for valdez where we'll catch a ferry the next day which crosses the prince willy sound to the kenai peninsula. we'll spend most of the rest of our time in that area.
we're just chilling tonight. we'll the sack early then sight see on our way down to valdez. we're both pretty tired and it's only 10pm.

Some pics

I uploaded what I have so far. They aren't all rotated or anything, but a slideshow viewing might correct that. there are many that are part of a panoramic shot, too.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kniephof/sets/

The Great Mountain

Today was Denali NP day. We got up early, 5am or so, and got ready to go. it was a clear cool morning. the car thermometer read 32 degree...not sure if it was really that cold...maybe. we drove north to the park, and got on our bus which left at 630am.

the weather was unbelievable today. we had clear blue skies until around noon or 1pm. we had wicked good view of mt. mckinley. our bus driver said we only get days like this around 10 days each summer. so we really lucked out. she said two days ago, you could hardly see the mnt. yesterday you could see about 2/3 of the mnt, but not the top. we loved the views. i took tons of pics, none of which will do it justice. i'll have to stitch some of them together. maybe i'll try to post some pics tonight. we traveled all the way to wonder lake which is as far as you can go into the park on the road. the view wasn't as good there and it had clouded over and the summit was no longer visible. luckily we had great views all day long before then.

other than seeing denali, we saw a fair amount of wildlife as well. we saw caribou, a fox, arctic ground squirrels, dall sheep, moose (he was standing in a pond, ducking his head under for 10 seconds at a time, and coming up with some sort of roots or something), some type of falcon, and plenty of grizzlies. we probably had 20 different sightings. it actually got to the point where it wasn't exciting to see them any more! =)

at lunch time, we had some birds fly right up to us. my dad naturally tossed some bread. i teased him that feeding wildlife was a no-no. some more birds came and ate more bread my dad was tossing. next thing i know, one of the SOB's dive bombs me from behind and tries to steal the rest of my sandwich right out of my hand! hah...sucker...he didn't get it! =) my dad had a good laugh at that. but i had the last laugh. my dad was feeding a bird some pringles on the bench in front of us. the bird took those, then hopped right next to my dad, stole the remaining stack of pringles, and flew off with them. hah...

the bus ride was all day long. we didn't get back til like 730 pm. had some dinner, now were just chilling and planning. twas a good day. i'm gonna work no pics now...

tomorrow is flight-seeing day over denali. we're praying it'll be as clear as it was today!!!!!!!