alaska gallery

reposted, sorry for the bad quality of the pictures, the originals are long back in Germany...

Whittier

I loved this town! This was where the ferry left, but I came a day earlier to hike over a mountain pass to a glacier lagoon (the only hike around town, but beautiful). There I witnessed the glacier crashing into the water. But here is why Whittier is cool: it used to be an army base in the cold war. It was chosen for this as the harbour is year round ice free and because the constant cloud coverage protects from air surveillance. In other words, the town is always foggy. And fog plus mountains, plus glaciers coming down from the mountains makes a very spooky atmosphere. The whole army base used to live in two huge houses, one even has a hospital and theater inside, next to the flats. this one is in ruins now, and it is possible to simply walk around there, if one dears, because it is the perfect horror movie set. The other one is simlilar, but smaler and now 80% of the population lives in this one huge block og flats, where you can also find the post office, town offices and a corner store. And the block of flats is not pretty, the ground floor where the shops and offices are feels more like a parking lot. I thought it was awesome :) There is also a good museum and a lot of kajaking places there, so I had enough to do while waiting for the ferry to leave.

Bears!

Worst song to sing while hiking in the wilderness of Alaska: "the teddy bears picknic". And that song was stuck in my head, when I was hiking in the backcountry of Denali National Park. Especially when hiking alone in an area with limited sight, one is supposed to make a lot of noise, not to surprise the bears and other animals, as they usually do not attack unless they feel threatened. Before one is allowed to go hiking off trail, one has to sit through a safety talk, a lot of which involves bears (there is also some information about weather, river crossing and orientation, but this was not new to me). They make it sound as if a bear will come across you every 2 min, so when I finally did go hiking, I was scared shitless. Really, I jumped when a bird was ratteling in the bushes, thinking a bear will jump out at me. Hence I was singing loudly to keep them away (no comment on this please...) I did see a pawprint, that was definatly bear and going my direction (so I went another way), but the animals that were the most agressive were the moskitos. Once I woke up to the sight of hundreds of them sitting between the outer and inner tent, waiting for their breakfast to emerge. Hiking in alaska is worth is though, glaciers, woods, mountains and lots of wildlife. When resting on a mountain top, enjoying the view over a glacier and valley with a glacier river (and thinking this look eerily familiar) a Caribou suddenly came galloping up the hill, stopped looked at us, through up his head, gallopped around in a circle and left. I think he wanted us to take his picture, but we were so surprised that he has to try the next tourists for his 15 min of fame.

Hot Dogs

Icelandic people claim that their hot dogs are the best in the world. I not so respectfully disagree. A random reindeer hot dog off a street stand in Anchorage is way better. It does not make you wish for some other food to get the taste out of your mouth and you don't feel hungry anymore after eating one, rather than eating two or three and still feeling hungry and slightly sick. Plus they put pickles on them.
To anyone wondering by now if I had any adventures in Alaska or if I just let myself be driven around and ate hot dogs, be consoled, if I have time after the shower and the computer is free I will tell you how I got viciously attacked over and over by animals while hiking in the backcountry in the Denali National Park.

people

In my last post I said people here are incredible friendly. Let me say that again: People here are INCREDIBLE friendly. What I had said about the non-existent public transport system is true as well, even Iceland has more overland buses. So I ended up walking / hitchhiking a lot. A big thank you to everyone who picked me up! Out in the countryside there is almost no wait, I met a family who squished together to let me in, a guy from the bush (his place is only accessible by boat) with a very friendly dog, who took me halfway up Hatchers Pass because he had nothing else to do and kindly stopped on all the gold claims and beaver dams I wanted to take pictures of. I also got a ride with a cab driver in Wassila, who saw me walking with my backpack and felt sorry for me.
Hatchers Pass is an old gold mining road, winding through the Talkeenta mountains. It is a beautiful area and as the top part of the road was still closed due to snow, I had to hike over it and enjoy quiet snow covered mountains and lots of ground squirrels. Next to the beaver dams and gold claims along the river, I also saw entrances to hard rock mines high in the mountains. At the end of the pass is the historical Independence Mine, now a museum. I went there the morning after crossing the pass, after spending a night in some skiing-huts and a bed after a week of camping.
Arriving in the mine the ladies in the information centre, where I wanted to leave my bag, were so impressed about me being on foot, that they made me a bowl of homemade soup and gave me a boiled egg and potato as well as a banana as a picnic.
Which I needed later as my hitchhiking luck ran out when arriving in the town of Palmer, so I had to walk the 5 miles from town to the state-park where I was going to put up my tent for two nights. Walking back to Palmer the next day, originally to buy supplies and go to visit a reindeer farm, I stopped at a house with a sign "photo gallery" on it. The gallery belonged to Myron Rosenberg, who was not only kind enough to show me his beautiful pictures, but also share his travel stories (and a tip where to go hiking near Whittier towards the glacier), stories and keepsakes of his father in the war in Germany with me, gave me a ride and back to a supermarket and a photograph of Wonderlake in Denali National Park, better than I could have ever taken.
As I said, people here a incredible nice.

Anchorage

I made it to Ancorage and decided to stay here, rather than wait three fours and than spend one more on the plane to get to Fairbanks. I already walked around downtown yesterday and now am looking for a way to get to a national park and have some adventures. I shared a cab from the airport with two germans yesterday (as the public transport system seems to be non existent so trying to get to the national parks by bus will be exiting). I have to wait for them to get up as they have all the information we got from the information centre yesterday, but I went to bed at 5 and missed them coming back from town and at 5:30 they are not awake yet. I think I like Ancorage (though I was in a bit of a haze walking through it yesterday), people here incredible friendly, I was flustered the first few times when I was asked "how are you" by cashiers or other service people as I am not used to small talk anymore. But I like that people thank the bus driver and are friendly to each other. I|m in a hostel run by a Chinese lady which is a bit of a surprise egg. It looks like a normal family home, but inside there is a swimming pool, a kickers, lots of space...

Alaska itinerary

12 days

departure from Germany: 19.06. 10:15h
change in Anchorage
arrival in Fairbanks: 19.06 14:32h

need to buy a tent!
Fairbanks go north hostel has campsite attached (12$)

waaaay to long to go to Deadhorse, 16h drive or really expensive flight, have also spend enough time around the Arctic Circle...

Denali National Park (between Fairbanks and Anchorage)
restricted access, transport: bus (www.alaskashuttle.com 55$/train (www.akrr.com 64$)
sleeping: 9-20$ (on campgrounds)
maps and information available in the national park
bears and all that stuff!

to anchorage: train (146$) or bus (75$)

in Anchorage at the ship creek viewing platform, salmon are jumping in abundance (in the city, cool...)

dorm around 25$ there does not seem to be camping, but after Denali National Park I might not want to camp anymore anyway)

around anchorage two possibilities:
Girdwood (a hippietown), possible to do a day hike and see gold mining artifacts
Palmer has a similar hike
called Hatchers Pass

around Whittier (where the boat leaves)
Prince William sound islands and kajak

Map Ferry

link:http://www.dot.state.ak.us/amhs/

WHITTIER Monday, Jul 02 11:45 PM
BELLINGHAM Saturday, Jul 07 8:00 AM
547$

YAKUTAT Tuesday, Jul 03 9:00 PM
BELLINGHAM Saturday, Jul 07 8:00 AM
411$

Alaska

Arrival: 20th of June in Fairbanks (Plane)
Departure: 2nd of July (ferry from Yakutat or Whittier through the inside passages to Bellingham near Seattle)

Things to see: Cross the Arctic Circle (After 6 years of Iceland, I still haven't done it!) Probably by going to Deadhorse (yes, mainly because it is a cool name for a town and it is on the arctic sea, not the pacific)