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I have some photos from my trip posted. I still have to add captions. Here are a few from this album:

Deer in Waterton campground.

Hidden Lake

Mountain goat on Highline Trail

Iceberg Lake

I’ll have much more to share, but I had a great time last week. See?

And Glacier NP is a really good place for viewing wildlife!

Finishing the story I started here, here, here, here, and here:

On Friday we returned the RV and checked into a hotel. We walked around the nearby airport and rented bikes for 24 hours. I rented one with an electronic assist — I had banged up my knees a bit on the ice and the motor helped even though none of the hills were especially steep.

The city has a decent trail system, especially the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail. We rode out to Earthquake Park and back before supper.

When we were in Anchorage two years ago we were directed to what I’m sure is the best Italian restaurant in town, Fiori D’italia. It was within walking distance and we made a point of returning to it. I had a halibut parmesan, one of the house specialties that was too yummy for words.

We tooled around the city for a while with a friend-of-a-friend. We visited Alaska Wild Berry Products, home [they claim] of the world’s largest chocolate waterfall. Sadly, it is just for show; no dipping or samples. But they did have free samples available of many of their confections. Yummy.

After returning to our hotel we took a midnight bike ride from the Coastal Trail partway across the Chester Creek Greenbelt. We had time for another brief ride in the morning (in a light drizzling rain) before returning the bikes and heading for the airport.

All in all it was a good trip. Alaska has a rugged beauty that I find very attractive and even a “big city” like Anchorage has a small-town feel to it. The state is so large and I’ve seen just a small part of it, but I’ve had a good variety of activities. This has been just a summary of the trip, of course, and given half a chance I still have stories to tell. Just not today.

Where would you like to go?

Continuing the story I started here, here, here, and here:

The Mat-Su valley is a glacial valley rimmed by the Chugach Mountains, Talkeetna Mountains, and the Alaska Range. The name comes from the Matanuska and Susitna Rivers, two glacial streams that empty into Cook Inlet near Anchorage. We started our journey on the Susitna side of the valley and we were winding down on the Matanuska side. On the glacier.

Leaving Hatcher Pass we went through Palmer and then northeast to the Matanuska Glacier State Recreation Site. We had a reservation with MICA Guides for a day of climbing.

I have walked on a glacier before (in the Canadian Rockies) and I’ve seen a glacier calving (near Seward, AK) [that was really cool btw], but I was a little nervous about climbing on one. We had assurances from the guides that it is a challenge well within the reach of beginners though. And it’s not like we were summiting Denali. Our longest climb was no more than 50 feet or so.

It is a strenuous activity — mostly because it takes a while for someone as naturally unathletic as I am to learn the proper technique. But it is something that pretty much anyone can do and I liked it enough that I would do it again. Of course, it helped that we had absolutely gorgeous weather that day — clear skies and temps in the 70s. (Although it was cooler than that on the humongous block of solid ice, I was not cold at all that day.) And our guides did a good job.

The scenery was breathtaking.

And I did alright.

Overall, it was the best part of the trip. But we weren’t quite through….

Continuing the story I started here, here, and here:

We had to get some gas by the time we left the park, but with prices like these we decided not to fill the tank just yet. After Denali we took a brief side-trip to Talkeetna. If you’re not going to summit the mountain or hire a plane for a fly-over, you can skip this town in my opinion.

We traveled back down the Mat-Su valley then north of Palmer to Hatcher Pass and Independence Mine. Hatcher Pass actually cuts through the Talkeetna Mountains and would have been a shorter distance to drive except that it’s closed to traffic most of the year and even then is not suitable for driving an RV.

The area around Independence Mine is gorgeous with several hiking trails and a couple campgrounds. It was a lot less crowded than Denali. The park includes historical displays, a museum/gift shop, a few maintained buildings, and several ramshackle buildings.

We had another midnight hike this time on the Gold Mint Trail that parallels the Little Susitna River. The whole trail is nine miles one way up to the glacier that feeds the river so we hiked a small fraction of it. Near the trailhead it’s well-maintained and easy hiking. We saw several beaver lodges along the way and watched one beaver patrolling his domain.

The next day we spent some time in the park opting for a self-guided tour. Then with pans (loaned for free from the gift shop) we spent a couple hours panning for gold. The chances of finding any real gold are pretty remote, but it was still fun (and you are allowed to keep the gold if you find any!). Our hearts beat faster a few times when we saw fools gold sparkling in the pan but our dreams of paying for the trip were in vein. [smirk]

We really enjoyed the Hatcher Pass area, but the coolest part of the trip was yet to come….

Continuing the story I started here and here:

Denali is the only U.S. National Park with sled dogs. They help patrol the park in winter. The kennel is open to visitors and there are regularly scheduled demonstrations. We spent a very enjoyable couple of hours there.

Some of the dogs are more accessible than others and provide lots of photo ops like:

Gotta Laugh!

Gotta Scratch!

Gotta — hey! No tongues!

For me, it was the most enjoyable part of our visit to the park, but not necessarily the best part of the whole trip. Stay tuned….