Friends & Family – Page 9 – The Destinators

Seward – Kenai Fjords National Park

The Harding Icefield, Kenai Fjords National Park

Seward is a small, picturesque city on Resurrection Bay at the base of Marathon Mountain at yet another Alaskan road’s end. It’s totally surrounded by tall, steep mountains wearing a shawl of glaciers that make up Kenai Fjords National Park. Seward is predominantly a commercial fishing town, also a destination and embarkation point for tourists in the summer. It’s the northern terminus of many cruise ship lines as well as the southern terminus (aka Mile 0) of the Seward Highway to Anchorage, the Alaska Railroad to Fairbanks, and the original Iditarod dog sled trail to Nome. Heavily damaged by the 1964 earthquake, the rail yards and fish processing plants directly on the bay were not rebuilt where they’d stood; the land was instead converted to parks with hundreds of campsites, enabling travelers to soak in the views and get to the mountains.

Ready for more? First, a rendezvous…

Homer

D’oh! No, not that Homer – Homer, AK. It’s a small town in a stunning location at the road’s end on the west side of the Kenai Peninsula. It’s situated where the Kachemak Bay empties into Cook Inlet, feeling cozy and protected by the Kenai Mountains interspersed with glaciers to the south and east, and the Alaska Range with its four towering volcanoes to the west. A key geological feature of the town is the Homer Spit, a terminal moraine left by the glacier that filled and carved out the Kachemak Bay 15,000 years ago. The Spit is a long, narrow, natural gravel bar that sticks out 4.5 miles into bay, now dotted with campsites and shops and people fishing.

We loved Homer! And that was all Duncan’s fault.

Valdez

Valdez is a commercial fishing and shipping port with a history that is both colorful and tragic. It’s also a fun town to visit in a stunning location.

Recall that Mount Saint Elias, at 18,009 feet the second highest peak in the US, is only 10 miles from the ocean’s edge as the eagle flies (yes, we confirmed that this is the expression to use in Alaska). That means our relatively short drive to Valdez would cross yet another mountain range – the Chugach Mountains, the tallest, steepest mountains we’ve seen yet – before dropping into the city. Valdez is near the end of a narrow arm of the Prince William Sound where glacial rivers dropping down from tall, steep, glaciated mountains on 3-1/2 sides of the city turn the water a distinctive aquamarine color.

Tok Rendezvous

I got an email about a month ago from Dana, my old friend and college roommate. Among other news, in this email he mentioned a trip upon which he and Muffin were about to embark to BC and the Yukon. I wrote back that we’d just come up through there, had that day entered Alaska, and were planning on spending the next couple of months exploring there before heading back towards home through BC and the Yukon. There ensued a series of “Wait, what?!” emails back and forth and, to summarize, we figured out that we could arrange at the end of June to rendezvous in Tok, which is Alaska’s ultimate crossroads where the Alaska Highway meets and splits from roads in every possible direction.

Steese Highway

Our Arctic Ocean excursion took 4 long days of intense driving (there’re no public spaces or sightseeing spots in Deadhorse other than the shuttle, so we didn’t spend a whole day there), and we needed a brief respite before our re-provisioning stop back in Fairbanks.

Outstanding items on Nick’s list included a drive on the Steese Highway and a hike there. The Steese is an older road north of Fairbanks originally build to connect the city to the Yukon River where goods were shipped in. After the construction of the Alaska Highway, the port on the Yukon was less busy, though it is still in use today. There are also some mining operations along the way. Recreationally, the Steese is a beautiful drive to and through the tallest of the White Mountains. Since the road begins between the end of the Dalton Highway and the city of Fairbanks, it was a perfect opportunity for us.

Fairbanks

We’ve known Nick for a pretty long time. He was 2 months old when we first visited Stump Sprouts, the World’s Greatest B&B, owned by his parents Lloyd and Suzanne in the Berkshires. Little did we know at the time, that visit would evolve into a same-time-next-year, Memorial Day get-together with a group of close friends for over 30 years. Through the years, we got to know Nick initially as a little guy hanging around, then a kid who could come on some of our shorter bike rides, then as a teen who’d kick our butts on our longer bike rides. Then, he was off to college. Although we saw less of him, Lloyd and Suzanne kept us updated. As a young adult ready to take on the world as a nordic ski coach and continue living his outdoor adventure lifestyle, Nick moved around a bit, settling in Fairbanks.

We checked in with Nick. C’mon over!

Jammin’ with Lucky Larry

Last July we stopped on our way to Calgary for a visit in Linden, AB with my friend Larry and his wife Barb. Larry is a guitar-playing blues brother that I met through Blues Guitar Unleashed (BGU), as we’ve both been working our way through learning to play the blues. Well, we had a fine time and it seemed a great idea to see if we could stop by again as we head for Alaska. Answers: yes, we can stop by, and yes, it was great!

Big Sky, MT, part 2 – and the National Parks

The most direct route between Vermont and Big Sky, Montana goes THROUGH Yellowstone National Park. The route includes the only road in Yellowstone that neither one of us had ever been on – Sylvan Pass, near the east entrance. That road opened early for the season, 3 days before our arrival. The next most direct route was an interstate. Hmmm, not much discussion needed. Let’s go through Yellowstone!

We do enjoy visiting National Parks early in the season, before the crowds arrive. Yes, some roads are closed, some services are unavailable, and many/most hiking trails are closed being either snow-, slush- or mud-covered late into the spring. Yet the majesty of the parks remains on display, colored in snow and early spring blossoms. Large critters are coming out from their winter routines. National Parks in the northern US are reawakening with spring.

Big Sky, MT, part 1

Vermontanan (definition): A member of a particular subgroup of ski bums that relocates from Sugarbush in Vermont to Big Sky, Montana.

People who live in ski towns share certain characteristics – they enjoy a year-round, outdoorsy lifestyle, they are obsessive about skiing, and they think eight months of winter isn’t quite enough. The connection between our home at Sugarbush (or the Mad River Valley) and Big Sky is unique. Despite differences in the skiing experience and the respective ski town communities, there’s a certain vibe that’s shared between the two. It can’t be explained, but ski bums can feel it – it’s obvious.

Yes, we know quite a few Vermontanans. We could feel sad that our friends moved away from us. On the other hand, our friends are choosing to live their next chapters close to big mountain skiing, and quite fortunately, our own next chapter involves travel, and these friends now live in a really, really cool place to visit.

The Sprint, part 2 – What stays the same

Our most essential piece of travel gear is our contact list. It includes family (yup, Sue’s cousins are half of it…), friends and other people we’ve met over the years or along the way who meet stringent criteria – fun, stay in touch, we’d rather hug than shake hands. We love stopping by to visit people, becoming temporary neighbors while keeping in touch when we travel.

Although we had to narrow the range a bit during the sprint (remember when we visited Howard because he was only 4 days away?), and shorten the visits, we did manage four totally awesome stops.