Alaska's heartland

To begin with... I love the outdoors, but I could not live in Alaska. Have increasing respect for those who can. Brutal winters, and summers which are not always so nice. Even the cities seem quite remote from civilization.

Yet the outdoors realm is amazing. Fishing, berry-picking, mushroom-picking, hunting. All-natural food.

First stop in Alaska was Sewart. About 3 hours south-ish from Anchorage on the water. Went on two day trips on the water which were magnificent. First one just on a boat along the shoreline. Saw sea-lions, sea otters, seals, bald eagles, puffins, humpback whals, killer whales and much much more. Magnificent. I was most excited though by the amazing scenery and the glaciers. Their magnitude is just... astranomical. I will post pictures later but the pieces falling off of one of them into the ocean take quite a while to fall and create giant waves. This is the strength of mother-nature. The magnitude. Everything in Alaska is about magnitude.

The next leg took us over to Denali National Park. This is what everyone says is the 'must-do' in Alaska. McKinley is indeed amazing. The mountain stands above all others. I can't stay this is one of my favorite parks at all... but it is impressive. The greatest thing about it is that so few people can get there - the road to get there is long and then private cars cannot be driven in the park. This makes the land be very untouched. On the other hand... you are dependent on being around people when going long distances on the bus which is not pleasant when trying to have more of a one-on-one relationship with nature. But then they are great for the most part on stopping for wildlife sightings. Moose, caribou, bears, swans. I really want to see some mountain goats though! Hope to catch some later.

The one thing that we were no prepared for is fire. There are many forest fires burning in the area. This is normal and great for the forest... but quite a few now. The smoke has gone across a massive area. Our trip to Denali was cut short as we came to our campground and found it to be in a giant cloud of smoke. The nose got used to it by the middle of the night, but it makes wildlife and mountains hard to see. So headed out of the park a day early and are now in Fairbanks... where the smoke is still present. Hoping for some rain in the next couple of days so the smoke goes away, but for now will try some close-range-seeing activities.