The Butte

The Butte seems like someplace we should visit since we lived on Crested Butte. Anyway it was a steep hike up 800 ft in just over a mile. It was located in Palmer, AK about an hour north of Anchorage. The trail was very dense with brush. It had an interesting rubber honey comb type mat to prevent the trail from being to slippery. I guess it helped somewhat but it was so steep, I wished I could just slide down. The view from the top was very pretty and extremely windy. We could see Knik Glacier,
several mountain ranges including Talkeetna and Chugach and the Matanuska River. It was located near Bodenburg Loop Road.

Do you believe in Reindeer?

We usually don't do the tourist trap things, but this Reindeer Farm was sort of fun. We got to feed the reindeer out of our hands. They only have back molars and bottom teeth on front and knew vcry well how to be hand fed. You just put out your hand and they licked it out. When the food was gone, just hold out your hand and they can see it is empty so they don't bother you. Their large antlers are not to be touched as they are very sensitive. They fall off each years and grow back. Sometimes they grow as much as seven inches in a day. Both males and females get antlers.

There were also those cute little elk that looked like deer. Somehow they reminded me of camel! There was also an elk which didn't look too big to me. It was fun.

July 20, 2010

I can't believe it, the leaves are beginning to fall today!

Kayaking Cooper's Landing to Jim's Landing.

This was a fun, exciting event. Mostly class III river, I didn't know if I could do it, but once you are on the river there is no turning back! We floated 12 miles in two hours. Sometimes we hit standing waves (continuous waves) about 2 feet tall. The spray skirts kept us mostly dry. I had read about the "danger spot", Preacher's rock in my guidebook about a third of the way through, but that really wasn't a big deal because the river was very wide at all points. After that point I began to relax about the river. The river was moving very swiftly. It was cold, glacial water. The most amazing thing was that is was sea green. It was very different from other river water colors.

There were many, many fisherman on the river in deeper boats with paddles, no motors. Also where the Russian River comes in there were many fisherman standing in the river in waders. Even children had waders and were quite excited about their adventure. I think they were fishing for Kings. I am learning a whole new vocabulary here. Types of salmon are kings, sockeye, chum, and silvers. Each type also has a nickname, Reds, humpys, etc. Also people dip-net. Which is a huge net about five feet across that they try to catch fish by hand and are quite successful. We were talking to a fisherman at the takeout point and he told me he could tell by the color of the fish if they were past their prime flavor and let one of his catch go. Also in the river, near the Russian River spot that was so crowded was a fish cleaning table. Of course it makes sense for people to clean the fish and let the trash float down the river.

AK Square Dance Festival/ Kenai River Classic

The weekend of July 11 was fairly busy for us. Don went on a classic fishing trip. This was an annual event which typically draws politicians and corporate management from around the country. In total there were 160 fishermen and women for a two day extravaganza on the Kenai River. Each boat had a professional guide. In total only 5 fish were caught by the whole crew! What a disappointment. They were trying to get "reds" salmon. It must have been off time by a few days this year and this fish had not yet begun to run.


The square dance festival was a success with dancers from all over the state. It was still a small crowd of about 8 squares. Don missed some of it because of his fishing trip, but I went and danced with other men.

You know you are in AK when....part 2

all of the school basketball courts double as an ice hockey rink!
your house has no air conditioner, but you have a second furnace for the garage.
you see the 4th of July fireworks at 11:45 and it is still dusk.
the roads have ridges, (supposedly from the studded tires.)
your windshield has a crack (fortunately not ours yet.)
the fireplugs have a pole extended so they can be seen in the winter.
the locals have more state pride than Texans.
when people say they are going "outside" it means outside of AK.

Kayak at Lake Eklutna: Where is my sherpa?

Day two of kayaking. we decided that as long as we already had the kayaks on the car we would try another spot. I had read about Lake Ekluta State Park as a great lake to kayak. There is also a bike trail there. It was a beautiful place once we got on the lake. The bad part was a downhill climb of about 200 yards from the road to the lake which also meant uphill on the way back. The boats weigh about 65 pounds and we had to carry together. When we got on the lake it was perfectly smooth and gorgeous. There were almost no other boats on the lake. It could only be non-motor boats there. We paddled for about two and a half hours in total. After a period of time the winds picked up on the way back and there were small waves to fight. In addition there is a small river which feeds into the north end so we were fighting a current. I was paddling so hard at one point that I felt like I was on a people mover trying to move in the wrong direction. A large rock about fifty or so feet long was on the mountain side and somehow I couldn't seem to make an distance on it despite my best efforts. Don said I paddled for ten minutes without a break. I was getting concerned if I quit paddling, the wind would blow be backwards. We agreed not to go there again, if we there is not another put in site, because it was too hard to carry that far.

Much later that night we decided to see the Anchorage fireworks. We parked at our old B&B, and walked a block to a nearby park to see the fireworks. It was shown at 11:45 and still just dusk! The show was pretty good.

First Kayak

This was our first kayak trip in
Alaska. The first project was to mount the kayaks on a new car with new racks. I wish I was stronger and taller. We had to lift the kayaks on the rack which was over my head! I am basically weak so Don did most of the job with my task not to let it hit the new car. I think we are mastering the technique on that.

We had a plan where we were going to kayak about an hour south of Anchorage. On the way there I noticed a sign that said next gas 85 miles, we did not have enough to get there and back so we decided to change the location. We had seen kayakers near a particular area we decided to try a small river. However after we unloaded the kayaks we discovered it was only a small, but pretty pond! It led to a small creek, but that was not good for kayaking either because it was too shallow with rocks and trees to get stuck on.

Earlier we had attended a class at REI on safe paddling and the instructor said to dress for the water temp about 40 degrees, not the air. I wore my wet suit, rain pants, boots, a fleece, a shirt and a rain jacket and a life jacket. I did not get cold. We also purchased spray skirts (little devices that fit over the opening of the kayak) to keep us warm and dry.

It was fun and tiring. At least we escaped the boxes for a while.

Move in- UGH

Fri July 2, 406 tags including boxes and furniture. The only thing I can say is to compare it to childbirth. If we remembered how much work it was, we wouldn't do it again!