Ferry to Washington; Washington and Oregon

I made my last post shortly after I got off the ferry in Washington. As I mentioned in that post, I boarded the ferry in Haines, AK on September 7th. The trip from Haines to Bellingham, WA takes about four days. I got on the ferry on a Monday evening and got off on a Friday morning.

The boat that makes the trip to Washington is the M/V Columbia, which is run by the Alaska Marine Highway System. Most people on the ferry get cabins, but they sell out before the boat is full. There are a few choices for those who don’t get cabins. A few folks sleep in the TV lounge. Most people sleep on lounge chairs in the solarium, which is a covered area on the top deck of the boat. And some pitch tents on the deck. Once again I chose the latter.

This was home for four nights! Note the large quantity of duct tape used in place of stakes.

Here's a glimpse of what the solarium looks like. This is one of the guys I was hanging out with a good bit on the trip. He was one of the other Marks. There were three of us who were hanging out on the boat, which made it easy to remember names.

Days were spent enjoying the views, and looking for whales and other wildlife. Once the sun went down we often found ourselves in the bar.

This is Mike buying what we would later learn was one of the last pitchers of beer on the boat. Can you believe they ran out of beer?

We saw quite a few whales, but they were usually pretty far away. A few times we mistook driftwood for whales. I didn’t get any great whale pics, but I got a few decent fluke shots.

There were four guys on the ferry who were taking their classic Thunderbirds on a long road trip. Last year was the lower 48; this year was Alaska. They’re debating whether Hawaii is worth it. (I bet they go for it. They've made it to 49 states, and it doesn't seem that time or money is much of a concern for these guys.)

And here are a few other pictures from the ferry.

Once I got to Bellingham, I grabbed a delicious breakfast with some of my ferry friends. Then we bid one another farewell and I headed down to Seattle where I stayed with my friends Colleen and Eric. They were out of town when I first arrived but they were kind enough to let me stay at their apartment anyway. I had a pretty lazy weekend, doing some touristy stuff like checking out the Pike Place Market and the Space Needle. Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was in town to give a few speeches. Colleen and I attended one in which she focused on the sad state of education on civics and government in our nation’s schools. If you're bored and want to see one of the initiatives she's involved with to help improve the situation, check out www.ourcourts.org. They've even got civics video games!

Fuzzy pic of Sandra Day O'Connor.

Sunset from Colleen and Eric's apartment.

After leaving Seattle I headed to Portland for a quick visit, including lunch with my friend Kate who recently moved there. Then it was on to Corvalis, Oregon to see Sylvan, an old friend from high school, and his girlfriend Sarah. Then it was on to Bend, Oregon. My friend Jonathan lives there with his wife Sarah. We went climbing at Smith Rock a couple of times. Jonathan and Sarah were so hospitable that I ended up staying in Bend a little longer than I planned. I kept planning to leave “tomorrow”, but, as we know, tomorrow is always a day away. In fact, I’m still in Bend. Perhaps I’ll leave tomorrow. We shall see. My plan is still to head down to Yosemite before too much longer.

Here are a few pictures from our climbing trips to Smith Rock.

Jonathan insisted in being in every picture. And I think he's flexing his bicep in every picture ever taken of him.
The spire in the background is Monkey's Face, which is what we climbed on our first day at Smith.

Me looking out the monkey's mouth. (If you look at the picture of the spire above you can see the mouth. It's the large opening on the right side.)

Me! I wonder if Jonathan can use Photoshop to fix my facial expression and give me a haircut.

View from the top of the first pitch of a new climb at Smith.

Jonathan and Sarah at one of the belays.

Gorgeous self-portrait of the happy climbers at the top of the route.

And now we gotta get back down! Jonathan starting the rappel.

Silhouette of Smith Rock.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading!

Valdez and Haines, AK

After leaving Wrangell-St. Elias National Park I drove south to Valdez. It’s a short drive that’s packed with views of glaciers and waterfalls. 

Bridal Veil Falls

Horsetail Falls

When I got to Valdez I encountered a familiar problem--rain and fog. I really couldn’t see much of anything in town. The next day I started the drive back to Haines, where I would catch the ferry. I arrived in Haines about a month ago, greeted by a thick fog. So I didn’t spend much time around Haines the first time through. Because of the fog I had no idea what I was missing. I went for a nice one-night hike near town. A pictures from the hike are below. 

All the rain the area gets means they get some crazy looking fungus!

It was raining much of the first day of the hike, but I did get some nice views when the fog cleared. 

And on the second day it was clear and the views were gorgeous!

The following pictures are from Peak 3920 (elevation, you guessed it, 3920 feet).

And these are from Mt. Ripinski.

Looking down at the town of Haines. 

The next day I went for a bike ride along one of the roads that leads out of town, up the Lutek Inlet (which is the turquoise body of water on the left in the above pictures) to the  the Chilkoot River and Chilkoot Lake. The river is full of salmon swimming upstream to the lake, which is a major spawning area. 

The first cool thing I saw was this eagle. It was perching in a tree and started to fly as soon as I got my camera out. I had the camera on some weird setting, so it was quite underexposed, but photoshop helped me turn it into a decent shot. 

Chilkoot Lake

Salmon acrobatics. 

Birds!

And then, as I was riding back down the river toward town, I saw this guy. 

Also, notice the eagle! (This pic and many that follow are quite cropped. They were pretty far away.)

After taking a few pictures of the bear and the eagles, I finished my bike ride, then drove back up to the same area to see if there were more bears. And there were!

This time there were three in the same spot where I saw one earlier. 

This time there were three in the same spot where I saw one earlier. 

And this guy was a little further up the road in the Chilkoot State Park. He was right next to the road, along with lots of gawking tourists and a shotgun-wielding park ranger warning people not too get too close (some of the people seemed like they would have sent their kids up to pet the thing if the ranger wasn’t there).

A ferry on its way to the Haines ferry terminal. 

The next day I got on the ferry, bound for Bellingham, WA! I'm in Bellingham now. The ferry ride was fun, but I'm glad to be back on land after 4 days on the boat. More on the ferry ride in my next post. Next stop is Seattle, then slowly making my way down to Yosemite!

Thanks for reading! 

Wrangell St. Elias National Park

After one night in Anchorage (on my second time through town) I started the drive to Wrangell St. Elias National Park. It’s only a couple hundred miles, but it takes a while because 60 miles are on a nasty gravel road. I didn’t really know what I was going to do in the park. I knew I was going backpacking, and I had a few ideas of places I wanted to go, but I wasn’t sure where to go, so I stopped in the park visitor center. An extremely nice ranger helped me plan my trip. I originially did not plan to fly into the park because of the cost. (It’s especially expensive for one person travelling alone because you have to pay for the whole plane.) So I had planned to hike in somewhere from the road. But the ranger called one of the air taxi services and helped me figure out an itinerary that revolved around flights they were already making for other groups, which brought the price down substantially. The ranger convinced me the only way to really visit the park is to fly in, so that’s what I did! The next morning, I went to the airstrip near McCarthy, met my pilot, and took off, bound for an airstrip near Wolverine Mountain. 

The plane. A Piper Cub 160. 

A few shots from the flight in:

Looking over the pilot’s shoulder as we approached the airstrip. (Yup, that’s all it is, a nice flat stretch of grass.)

The pilot dropped me off, picked up a couple that had spent a few nights there, and he was on his way. 

There they go. I guess I’m on my own. (This trip is definitely taking it up a notch when it comes to being “out there.” I’ve hiked into some fairly remote areas, but I’ve never flown in to a hike before.)

From here I hiked to the Doubtful Creek airstrip. As the crow flies it’s only about 8 miles. The hiking route, however, cuts around a few mountains, so it’s almost 20 miles. I was dropped off on a Friday morning, and was getting picked up on a Monday morning, so I had 3 days to hike. The hiking was pretty strenuous--lots of up and down, thrashing through brush, crossing scree slopes, et cetera, but I didn’t have that much distance to cover, so it wasn’t bad. 

Unfortunately the weather wasn’t great. It rained a lot. It was never a heavy rain, but there was a light, stead rain for much of the trip. This also meant visibility was pretty lousy. 

A bunch of pictures from the hike follow. 

If asked to guess what state this was in, I probably would have guessed Utah long before I guessed Alaska. 

One of many small waterfalls. 

Look! Blue skies! Unfortunately they didn’t last. 

Ice near the terminus of the Nizina Glacier. Like almost all glaciers, it's retreating and it’s left these big chunks behind. 

The Doubtful Creek "airstrip," where I was to be picked up. It's not on the map, and I didn’t know the exact location. My pilot gave me a general idea, but I still had to wander around for a while before I found it. From the air it’s pretty easy to spot, but from the ground it’s easy to miss. 

The fog was pretty thick on Monday morning, so I was a bit worried that my pilot wouldn’t be able to pick me up. I had extra food, so it wouldn’t have been a big deal. But I was ready to go, so I was glad when I saw the plane. 

They brought the big plane this time. He dropped off a group of three who were in for a day hike and took me back to McCarthy. 

A few pics from the flight back:

The Nizina Glacier, from the air. 

I believe that’s the Nizina River. 

Approaching the McCarthy airstrip. At least this looks like an airstrip. (It is gravel, though.) Glad to be back on the ground. (I'd be lying if I said small planes and bush landings don't make me nervous.) What a trip! 

Anyway, that’s all for Wrangell St. Elias. I’m in Valdez right now, spending this rainy, foggy day at the library.