B*** Attack!

As soon as I knew I was going to move to Alaska, I started looking for rivers around Anchorage to check if I was going to be able to satisfy my white water addiction.  The first significant stream I found on the map was the Eagle River, flowing through... Eagle River (how original) located about 20 minutes north of Anchorage.  I was especially curious to know if this river offered attainment opportunities.

On Sunday I decided to head towards Eagle River to finally discover what could potentially become a new playground for me.  I had seen a 9-mile easy hike that was following the south fork of the river up to two glacial lakes: Eagle Lake and Symphony Lake. The trail seemed to be a mountain superhighway, flat for the most part and meandering in an open glacial landscape, meaning that I would get good view of my surroundings all the way up.  This would be perfect for recuperating from the hike I did the previous day.

I parked at the trail head, thinking that I probably would not need my bear spray for that one.  I took it anyway but left it in my backpack.  I got out of the car and checked out a nearby bulletin board.  Aside from a map and other postings, I found a post that convinced me that keeping that pepper spray handy probably was not a bad idea (see picture below).

Let's keep the bear spray at hand, shall we?

 I started hiking, keeping an eye and ear out to make sure I would not walk on a little fury friend around a corner.  That morning, the air was heavy with smoke because of the wild forest fires I mentioned in earlier posts.  It smelled like wood fire and the air was so hazy that the mountains in the background were hardly discernible. 

Looking at the rounded tops that were surrounding me, I could not help a mental fast forward and project myself in that very place, a few months in the future and equipped with my telemark gear.  I would skin up these smooth then snow covered slopes, and float down in a succession of nice turns that would leave a perfectly even track in the freshy and reward me with cold face shots of light powder.  **Aaaah!!! Blisssss!!**

But let us get back to our hike for now...

 So it was flat, open, smokey, a bit smelly and very pretty.

Smoky skies

I hiked and hiked and hiked, until I made it to a first tiny lake. 

First tiny lake

 I chatted with a couple who had spent the night by that lake and learned that I was only about 45 minutes from my destination.  As I kept walking, the ground became more wet and muddy.  I must have been getting closer.  After about 30 more minutes of walking, a little stream materialized and Symphony Lake finally appeared in the background.

Arriving to Symphony Lake

The lake was a clear light green color that made it very tempting to jump in. Well, I did not... I was not exactly alone there and I had not brought my water-wings.  So I had a quick lunch and decided to walk around the area, which without that lake and the blue sky would have looked like the harshest and most unfriendly forsaken place one could imagine.  As far as I could see, was a jumble of large granite rocks; basically a huge moraine.

Lunch by Symphony Lake in the heart of a large moraine.

 

 As I was walking, two screaming seagulls flew probably less than a foot from my head.  "Kewl!" I thought watching the birds immediately turned around and came back towards me.  "Wow!! That was close!" I thought as I instinctively ducked to avoid the two seagulls who were once again flying amazingly close.  I had not finished my thought that "WOOSH!! WOOSH!!", the screeching birds almost hit me again.  They were so close I could not only hear but also feel the air displacement.  This time there was no more doubt... I was under attack!!!  The two birds were literally diving on me.  I have to say that made me a little nervous.  I could not really move as they did not let me any time to step.  All I could do was duck!  They were FAST!
I figured they probably had a nest close by but where? I could not tell.  So I moved in one direction, almost walking on all fours, trying to avoid my assailants and not get my eyes plucked out.  They calmed down almost immediately, allowing me to stand up and look around.  That is when I understood the cause of all the fuss.  Mommy seagull was right there, 15 or 20 yards in front of me, sitting on her nest, looking like nothing at happened.

Can you spot Mommy Seagull?

I snapped a picture from as close as I could get without arousing the wrath of the blood thirsty birds. 

NOW you can spot Mommy Seagull, can't you?

Little did I know that my first Alaskan wild life close encounter would be with a couple of angry birds!? :)

After talking about the incident with a colleague of mine her reaction was: "OOOH MY GOOOD!! I completely forgot to tell you about that!  This can happen in town too!!  Sometimes they come out of nowhere and start attacking you in the street!!"

OK, I got it.  In Anchorage, you can get mauled by a bear, run into a moose and... get your eyes plucked out by seagulls.  Aside from that, this is a very friendly city.


In any case, I walked back to my car and in the parking lot, found the following sign:

So yes, coming back in the winter might not be a bad idea, but that would not be without A.V. gear and a solid avalanche training.  Skis and skins only would obviously not cut it.

Once again, I finished my hike with 8 hours of daylight ahead of me.  Right now, we are gaining over 3 minutes of daylight a day.  So I decided to drive to the main branch of the Eagle river and explore its surroundings.  I found a river that I think should be pretty good for attainments, even if I could not see very much of it.  It is broad, deep enough and without too much gradient.

Put-in/take out on the Eagle River

Mental note: "RAPIDS AHEAD  KAYAK PUT-IN HERE"

 I ended up my Eagle River escapade by driving around town and stopping by Mirror Lake, right by the highway before driving back to the city.

Mirror Lake

Nothing like some quality time in the outdoors to recharge the batteries before a new week of work.

Breaking a sweat

Falls Creek

I have been here for a week and even though the weather has be superb -sun and blue bird skies- the temperatures have not broken above about 65 degrees F so "breaking a sweat" required a little bit of effort. My little solo hike of the day did the job.

In the past week, all the driving around to find an apartment and a car prevented me to get any exercise at all. I had been sitting on my butt so much that I felt like I started to grow roots... and also to get a little insane.  It was time to get moving and at the same time to explore the great outdoors.

Since I had a late start, I picked a hike close to Anchorage: Falls Creek trail.  I drove 15 minutes to the trail-head and with no idea of what to expect, I started hiking. 

It was nice and cool... and also very steep.  The trail followed a creek from the start, located by the road next to Turnagain Arm, all the way to its source, about 6 miles up and 3,000 ft above.

The creek was a great companion all the way up, except unlike me, it did not have to worry about going up but only to happily keep tumbling downstream.  Because of its steep gradient, the trail rapidly led me above tree line.  I was immediately rewarded with a spectacular view on a V-shaped valley guarded by tall peaks.

Arriving above tree line

I was so enthralled by what laid before me that I almost forgot to turn around.  Fortunately I remembered looking back and captured a stunning view of Turnagain Arm.  The view was still hazy because of the smoke produced by the wild fires that had started 5 days ago, and which were still not contained.  Because of temperature inversions, Anchorage had been waking up in a cloud of smoke every morning for the past week. Cough! Cough!

Turnagain Arm from the trail

 As I kept going up, the pitch of the trail tapered off and the a broader U-shaped valley opened up, revealing a landscape of glacial origin.

Northern reindeer lichen

I admired many different species of plants and flowers, the most of amazing of which was a thick lichen-like specimen (apparently called "Northern reindeer lichen") covering large areas with snow-white and fluffy patches.  I obviously have a lot to learn on Alaskan botany!

Narcissus

About an hour and a half into the hike, I had to cross my first patch of snow. No fresh tracks were to be seen: obviously, nobody had walked this trail recently. It was neither steep nor difficult but the trail was nowhere to be found on the other side of the patch.  So I decided to simply follow the creek straight up. 

My guide on the last leg of my hike.

At times, the stream would disappear under snow, at others, it would spread itself into a thin film of water gliding over rocks.  I was obviously getting closer to the source as it seemed like the stream had not had a chance to cut its bed, yet. Instead, it was wandering around, as if looking for depressions in the landscape that would lead him to its definite path to the sea.

Last stretch before the source of Falls Creek.

My efforts were rewarded beyond expectations as I arrived in a gorgeous funnel-shaped bowl protected by high peaks.  The bowl, that was supposed to shelter the lake that is the source of Falls Creek, was still snowed in. 

Snowed-in lake - Source of Falls Creek

I found a nice comfortable rock and sat down for a few minutes listening to the silence. I figured the encasement of the place would probably make for a great echo.  I let go a yodel to give it a try and in return, got one of the best echoes I have ever experienced, one being on Horse Shoe Mesa in the Grand Canyon and the other (which I think can never be beaten) is at Echo Park on the Yampa river.

Once the silence returned, I let it sink in.  I enjoyed the solitude of the place. I had not experienced that level of remoteness in a while.  I sometimes crave it and at least now I know that around here, I will always be able to find it whenever I want to.  There seems to be a plethora of far away places to choose from only minutes from Anchorage.

After savoring a juicy apple, I took one last look around and started to tumble down... not literally but almost. On the steep parts of the trail, I got the urge to run rather than walk. So I did.  What took me 2.5 hrs on the way up took me just over an hour on the way down.  I made it back to my car at 3 pm, which meant that I STILL HAD 8 HOURS OF DAYLIGHT ahead of me! YOOHOO!!! Let's start the second part of the day!!!


Girdwood and Alyeska

Since I still had a full day in front of me, I decided to drive to Girdwood, a little town located 45 min South of Anchorage and also the location of Alyeska, the big ski resort especially famous for offering the best heli-skiing in the US.



I drove along Turnagain Arm, stopping here and there to watch the scenery and read the various educational boards that were planted along the highway.  I read about native culture, beluga whales, salmon...etc.  It is true you learn something every day!





At some point, I spotted a bunch of SUPers in the water so I pulled over to to find the parking spot markers spray-painted with some words of wisdom: SURF OR GO HOME.  I think I am going to get along just fine with some of the people who live around here.



The SUPers were sitting on their boards.  I could not say they were baking in the sun, it was only about 60 degrees and the water was probably much colder than that.  They might have been waiting for the bore tide, but that would have meant soaking in that water for at least three more hours.  Burrr!

SUPers in Turnagain Arm

I finally pushed to Girdwood and Alyeska.

I'll be baaack... in the winter

Girdwood, originally named Glacier City, is surrounded by no less than seven permanent glaciers, which seem to attract crowds.  I decided to come back at some point to explore the area and of course to get a little taste of Alyeska in the summer.

Despite all that daylight still available, I realized that I was more tired than I thought and decided to go back to the city.  The sun setting at 11+ pm makes it very tempting to stay up until 12 or 1 am but this is already starting to catch up to me! But now is the time to make up for the dark winter days to come!  

MUST-SOAK-SUN-NOW!

First week at work

Monday May 19!!  
First day in my new job with the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services, Division of Public Health.  I am excited about this new position which corresponds to what I have been wanting to do for years.  I simply thought there would never be an actual job out there corresponding to what I really wanted to do.  Never say never!  This job seemed like it was especially designed for me.  That made it a tiny bit easier to "step that step" and make the decision to leave the DC area.

So there we go!  Time to go to the office!  Apparently, there is "no dress code"!? Wow!  That is a change!  But let us not push it and show up in jeans on day 1.

Right away, I sense a relaxed and healthy atmosphere.  Ali who hired me and with whom I have been talking on the phone quite a bit comes and greets me.  He introduces me to a few colleagues and everybody is very welcoming and smiley.  The office space seems a bit crammed and I am thinking about my nice window office in DC.  It is very unlikely I will get such a nice space here... We walk around the office and suddenly: "This is your office" says Ali pointing at a space with too much furniture, a big pillar in a corner, an even bigger window and one heck of a view on the Chugach mountains!! Wow!  I want to stick my nose at the window and just look outside for a while.  But no time for that... a huge pile of new hire paperwork is waiting for me.

View from my new office

Immediately after the administrative formalities are taken care of (or most of them), I get a feel of what the job is going to be like. First, we receive a phone call from someone suspecting their kid's seizures were due to asphalt vapor exposure.  Then we go to a meeting at the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium where many health issues are discussed with different public health professionals.  The following day, I will also attend various meeting where acronyms of all sorts fly back and forth, making me feel like everybody is speaking a foreign language.

Tyonek and the Kenai peninsula are on fire!
Another public health issue is due to some wildfires that started on Monday in the Tyonek area located West of Anchorage on the Cook Inlet, as well as the Kenai peninsula.  On Wednesday, my colleague Ali gave a TV interview to provide recommendations to the public about how to handle potential adverse effects caused by the smoke but nothing was really obvious in Anchorage.  On Thursday morning, I woke up wondering if my hotel was on fire.  The skies seemed overcast, the mountains were barely visible and the air was hardly breathable.  At the office, the fires were and are the hot topic.  Everybody is working on press releases, website updates and various communications to minimize the population exposure.  witnessing the crisis management from the inside is quite interesting. 

These fires could not be contained right away because of the thick smoke and they expanded extremely fast.  In Tyonek, they grew from 1,000 acres on Monday to 20,000 by Tuesday night and almost 45,000 acres on Wednesday.  Wildfires were the last thing I was expecting in Alaska! But I hear they happen often and can be quite devastating.

First Weekend in Anchorage

 I had two long days before starting my new job and I decided to put that time to good use to get my bearings and soak in the feel of the city.

Saturday fun
The first thing I saw as I got out of my hotel was a large mountain chain towering over the city in a clear blue sky.  It was true: wilderness is right at Anchorage's door steps. Driving around for only a few minutes also made the word "city" sound like an overstatement as I felt I was in a large town more than a metropolitan area. I drove through the tiny downtown (about 10x20 blocks) and bumped into a stunning view on a large expense of mud flats with in the background some enormous snow covered peaks that turned out to be the Alaska range.  This was a strange sight: the smell of the sea made the mountains seem out of place and the fact that a 180 turn on my heels had me face the skyscrapers of downtown Anchorage was also very peculiar.

View on the Alaska Range, two minutes from downtown.

 Later on, a lazy stroll took me from one surprise to the other:

• Chocolate covered bacon, 
• Hand-made knives, especially the famous Alaskan Ulu
• Fur stores everywhere 
• Easy access to fire arms
• Reindeer sausage
• People wearing flip-flops and tank-top in 60 degrees F (about 15 C)
• Overheard in the street: "Woow! It is so warm today!" while I was zipping up my light down jacket.
• A woman mauled by a bear in town a few days ago on her morning jog
• Camping in town?!?
• ...etc.

 So yes, this place is different, to say the least.

Oh! And you can camp in town here!



Mural about the Iditarod

I also noticed an obvious Alaskan pride and a slight rivalry between Alaska and Texas that made me smile.

In the evening. I drove about 20 min South of town to see the bore tide (one of the largest in the world), a huge wave or series of waves that advance down Turnagain Arm in a wall of water up to 10-feet high (It was far from being that big on Saturday). The wave can also reach speeds of 10 to 15 miles per hour. It takes not just a low tide but almost a 30-foot tidal differential (between high and low tide) for a bore to form in Turnagain Arm.  Lucky me, on Saturday, the tide had the largest differential it had had in weeks and also the largest it would have until the end of June.  So I could not miss the opportunity to witness this great natural phenomenon.




Mark my words: this time, I saw the tidal bore from shore but soon enough I will see it from my kayak, hopefully in a 3-mile/15 min-long surf.  I cannot wait!

Here is a video I found of the tidal bore here in Anchorage.




Tidal Bore from Bird Ridge

Sunday, house hunting

Strolling in the street of Anchorage was fun but I could not forget I had two weeks to find a place to stay and a car.  It was time to get down to business.  I spent hours on Craigslist in complete denial of what I was seeing... and that was on a computer screen.  I quickly realized that finding a decent place at a decent price was going to be challenging.

Visiting a few apartments confirmed my fears. I found a lot of overpriced run down, crappy, dirty places in sketchy parts of town, starting to think that DC housing was not so expensive after all.  It was a bit tough to think that I had left a home I loved in Virginia to rent a dump that was going to cost me an arm and a leg.

Admittedly, by the end of the day on Sunday, I hit a little low.  But after thinking about it for a while, I decided to let go of my expectations and simply go with what was there, even if it meant spending more than I would have liked.  After all, here I was, in that remote place, far away from friends and family and not knowing anybody, so finding a place that would feel like home was rather crucial.  It was all going to be OK.

From DC to Anchorage

Cheechako: n. From the Chinook jargon: chee (“new, lately”) +‎ chako (“to come, to arrive”).  Someone new to Alaska or the Yukon. Originally a reference to the Gold Rush newcomers.

Thursday May 14, 2014:  Everything changed.
After 7 years in the DC area, I left behind my dear friends, my home, and overall a life I enjoyed very much to move to Anchorage, AK.

Goodbye time in DC. I am going to miss my Youts.

The several weeks I spent preparing my move (renting my place, finding a company to ship my belongings, selling my car...etc) were rather hectic and the D-Day arrived very fast.  I flew from DC to Denver where I visited friends in a 30-hour blitz trip before flying to Anchorage.

In DC, the difficult goodbyes had made very tangible the idea I was leaving "for good".  But at the Denver airport, reality hit me again.  Usually, leaving Denver meant flying back home.  But this time around, I was going to a completely unknown place.

 The five-hour flight was uneventful... strange.  Things usually do not go as planned... At 1 am, I pick up my rental car, drive to my hotel, only about 5-10 min from the airport and even find it easily. Hmm... this was way too normal.  I ring at the door... I ring again, and again... and again.  Finally someone picks up the intercom:
-- Yes?
--  I have a reserva...
-- No you don't!
Ah... complications... that is more like it. After a short dialogue over the intercom, the receptionist finally opens the door and surprisingly switches to "helpful-mode".  She starts calling other Mariotts in the area to make sure I am at the right place and finally we realize that the person who made my reservation 1) misspelled my name and 2) booked me for the next day.
I am told I cannot get a room and I am starting to picture myself spending the night in my fancy rental car, which would not be so bad as I am exhausted and ready to crash.  Finally, she decides that she can take me as a "guest in distress", which is not exactly true but close enough as I am on the verge of passing out in exhaustion. I gladly accept the excessive charge to my credit card and go up to my room.  Finally! Time to close my eyes and sleep! I sink in a sea of pillow, relax... I am going... sleep is coming... is it?  Soon... it will... maybe.... or not.  30 min go by, 1 hr goes by and here I am wide awake again.  It is now 3 am, which is 7 am DC time.  I am usually up and running at that time!  With bad TV in the background, I start reflecting on the past weeks, days and hours and finally drift in a heavy sleep.  What a ride! And it is only the beginning.