NUTELLA at EXIT GLACIER

If you were wondering if in our Alaska trip we went to hike also some glacier, the answer is yes. We did it and we loved it. The first hike we did was this one. 7 hours round trip hike to the top of Exit glacier. Exit glacier is one of the glaciers that forms the "Harding icefield". The icefield is absolutely enormous (if you have the chance check it on a map) and it is located in the Kenai Fjords National Park ...From far away Exit glacier it pretty big, but when you go to the visitor center you realize how much it did melt in the last 200 years ... sad to think that most likely all of tis is due to the CO2 that ou society is creating everyday ...The hike has been really nice. We had a lot of fun, but we had also some moment where we were really tired. As any hike and any important achievement in life, it has been a mix of pain, sweat and glorious views ... here some pictures ...... and of course like any great achievement, we felt like celebrating. We decided to celebrate with Nutella, the best of the mood lifters ... especially if you eat it from your finger ... yummy ... ... and on the way back to our car we went to see also the bottom of the glacier ... very nice and very accessible, something like 15 minutes roundtrip flat walk from the parking lot ...... not sure why we took a 7 hours roundtrip steep hike to see the same glacier ... maybe because we wanted to enjoy more our Nutella ... :D

RESURRECTION BAY MOONRISE

This is an other incredible beauty of our Alaska trip. A moon rise over the Resurrection Bay mountains in Seward, AK ... my picture picture doesn't quite capture the beauty of the moment, but still it is worth to share, I think ...

WILD ALASKA SALMONS

Salmons and Alaska are two words that are perfectly matching in the naive imagination of a urban animal like me. But during this Alaska trip I didn't really plan any "special visit" to creeks where the salmons are running to lay their eggs. But something that I did learn during this trip, is that in Alaska you don't really need to go to any national park to see wildlife. So this is what happened. We were driving in the Kenai peninsula and on the road we saw a sing "Salmon Watching (June - September)". The place was just few miles out of Seward, AK. Curious, we decide to U-Turn and just 50 meters from the main road we found something amazing ... Sockeye salmons, AKA red salmons, running in a tiny creek ... something I saw only in TV before ... and believe me ... there is nothing like watching wildlife in its environment ...
... and again the most amazing thing to me was that this creek was so close to the main road. Really incredible Alaska. But at that point something that we didn't expect start happening. The salmons once they had lay their eggs, just died one after the other. I knew from books and TV documentary that this is the way it goes, but watching die in front of me these huge salmons it is something that really made a huge impression n me. You know you are there watching these incredibly strong fishes ... and bang ... they lay on a side and they just die ...... but to balance the disappointment you can feel watching the death of these incredible animals,you can see spots in the creek full of small salmons (the scientific name is fry), which are probably just few weeks old and probably eating of the rotten bodies of the dead fishes ...
... the circle of birth, life and death in a small creek ... the ecosystem ... explained like nobody was able to explain to me with tons of books ... probably all of us, should take more camping trips to really appreciated the fact that we are just animals in this planet ... and we don't have any right to destroy all the ecosystems, just because they are not convenient to us ...

HOPE, Alaska

Hope, Alaska is an other incredible village / town we have visited during our Alaska trip. It is in the Kenai peninsula and to me it is probably the most memorable of all the villages we have visited. Don't misunderstand me, it is not ah hidden NYC. It is tiny. Incredibly tiny. At first sight it is not a beauty. But it has a lot of character. According to Wikipedia Hope has only 165 inhabitants, but believe me ... they will be difficult to forget, if you will meet any. They are very proud of their small jewel and they will tell you for sure something about Hope, AK or will do something for you. And it will just make it harder to forget this place. This are the the five (that's it, no kidding) buildings in the downtown ...... and these are the outskirts of downtown. I mean you just need to walk 200 yards, and you are out of "downtown". Really an amazing collection of beauties. Difficult to find anywhere else ...This is the drive thru Coffee Shop. Unfortunately it was closed ...... and this is the local cloths shop. Really really interesting ...... and of course we went also for some hiking. We started the hike pretty late. Something like 7PM. Sunset is around 10PM. So we thought enough time. Until we saw the cub of the bear something like 50 meters away. And we did a prompt and straight U turn and we did come back pretty fast ... an interesting experience ...... and surprise surprise ... downtown had a pretty interesting nightlife ... the nite we were there there was a concert in the bar ...

BEARS eat SALMONS

In my mind I always associated Alaska with salmons. And with bears. And with bears eating salmons. But while I did prepare this trip, the more I read about Alaska and the more I realized that I was not going to see anything like this in the route I decided to take during this trip. When suddenly one day almost at sunset, while we were driving from Ninilchik, AK to Hope, AK we saw a couple of cars on the shoulder of the road and people looking with binoculars on the other bank of the river. We realized there was probably some animal. So we did stop as well. U turned. Upset a couple of local drivers. And we went to see our self. And we found this. A couple of cubs eating an enormous salmon and a flock of seagulls waiting for the left overs...... the scene was absolutely wild. I really loved it. Especially because it was completely unexpected. This is one of the beauties of Alaska. In order to see wildlife you don't really need to go in National Parks. Actually I heard stories that there are more bears around Anchorage than in Denali NP. So ... whatch out where you store the food if you drive around Anchorage ... :)

ALASKA RAINBOW

I have to admit that the last thing that I thought i was going to see in Alaska was a rainbow. Pretty silly, I guess. You don't need a warm weather for that. Just some rain and some sun. This is what happen the other day while we were driving. A light rain, and bang, one of the most incredible rainbow I saw in my life. Here a picture that is giving an idea of the rainbow ...... I hope you can appreciated the red color of the sky under the rainbow. Personally I have never seen anything like this before.

NINILCHIK, Alaska

After Homer, Alaska we drove north and we headed to Ninilchik, Alaska. An other small little fishing village. Ninilchik has a very nice Russian Orthodox church. And this reminds you that Alaska has a pretty young life as US state. It is actual a state only since 1959. Before that was a US territory. And before that it was Russian. Finally a little bit of History also in US. Here is the way the village is describing itself ...... and these are few pictures from the Russian Orthodox Church, the village itself and the harbor. It is really strange to spend half a day in such a small village. But I guess this is what Alaska is all about. We are used to live in cities which are way too big and way too convoluted for us, and when we get in small and simple villages we found our self suddenly unprepared ... here are some nice pictures that I took today ...This is the Russian Orthodox Church, with the annexed cimitery. The curch was locked, when we visited it, so we didn't have the chance to visit it inside ...... but of course the best part of a trip, and of our life, are the people that we meet. And in Ninilchik we met two very nice guys. Ted from Seattle and Captain Charlie from Forida. Funny enough Tina & Captain Charlie have the same birthday. In the picture they are holding and proudly showing their photo ID while they are celebrating with some cookie...