A little of everything

The two bears with Mount McKinley in the backgound - we will share better pics of the mountain later




View of Independence Mine - an abandoned important mining operation located in the Hatcher Pass (Glenn Highway). This also the headwaters of the Sutsina River where I hooked my first king salmon but could not landed after 5 minutes struggling with my 5w rod (too light for this over 12 pound fish)
Visited the Musk Ox Farm on our way to Palmer











Camped at the most incredible place called Blueberry Lake Recreation Area. It sits at the bottom of a plateau surrounded by these beautiful mountains. Camped for 3 days at two different sites. The first one by the lake (where, by the way, I caught 8 graylings). The second site was at the start of a trail leading to the plateau with a 360 degree view of the surrounding peaks.









You can barely see Daria at the site of the second day
Interesting looking duck at the Blueberry Lake (Barrow's Goldeneye) - One day he was fooling around with a female and sort of causing trouble with my fishing!








The drive from Blueberry Lake to Valdez is breathtaking - watch the local "cowboy" with his pistol!













The city of Valdez (still remembered from the oil spill by the Exxon Valdez in 1989) was named in 1790 by a Spanish explorer (how about that!). Today is a central point of the oil industry as the trans-Alaska pipeline that starts 800 miles in Prudhoe Bay ends at the marine terminal at Port Valdez. The fishing industry is also another major source of their economy, both commercial and sport. Halibut fishing is really big.






Daria will follow with more details - I think we are plaaning to come back soon!!

A Chance Encounter on Montana Creek

We have met many wonderful people the last 5700 miles, but this one was by far the most curious! After leaving Denali National Park we headed south we plans on going to Talkeetna which is the staging point for most of the Mt. McKinley climbers. Instead of going into Talkeetna we stayed at a campground on Montana Creek for the night and hopefully Bernardo could get in some fishing. It was overcast and rainy, but of course good conditions for fishing! He went out around 8:30 and returned laughing and speechless. To make another long story shorter, he met these two guys on the river and it turns out they have started a fishing/travel business for Spaniards. Robyn, on the right here, has been coming to Alaska for seven years. Carlos is here for the first time as a guide. He's also a Master flyfishing instructor in Spain. He was trying to convince me he could teach me.....They have built some beautfiul cabins here and Robyn's aunt ( a chef in Spain) is coming to cook for their clients. So, not only are they from Spain, but from La Rioja and not only from La Rioja, but from a small town called Pradejon....where Bernardo's mother was born! What are the chances? Today we are headed back to Talkeetna as they have invited Bernardo to go fishing with them this afternoon. Their clients don't start arriving for another couple of weeks. I'm sure there will be more to follow this story.

Denali National Park (June 1-4)

We boondocked at a campground 29 miles from the entrance to Denali.  This is a view of our RV in the brush from the other side of the river.  We stayed 3 nights and had some awesome adventures.  One day we met some guys from Georgia who stayed up to watch the sunset at midnight.  We just couldn't manage to keep our eyes open.  And the sunrise is 4 hours later!

This is one of the new outhouses at the campground.  Rather fancy for camping, but it's nice to see our tax dollars spent wisely.

On Thursday and Friday we took the green bus deeper into the park.  You've already seen Bernardo's photos of our bear encounters from Thursday.  From this visitor center you can see Mt. McKinley about 30% of the year.  We saw lots of bears on Thursday and Mt. McKinley on Friday.  We consider ourselves very lucky.  Bernardo is standing by a memorial to two moose who lost their lives when their antlers got stuck in battle.  They died together that way, unable to free themselves.

                                                                      Our sentiments.

                                  Relaxing in our borrowed backyard at Teklanika Campground in Denali.

Friday, on our return trip inside the park, we were able to have some great views of Mt.McKinley.  I can really understand why several thousand people try to climb its summit every year.  The success rate is about 40%.  It's not the difficulty of the climb but the weather that prevents many from getting to the top.

The photog doing his thing.  When we returned to our campground on Friday we met a nice couple that were on their way out to this visitor center.  It was late in the afternoon, but he said he likes to go out late in the day to see more wildlife and there are fewer people on the buses.  He's been doing it for 30 years.  To make a very long story shorter, it turns out he's the author of our "bible/guidebook" that we have opened daily on this trip.  They were staying at our campground and invited us over to visit when they got back from their outing.  He was of course thrilled to hear how much we liked his book!  They have a very large RV and even have a piano inside!  His wife is a piano teacher and he plays the saxophone.  He loved Bernardo's pictures of the bears.

                               This is one of many Dall rams in the park.  Bernardo thinks he's smiling.......

The green bus that goes from the visitor center at  Mile 1 to the end of the line at Kantishna (about 89 miles).  Unfortunately, it was only open to mile 63, but still an incredible drive.  No private vehicles are allowed beyond our campground at mile 29.

                                                                      A herd of caribou.

A semi-cloudy view of Mt. McKinley.

Catching Up

We're way behind on this blogging stuff. Bernardo and I have to laugh at how much work this having fun is! Usually, we're up pretty early (around 6) and every task takes much longer than work at home. By the time we fix breakfast, take care of Bessie, clean up ourselves and the RV it's usually around 8 or 9. So, we arrived in Fairbanks on Thursday, May 26 and decided to spend a few days resting, which meant several days fishing, meaning more work! We're glad we brought our screen room....there were a few mosquitoes, though nothing like there will be later in the season. Bessie likes it, too. We were even lazy about taking pictures while at Chena Hot Springs. It's about 65 miles east of Fairbanks with everything from horseback riding, airplane rides and an ice museum, as well as the hot springs. There's a lodge, cabins and campground and a wonderful restaurtant. Vladmir our waiter gave Bernardo some tips on his favorite fishing spots along the Chena river.

Bernardo got several chances for some grayling fishing while at Chena. He caught a 16 inch, which is pretty good size for grayling. Sorry, no picture of the grayling. Bessie and I were inside the RV, reading and resting......

We met a nice couple from Maryland, Ellen and Harry who own an RV similar to ours and also belong to the Navion/View Yahoo group. They recognized our RV and invited us over for wine one evening. On their advice we went to the Alaska History Museum in Fairbanks on the University campus. We're so glad we listened to them. It's a wonderful museum. And Bernardo got to pose with this 8 1/2 foot bear....I don't remember the bear's weight, but he was huge!

This modern outhouse is part of the art exhibit at the museum. I really wish you could see all the trimmings! It's too bad the real things aren't as attractive.

We stayed in Fairbanks one night to catch up on laundry and then off to Denali with a stop on the way at Tatlanika. We've met so many interesting people like Jay, the owner of the campground. He spends 5 months a year in Guatemala and Belize on his boat. We only wish there were more time for longer visits.

A beary special romance

Bear searching

Bear running (really) up the road

Bear crosses road

Bear meeting companion

She is thinking - how is his DNA?

A good match

A perfect match

Baby bears in the spring !!!

What an incredible day! During our first bus tour from Teklanika River Campground we saw 11 grizzlies but the highlight was the "afternoon romance". It is mating season for grizzlies and saw the male first running fast up the road which he crossed until he met the lady bear. The entire bus was in awe, including the bus driver (he was actually a tour guide). This is a very rare ocurrence and many people that live here have never seen anything like it. We met Ron Dalby (author of the Guide to the Alaska Highway) at the campground the next day and confessed he had never seen this in spite of living in Alaska most of his life. I guess we were very, very lucky.
Until the next air waves connection - this is Bernardo signing off.

A Bear on the Move

I'm hoping that this can be seen as a video. There's still a lot to learn about this blogging stuff! But, here is the black bear that we saw along the road from Haines Junction to Beaver Creek on Tuesday. We saw the grizzly first, and there are videos of him, too. But it's difficult to catch all this in the "heat of the moment" and still respect the wildlife and not get them used to people and vehicles. It's important for their survival. It was interesting to see that both the grizzly and this black bear actually looked both ways before crossing the road in front of our RV. I guess their mom's taught them well!

More Than Wildlife

There's obviously more to Alaska than wildlife and since none were waving at us as we drove to Fairbanks today we stopped to see one of the best views of the TransAlaska pipeline just outside of Delta Junction. It carries more than 11% of US crude, over 510,000 barrels a day. It's an eight hundred mile pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez. (Just a little social studies trivia for you)
After taking Bessie to a vet in Fairbanks (she was really stressed and we were worried about her), we drove about 60 miles east of Fairbanks to Chena Hot Springs Resort. It's the end of the Chena Springs Road with so many turnoffs for great fishing we want to try them all this weekend. But we were tired and wanted to get to the campground, which really is great as it's part of the resort, no hookups, but a beautful hot spring with showers, horseback riding, airplane rides (no plans for that), dog sledding and the world famous ice hotel. I've been told that the appletinis are terrific....We'll let you know later. So, here are Bernardo and Bessie, keeping away from the mosquitoes and working on the internet!