Hike to Gull Rock

The hiking group formerly known as the fab four (Jules, Nick, Amanda, and myself), has become the fantastic five with the addition of Noah. For our first excursion we decided on a five mile hike to Gull Rock, of course that meant five miles back too. We had a great time - the views were amazing and the trail was the most rugged in the Anchorage area that I have been on. It was pretty grown over in a lot of areas so we had to move bushes out of the way of the trail. I felt very small in some places where the brush went way over my head. There were a lot of other places that were muddy and we had to walk on sticks that other thoughtful hikers had placed on the trail. There was another spot where we had to cross a river and the only way to get over was to walk along a tree trunk. The river was several feet below and I made it across the tree-balance beam just fine. It wasn't until after I was across that I realized there was a bridge a little further down the trail...

It rained on us about 1/4 of the time but the trail was so protected that we were usually covered. When we weren't covered I still enjoyed it thanks to my awesome raincoat that I received for Christmas this year. Thanks Josh!

My favorite moment of the hike was looking over the bluff down at the beach and seeing a bald eagle. Its not very often that I have a high enough view point to look down at a flying bald eagle.

I think the groups next excursion will be to Denali National Park. We plan to stay a night there and do some hiking and maybe drive up to the Arctic Circle. For this week, my plan is to do a little bike riding; make it out to University Lake at least once; get ready for Josh to get here on Thursday (yay!); and get a pedicure - I think I've earned it.

Bear Tooth Theater

The Bear Tooth Theater is a movie theater and a restaurant. Picture a normal movie theater with every other row of seats removed and replaced with a table. You order your food up front and choose a seat, then they bring the food to your table while you watch the movie. This is such a novel and fantastic idea! I went on Friday and saw "Then She Found Me", which was a mediocre movie made fabulous by the viewing experience. I loved it, and I plan to go back. Does anyone know of any similar theaters in the Seattle area?

Seward 6.14-15.2008

Anchorage Police Department Ride-Along

As part of my internship for the Municipality of Anchorage I am required to do a ride-along with the Anchorage police department. I did mine on Friday evening from 2:45-midnight. It was a very interesting experience; I learned a lot about police culture and about the attitude that officers have towards the horrible and sad things they see every night.

They put me in a bullet-proof vest - which made me feel like a bad ass - and I sat in the passenger seat of a patrol car with Officer Deville and essentially became a shadow for the night. There is nothing like doing 70 in a 30 with the sirens and lights going. I had to try really hard not to grin and giggle because I thought it was so fun. Just like there is no crying in baseball, I found out there is no smiling on patrol.

My favorite part of the whole night was working with a K-9 unit. Every K-9 unit is required to do a certain number of "training tracks" to keep the dog and the handler prepared and in tune with each other. Officer Deville put on a different jacket over his uniform (to keep the dog from barking at the uniform) and layed down the track; I stayed with the handler and the dog to watch them. It was super cool to see a working dog in action.

I wouldn't say that it was a fantastic experience, but it definitely was interesting. I would like to do a ride-along in a different city to see what the differences are between departments, but I can't imagine wanting Officer Deville's job.

Denali State Park

This past Sunday a group of us (Jules, Nick, Amanda, and myself) decided to make a day trip north and see where we ended up. Jules has a car so it was much more successful than my usual bus outings.

On our drive we saw some beautiful scenery, a male moose who was just getting his antlers and we stopped for lunch in a little tourist stop town called Talkeetna. We ended up at a place called Troublesome Creek, and we did some hiking. Most of the trail was near a river and almost all of it was through some pretty dense foresty area. We were noisy hikers because none of us had bear bells and we didn't want to surprise any wildlife - don't worry I picked some up today at REI, I am now fully equipped.

About three miles into the trail we came to an area that was washed out from a landslide in 2006. We tried to find the trail again, but finally gave up and turned around, none of us wanted to get lost. Although, one local fisherman gave us the friendly advice to "spread out", it was very sweet of him but we chose not to listen.

All in all it was a great hike. I got to see some beautiful scenery, including Mt. McKinley even though its half covered by clouds, and hang out with some great people with similar interests (such as leaving the dorms). I'm looking forward to many more random road trips this summer. Tomorrow, I hop on a train with Amanda and its off to Seward!

Baby Beaver

Amanda and I went to University lake in hopes of seeing a beaver. Not only did we see a beaver, we saw two, one of which was a baby!

We saw the adult and followed him as he swam around the lake. This one was not aggressive at all, and it seemed smaller than the one that had warned me off before so I am pretty sure that this was a different beaver - maybe Momma beaver? Anyway, she climbed out of the water and munched on a tree for awhile (video). As we were just getting ready to leave a baby swam up! The baby knew to keep its distance from us so I was not able to get a good picture. But, both of the pictures were taken from the same distance and as a size comparison the first picture is the adult beaver and the second is the baby (the streak behind the twigs).

I find it almost unbelievable that I have access to things like this while I am here. I am one lucky girl.

Flattop Mountain

The Anchorage guidebooks tell readers that the quintessential Anchorage hike is Flattop Mountain. Amanda, my fantastic roommate and hiking partner for the summer, and I decided that we wanted to hike up Flattop as our first official hike. We had a shuttle scheduled for about 2 hours after we made our decision.

First of all, the shuttle was great. The driver is a local named Pete who is a total character and the people on the shuttle were great too. Roll call: 3 brothers from Jersey who teased each other mercilessly but successfully entertained the rest of us; a girl from Switzerland; a guy staying in a hostel who take an insane amount of pictures; and a guy who planned to camp overnight at Flattop.

The hike was beautiful - especially the views. The hike was supposed to be excellent for beginners, a category that I firmly place myself in. It was a lot more challenging than I expected (take a look at Amanda's blog to see one of the paths we went on) and, unfortunately for us, the intense wind really increased the difficulty level. There were a few spots where I could lean almost completely against the wind, something I haven't been able to do since the 2nd grade. As a result of the wind, Amanda and I didn't make it to the top. However, every year a big group of Anchorage hikers go up Flattop for the summer solstice and watch the sun not go down. We plan to make the solstice hike - hopefully the weather will cooperate!

These two pictures make up a more or less panoramic view of the view from Flattop. On the top (left if you are looking at the view)are the mudflats, of which I have been warned of 25 foot tidal differences and instant quicksand - beautiful but dangerous, don't worry I'll keep my distance! I was able to get a great view of them on the flight in and that's enough for me. The picture on the bottom (on the right side of the view) is Anchorage. The buildings in the center are "downtown" Anchorage, the rest is sprawl. Downtown is pretty small, as you can see but the city has about 300,000 people but it is spread over about 2,000 square

miles.

This hike was a major

success and a perfect introduction to Alaska hiking - snow, wind, and amazing wilderness!

The infamous University lake beaver

University lake is across the street from where I am staying this summer. I walk there just about every night to relax and enjoy the scenery. The area is also an off-leash dog park so I get to see a bunch of great dogs (my current favorite is an irish wolfhound whose nose comes up to my armpit) and a great view of the mountains and the lake. Every year, around baby season, the beaver who lives in University lake gets very aggressive in defending his lodge and his babies. There was an article in the local paper last weekend warning that the beaver is biting dogs who get too close to its lodge. As I walked around the lake I had seen trees in various states of being gnawed by the beaver - but I had not seen the actual beaver.

One night I was sitting on a bench overlooking the lake (isn't it a great view!) and some dogs were playing fetch in the water near me. I was on the phone with Josh, watching the dogs play and the beaver came right up to us. He smacked his tail on the water (a very clear beaver warning) and started to go after the dogs. The owners were smart and called the dogs away before they were bitten and the beaver went on his way. Unfortunately, I did not bring my camera with me that night so I could not get a picture of the beaver.

Im sure that no one will be surprised to find out that I went back the next night with my camera. I was not successful in getting a picture of the beaver - but I did see him and he showed me where his lodge was. The following night I went back with my camera and waited close to his lodge until I finally got some great pictures. I have seen baby beavers before, which was wonderful, but they were at Sarvey and waiting to be re-released. It was amazing to see an adult beaver in the wild! I plan to go back, and if Im lucky I will get to see the babies go out for a swim - I think I will be here long enough :)

Ode to Beaver