Summer Adventures- Post 2

The first activity on this adventure took us backpacking over Crow Pass in Chugach State Park. It's the third largest state park in the United States, weighing in at 495,204-acres. The park is located just east of Anchorage and had a variety of terrain. My backpacking group started at Crow Pass Trailhead, climbed steeply up to the pass. We were greeted by phenomenal views of Raven Glacier and the Eagle River we would be walking along over the next few days. After some semi-treacherous snow crossings, we made it down to the valley. Over the next few days, we hiked along the Eagle River, originally named Yukla-hina by the Dena'ina tribe. Throughout the backpack, we had saw grouse, dall sheep high on the mountains, mountain goats, and one group even saw grizzly bears!

The next activity took us to Prince William Sound for a five day sea kayak. Shortly after discovering that our kayak guide was going to be a old Mammoth friend that I had lost contact with for a couple years, we launched our kayaks from Whittier. Our group took a boat taxi about halfway to Blacksands Beach in order to separate our two kayak groups. The next two days were spent paddling up to the beach. Surrounding our camp was a culdesac of 3 calving tidewater glaciers and beautiful waterfalls. This was the highlight of my trip in Alaska! Perched on a large house-sized rock off blacksands beach, we had front row seats for a spectacular show of calving glaciers. At one point, I witnessed an approx. 800ft tower peal off the 1300ft face of Barry Glacier and slowly crash into the sea! Watching from about a couple miles away, the waves were probably close to 20ft, reducing to a 2 ft by the time they reached the beach.

Due to the constantly calving glaciers, the waters are choked with mini icebergs. During a lowering tide, the icebergs spread out and are relatively easy to navigate around. During a rising tide, the icebergs are forced together, creating a mass of floating ice. Some kayaks have become entrapped for up to six hours by ice locking around their boats. When we entered the bay, the tide way going out, and the students were able to carefully weave through the ice with their fragile fiberglass boats. On our way out a day later, the tide was coming in and the icebergs were beginning to build up. Corey, our guide and I were in durable plastic kayaks and used them to part the ice, making a path for the fiberglass boats to travel on. We were never in any real danger due to Corey's being on top of things, but I had a great time acting like one of those arctic ice boats that plows through ice! We saw an abundance of wildlife on the trip including sea otters, seals, bald eagles, and a pod of orcas! The other kayak pod even saw a humpback whale breach! Check out the interactive Google map below for our route. Click on the symbols for more info.


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