Denali for the Day

Drew and I thought it would be fun to take an overnight camping trip up to Denali earlier this month.  We packed up all our camping gear, put the cross country skis on the car, threw the snowshoes in too, and headed up to Denali National Park.  Man did we choose a beautiful clear day to visit!

Denali from the south viewpoint in Denali State Park

Though it was pretty warm with the sun on us, there is still a lot of melting to go.
We would have practically had to  lay on our stomachs to look out those scopes.

 We drove four hours to the park and got there in mid afternoon.  Although some of the park road had been cleared, we could only venture up the first 13 miles or something.  The ranger at the visitor center talked us out of camping.  When we arrived the visitor center was filled with backpacks and camping gear.  In a few minutes about 40 or 50 eighth graders came bounding out of the adjoining room.  She explained it was "camp with the rangers night."  All the rangers looked really thrilled.  We decided we didn't want to join the fun, so she filled us in on the good things to do in the park that afternoon.  Drew was questioning and teasing her about wolf sightings, skijoring to Wonder Lake, and possible injuries he might incur while in the park.  Generally just being Drew.  At one point she looked at me and said, "You must be a very patient woman, ma'am."  That's my baby.  Inspiring other women to wonder just how I do it... :)

Anyways, she pointed us to this hike, which really we didn't need snowshoes for.  Just a pair of icebreakers would have done the job:

The hike was along a river that was breaking up.
Drew loved the icicles hanging off the ice into the river.

Oh Denali National Park...how I would love to see you not in snow.

 So in the end we drove four hours to Denali and four hours back, and we spent probably less than 3 hours at the park.  I was just saying on the drive up how the drive is half the fun.  We really didn't mind at all.  Drew and I love a good road trip.  There's always interesting conversation as we drive, and beautiful scenery along the way.   We had to pull over on the way home for a few more shots of Denali.  It just looked like a backdrop in a play or something.  So perfect:

We saw so many other beautiful landscapes along our drive.  Every time we cross over this one bridge it seems that the sun is always setting over the river there, and the sunset is always spectacular.  We both agreed that really we know of no other place that manages to be this ridiculously beautiful constantly.  Granted break up is probably the least beautiful of the seasons, but if you look up to the mountains or out to the water you don't notice the dead grass and trash poking through the dirty snow at all.  We have lived here for almost a year now and we still haven't managed to get over it.  It is just so majestic.  So mighty.  We love being surrounded by so much grandness.

Bomber Traverse

Wait!  I am going to post at least one post in April!  I promise!  These are going to be largely picture posts, but Drew has been taking some gorgeous ones, so here you go.  Drew went on the Bomber Traverse at the end of March/beginning of April.  It's a ski tour at this time of year so he was basically backpacking but on skis.  He was gone for 8 days and did a really good job of leaving me with lots of Tupperware to keep me eating while he was gone.  He even left me a list on the fridge with ideas for what I could have for different meals.  It lasted me the whole time he was gone and went pretty well.  I worked a lot while he was gone...maybe too much.  But it's nice when you get the paycheck!  So I'll post some pictures from his trip.  I will have to bug him to get some of himself when he exchanges pictures with the other club members.  He had beautiful weather, got along with the group of 5 really well, and came home pretty sunburned.  I know 20 pictures is a lot, but I had to cut it down from 160.  I feel like I'm sorting through wedding pictures or something!  Enjoy:

This is the first hut when they found it...

...and here it is all dug out.

This trip went more or less, ski to a hut one day, spend the next day skiing and hiking around the hut for fun, ski to the next hut the next day, and so on.

Too steep to hike with skis and skins.

Probably the nicest hut out there.  All these supplies have to be helicoptered in or carried in.  

Love the scenic shot with the outhouse.

Yay for downhill!

Drew's new friend John.

Hut #3

Since these are MCA huts and it was an MCA trip, the huts got a little repair work done on the rest days.

Love that our days are getting longer...

John after digging to the door.

An avalanche they set off.

Hanging in the hut.  Seems like they did a lot of reading on their off time.

Alaska in snow...so pretty.