Check out the photos

In the week with Kira’s parents we did mostly water activities. We took a one day tour of Prince William Sound out of Whitter, and then a three day kayaking trip out of Seward. On our last day together we did a hike. Her dad had originally planned to join us, but we ended up going solo.

Both the Prince William Sound tour and the kayaking were very pretty. The Kenai peninsula gets a lot of rain and has abundant fjords and glaciers making for great scenery.

The boat tour was mostly about animals, and we saw puffin, seals, humpback whales, orcas, otters, eagles, porpoise, and a black bear. Most of the sightings were at ‘known’ locations. There is an island with a large colony of puffin, and another island where the seals like to rest. We went to a salmon hatchery where salmon were returning to breed and it was a feeding frenzy for eagles, seals, seagulls and a bear. The tour guides were excited about the orca sighting, but I thought that the humpback were cooler.

The tour also took us to some impressive scenery

The kayaking trip was a guided tour. They provided the tents, food, and kayaks. It also included transport from Seward to the Northwestern Fjord. On the first day we saw orca and there were a few otters and a lot of seals, but the highlights were the glaciers and scenery.

In the time without Kira’s parents, we did several hikes: Kesugi ridge, Lost lake, Crow pass, Lion head, Fairangel lakes, Lane basin, and Reed lakes. While doing these hikes we were camping in the car that we rented for the trip. We found a Prius on Turo that ended up being a great arrangement. Most car rentals in Alaska aren’t allowed to travel on some of the gravel roads, and getting a car that would let us go where we wanted from a big company would have been quite expensive.

We had mixed weather in Alaska (which is typical). It was cloudy for most of our first week and we did not get to see Denali on the Kesugi ridge hike. That hike also got cut short because rain was moving in. The Crow pass hike was also rainy and had the worst weather of the trip. We made it to the pass, but it was so windy that we were having trouble making forward progress. We also had a fog day near Hatcher pass and we did the Fairangel and Lane basin hikes in dense fog. We didn’t get to see some of the scenery, but what we did see in the fog was pretty:

Reed lakes and Lost lake were both very nice hikes and the Lion head hike was steep but had great views of Matanuska glacier.

We also did two longer off-trail backpacking trips. The first on the glaciers near McCarthy in Wrangell St Elias, and the other at Thompson pass near Valdez. The glacier hike was four days and Thompson pass was two.

The Thompson pass hike had great scenery. We were mostly walking above tree line on the side of a long ridge that had a view of a long valley and the next line of mountains. The part of the hike above tree line was very nice and we were totally alone the whole time. But getting from the “trailhead” to above the trees was some ridiculous bush-whacking. We had a brief and inaccurate description for how to ascend from the guide book and spent several hours going 1/4 of a mile and gaining 1000 ft. Part of the problem was the steepness and mud, but the main issue was getting through all the bushes. I’ve done very little cutting through vegetation off trail, so I don’t really have much to compare it to, but Kira has done much more and she said it was the worst she’s seen. Here is a photo of the flat easy part before hitting the bushes:

It’s hard to pick a highlight on such a long and varied trip, but exploring the Root and Gates glaciers in Wrangell is the first thing that comes to mind when I think about the trip. This was another difficult hike. The same guide book gave some bad directions about how to get onto and around the glaciers and we were basically on our own to pick a path through the glaciers and moraines. It was not dangerous, but there was a lot of unsteady footing and backtracking when we’d crest a ridge only to find our path forward was blocked by a crevasse or cliff. We also had rain and some very wet ground to cover in a lake region between glaciers. But it was a lot of fun to walk on the glacier and explore the different terrains and features.

Kira’s trip was a couple weeks longer since she did a bunch of sightseeing on the drive north. This was also her first attempt to fly since the accident. We were very well prepared to keep the sound exposure to a minimum. TSA was still a problem but the rest was pretty good. We learned some lessons that would make it easier next time, but we’re still hoping for improvement before trying it again.

Here are all the photos

And here are a couple maps showing our route and where we were each day:

Tetons and Yellowstone

Our first destination was the Tetons. There was flooding in Yellowstone and we were waiting for the park to re-open. We did a couple hikes on the east side the first day, then rode the Aston-Tetonia rails-to-trails and hiked up Mt Fred the second day. Once Yellowstone opened, we spent a day there. We stopped at the upper and lower geyser basins, West Thumb, and the Yellowstone river. We were very impressed with the Yellowstone river canyon and loved “Artist’s point”.

After Yellowstone we did a bike ride along the Warm River in Idaho and headed north. Kira spent a day hiking Refrigerator canyon near Helena while I worked.

Glacier

We spent four days in Glacier National Park. The first two days were at the north east entrance doing Grinnell and Iceberg lake. We weren’t able to do all of Grinnell due to snow closure, but both hikes were very nice. The next day was at the St Mary entrance on the south east. Kira hiked Pitamakan and then we both hiked Scenic. The “Scenic point” that the scenic hike is named for was nothing special, but we did get to see mountain goats and some cool stunted trees.

Our final day in Glacier was my favorite. We hiked the trail of the cedars and then biked up “Going-to-the-sun” road. The road was closed at the top and cars weren’t allowed above the Avalanche parking lot. So we had the road to ourselves and rode up about 12 miles to the closure. It was very pretty with glaciers and waterfalls.

Idaho Hot Springs Tour

The next week was our big bike tour of this trip. We did the north section of the Idaho Hot Springs Tour. We were out for six days – camping all but one night when we stayed at a Warm Showers in McCall. We saw many hot springs and got into a few of them.

This tour was easier than the Arkansas high country tour we did in May. The climbs were less steep, we didn’t do any single-track, and it was not nearly as hot. We also didn’t have to deal with as many ticks. In general the mosquitoes were better too, but one night camping we did have to deal with mosquitoes that were so thick that there was an audible buzzing when sitting in the tent.

Our bike tour ended near Lowman and I dropped Kira off at the Granjean campground. She hiked from there across a pass overlooking Sawtooth lake and met me on the other side at Iron Creek campground. She really enjoyed this hike and the photos look great:

More Idaho

After the tour, we spent another week in Idaho. We hiked at Redfish lake, took a few days off to work and recover, hiked the Tincup loop in the Sawtooth mountains, kayaked and biked along the Salmon river, and climbed Trapper peak.

The Sawtooth mountains are very pretty, especially right around Stanley. The Redfish lake and Tincup hikes were both very nice. Kayaking on the Salmon river was a bit underwhelming after the Buffalo in Arkansas, but it still had some nice scenery.

Seattle and Olympic

We left Idaho and headed west for Seattle. We spent several days in Seattle working and seeing some sites. We biked around downtown, visited a science museum and spent some time in Chinatown. Parking was a pain and it was nice when we could park somewhere and bike instead of drive.

After Seattle we went to Olympic National Park. We started with the Enchanted Valley hike. I’d planned to only do part of this hike, but we met a couple other hikers who said that the destination was really special. So I did the whole thing and had my first marathon length day. In the end I enjoyed the rainforesty middle of the hike more than the scenery at the enchanted valley. The next day we hiked near Rialto beach which had some nice tide pools and rocky islands.

Our last day in Olympic was the Seven Lakes hike. This was a “five star” hike. We had good views of Mt Olympus and glaciers along with flower filled meadows and lakes.

Canada

At this point in the trip I stopped trying to work and started leave without pay. This was partly because I was low on PTO, and partly because I couldn’t take my work laptop into Canada. From Olympic, we took the ferry over to Victoria. We both enjoyed Victoria. It is a nice city that doesn’t feel too big and is very bike friendly.

After Victoria we did two costal hikes. One at East Sooke and another on the Juan de Fuca trail. Both were nice with good views of the coast and ocean. Juan de Fuca was a bit muddy for my taste, but it had a really nice forest section.

Finally we drove inland and did a hike at Landslide lake. The hike itself was just ok, but it was nice to see more of the island and see the different habitat/climate.

From there we took another ferry over to Vancouver. We spent several days in the city staying with a friend near the university. We did a lot of biking in Vancouver and saw Stanley park, Chinatown, several museums at the University and went to a BC day celebration.

Cascades

We drove from Vancouver through Seattle (where we saw the Asian Art museum) to the Cascades and spent three days hiking in different areas of the park. The first day we did the Sahale Arm hike. This was another “five star” hike. Great scenery, glaciers, lakes and flowers. We also saw goats and a bear. This was my first time to see a bear on a hike, and we were maybe a little too close, but the bear was taking a break in some snow and was pretty uninterested in us.

The next day we hiked Cutthroat pass and Blue lake which were just ok. On our final day, a storm front moved in. We’d planned to hike McMillan Spire. This is a less popular hike and is mostly used by climbers. We made it about 2/3 of the way before giving up due to the wet conditions, very steep terrain, and the clouds obscuring our views. We ended up pretty wet, but we did collect some wild huckleberries.

Mt Rainier

We spent four days at Mt Rainier, exploring the mountain from four sides. The first day was Spray Park. The scenery was spectacular with great views of Mt Rainier along with lots and lots of flowers. We went a bit off trail and climbed up a glacier near Observation and Echo rocks. We’d been looking for water and found some at the bottom of the glacier. We also found cell reception and sent people updates with a photo of Mt Rainier.

The second day was Mt Freemont lookout. This hike was good, but not really special. That night we camped at Reflection lake and got up near sunrise to take some photos of the reflection of Mt Rainier. While we were there a deer came by and we got a great shot of the deer and reflection:

The rest of that day was another spectacular hike. We climbed Mt Rainier as far as possible without rope. This includes maybe a mile of climbing on a glacier (and then sliding back down). We also hiked the Skyline trail which was a very pretty meadow with little rivers and waterfalls. The Skyline trail hike was probably the best hike for the least effort of all the things we did on the trip.

Our final day at Rainier was a bike/hike combination up the Puyallup and over to St Andrews and Aurora lake. This was a nice hike that included some very interesting rock formations and pretty lakes. Unfortunately, the mosquitoes were very aggressive at the lakes and we couldn’t really relax and enjoy our time there.

Oregon

After Mt Rainier, we stayed a couple days in Portland visiting my aunt and cousin. We did a bike ride in the city and searched Chinatown for a sesame ball. We then checked out Astoria, Cannon Beach and Eugene. At Cannon Beach we got to see puffins nesting and some nice tide pools.

On our way south out of Oregon, we stopped at Crater of the Moon.

Lassen Volcanic

We spent two days at Lassen and hiked Cinder cone (which is a very conical dormant volcano) and Lassen peak. At the end we spent some time at Bumpass Hell which is an active hydrothermal area with sulfur mud pits, steam vents, and yellow/red rock.

Summary

I really enjoyed this trip. We saw a lot of spectacular scenery, stayed in shape, and travelled cheaply.

For the first month, I was working three days a week (except for the bike tour week) and we spent a lot of mental effort planning for those days, getting to motels, and doing the actual working. It also left Kira with the task of doing most all the trip planning. Once I started the leave without pay, the trip got easier and more fun. We didn’t spend as much time sitting in hotels, and I was a lot more relaxed.

We saw a lot of great things and it is hard to pick favorites when comparing such different scenery and experiences. But some of my highlights were:

• Barron Lake in the Sawtooth mountains
• Going to the Sun road in Glacier
• Sahale Arm in the Cascades
• Spray park and Muir camp at Mt Rainier

It was good to have the bikes along even though we were primarily hiking. Of course we needed them to do the Idaho hot springs tour and we did a few day rides. But they were also useful in the cities to avoid driving and parking downtown. And we used them a couple times to bike to a trailhead when the road was closed to cars.

Excluding losing money by not working for a month, going on the trip was cheaper than staying at my apartment. We spent less on hotels and gas than we would have on rent and utilities.

All in all a great experience and something that I’d like to do again someday.