Santa's Getaway Hut :)

Hey there!

So we were thinking... describing to you where Santa actually lives didn't quite show in our last post. This is why we thought it to be a good idea to come back to that :-)

So up there, on top of the glacier is a shelter, to be used for extreme situations only! Obviously they say that, otherwise lots of people would just stumble into Santa's living room every day! We do understand that they tell people not to go there for overnight stays :-) Plus, giving the shelter an address would be a bad idea too, since then the whole world could get in touch with Santa, just by opening up the phone book :-)

Obviously... riiight? :-) Sooo, anyway: we went there and we... SAW IT ALL :-)

here's a few more pics for you guys, just so you can get a better picture of where your presents come from, as of next christmas :-)

Take care,

AnD

PS: And by the way: Comments on our blog are always welcome! We are just soooo happy when we get comments :) It's so much fun knowing that there's someone "out there", who's interested in what we're up to! So thank you guys, and be sure to go on commenting our blog! It's something we really look forward to until the day we get internet somewhere :-)

spectacular view on top of Exit Glacier

"So that's where he lives!! :)"

I made it!! :)

Santa's getaway hut! :-) only people who stay overnight can open the door and see all that makes Santa's world so fascinating! But those who only go there for the view...well, they kind of miss it all, because they will only see a wooden shelter with lots of names on the walls... no kidding :-)

We could actually lock the shelter from the inside! So no bears that night :) *pure luxury* :)

sun setting, neat colors on the mountain summits!

Don't let yourselves convince by this illusion... it looks totally different, (like more christmassy ? :) ), once you're inside and in your sleeping bag :)

Davy and I went looking for Santa :)

Hello all of you!

After taking a Neurofen and after eating two slices of Pizza I am finally able to blog! No kidding, I wasn't at my best tonight... Why, are you asking? Well the both of us spent two pretty short and cold nights outside, you'll see how :)

So last time I wrote you all, we were still in Kenai and hadn't left for Seward yet! Here's the news!

First when we arrived in Seward we thought, Huh... this promises to be fun!
 In front of us streched a long road, 4rth avenue, down to the sea, with a dozen small shops and a bakery. Far from the Kenai adventure is what we thought... too bad.

But then I had a great idea! How about a six hour boat trip out to Aialak Glacier which is supposed to be really nice? But Davy was more than unhappy with that idea, because for him, a boat tour is necessarily too long and too boring for us young folks.

Instead he wanted to go sea kayaking (to that same place!), but the hours they offered didn't fot our schedule, because we needed to leave two days later, really early for Valdez (from where I'm writing right now! :) ).

Offering to go kayaking and rafting in Cordova (a town with one only road that leads nowhere, and to where you can only get by ferry, wich is why we are here in Valdez, obviously) :-), so offering him that, he agreed to go on my boat trip under one condition:

"I want to hike all the way up Exit Glacier and camp there in the Emergency shelter (which, named that way obviously is not ment for overnight stays... :D ) What was my choice? I had to get on that boat trip so I agreed.

Until then we drove off to the Exit Glacier campground, which as the name states is situated right next to the Glacier (aka, temperatures drop dramatically...) We found our spot, number 9 if you need to know :-) Great campground! 12 tent sites but none of us could see the other because of all the trees and rocks in between! Really neat!

6:30 AM tidiiiit tidiiit tidiiiiit *snooze* 6:35 AM TIDIIIIT TIDIIIIT

Wake up time! At eight we will be boarding! :) I was sooo excited! Davy not so much, but don't you go imagining things :D He stepped off the boat a few hours later, a huge grin on his face saying "Okok, that was awesome!"

The captain, his name was Tim, was soo entertaining! :) He knew really well how to find wildlife and tell us stories and historical facts on the Resurrection bay, the town and the glaciers. That way we came across a dozen whales, sea otters, sea lions, Puffins (sooo funny birds! Google them :) ), Dolfins and a black bear! No kidding! I spent all the time outside in the front part of the boat, so I could be among the first to spot wildlife and get the best pictures :)

Even though it was awfully cold, I believe it paid off, you judge the pictures :) Usually the boat has to turn around midway because 50% of the people are sea sick and because  the weather's too bad. But when we got there, it was the first time since long that the captain reached the glacier in one go! We were so happy! There were people on our boat for whom it was the fourth tour! So hey, we were soo lucky having chosen the sunniest day in July to get out to sea :)


Ok, so that Tour went more than well! And I had already forgotten all about the adventure that awaited me in the late afternoon: the Harding Icefield trail! But no way to miss that, so we packed and drove off.


As usual at the very beginning of the trail the was a choice of either going left or right. so I said we should go right, obviously, because the other way was signed out as being only 2.3 miles which, I must admit, sounded weird considering we had to get up tp the top of the glacier! :-)


BUT, as usual, Davy was sure I was wrong so he said we should take left... Grrr... But my long year's experience showed me that discussing this wouldn't be a solution, so the only way out for me is always this one: "Ok, I do as he says, but only to prove him wrong" :) That way I can savour my finishing line: "I told you so" :-)

Aaaanyway, we always end up with that brilliant line from Megamind, a Pixar movie (watch it!):
"Mignon... you were right. And I was... less...right." :)

Now going up 1100 meters in a flash is no easy thing to do! Happily the next day we went the same way down, so I could admire the scenery :D why only then? Well, I was sooo tired going up that I had my head down and dragged myself litterally to the top :) we even saw two bears (here Davy will tell you he only saw one, but I distinctly saw two!), but they were friendly and on their way to wander off the trail, so our talking and noise of the bear bells were effective :)

Finally on the top of Exit Glacier, we just had the time to watch the sun setting on the mountains and the glacier (pink lights every where - only darkness never came :D ) before falling sound asleep in the shelter. Well sound asleep for me maybe but Davy talked the whole night long, with me, with some imaginary people... I guess he was more than disoriented... :D Quite funny now when I think of it, but then, in the shelter, surrounded by snow... not so funny :-)

Sooo, that's all folks. At least about Seward... now we're in Valdez, tomorrow we're taking the ferry to Cordova and disappear again for a few days, but no worries, we'll be back soon enough! :-)

Take care,

AnD

The Alaska railroad

Fishermendisplaying their catch at the end of the day!

2 bald eagles as our boat leaves the harbour in Seward

first Humpback Whale spotted!

beautiful setting!

Whale lunching near fishermen

sea lions sunbathing

two sea otters "chilling" along :)

Aialak Glacier

black bear strolling on the beach near Aialak Glacier

top of the Harding Icefied trail :) We made it!

where Santa lives :)

marmot :) funny guys!

"It makes a good story!" :-)

Hello you guys! :)

WE ARE BACK... and alive too!! I can tell you... we weren't so sure of that at one point... :-/

Let's just say it this way: The tour was amaaaazing! :-) Nature! Wildlife! The lakes! The atmosphere! Everything was really amazing! We definitely felt like we were "out there"... and I do not lie when I say, we were - alone - out there! Now before reading this post, please make sure you are seated :-)

And here we go!

First day, we arrive at the campground and Canoe rental.
We enter and the Lady says: "Hi there! How can I help you guys?"
"Well, we booked a canoe tour for 5 days, four nights"
"Uh! What's your name again? David? Oh my... I thought those guys were David... well now you have to wait for 2 hours before we can drive you out there"
So we decided that wasn't so bad, anyway... we are in Alaska, no stress :-) So we went out to Suzie's and had a huge bacon cheese Burger... I dare say in kind of a "last meal" atmosphere :)

So here we go! The old rusty white Chevy is driving us over a gravel road "far far away" (as Shrek would say) up north to the lakes next to the Swanson river. No more information other than, "ok you're all set guys, see you in a few!" ... and off she drove in that rusty old Chevy of hers.

Now here we are... "great"... so what now?
We kinda grinned at each other, not really knowing how we got ourselves into this "alaska experience" (I'll just call it that :-) ) First thing was a land passing, aka carry the canoe and the backpacks (note three green ones and one black one - remember for later... ) and the food and the water. So every land passing we did after that, we did 6 there-and-back trips... I cannot tell you how tired we were after each of those! (Good thing we got all of those cereal bars then :-) )

Paddling over two beautiful lakes was a wonderful beginning of our trip! We were sooo happy, being all alone in that forest! It was kinda neat. So then we had to find a place to sleep. Our first one!

We remembered all they told us back in civilization: Do not wear the same clothes you wore whilst cooking in the tent, do not have ANYTHING with a scent on it in the tent! Do not have ANY food next to where you sleep!
All right all right we thought, that can't be so bad... so we cooked a delicious dry food - chicken stew on our gas stove ( Miam! :) ) and then went for a swim in the lake (the water was warm enough for us both to dip in and come right out again :) ) Good thing about that is: first: we can say we went swimming in Alaska :) Second: when you get out, it's feels a lot warmer and you do not have cold feet any more!

So here we are, sleeping in our tent, not worrying too much about wildlife...
The next morning, the weather was amazing like the day before and Jeff and Mike walked by with their canoe. So not only have we met two really nice people, but you'll hear from them again later in this post! (uuh! suspense :-) )
So yeah, we talked, and kinda like that they told us about their red salmon they caught the day before... we were like, wow! we never tasted real alaskan salmon! No? Well if you like we can leave one half with you guys, we have too much food anyways... I won't describe it all (you got the picture beneath)... but it was just sooooooooooooo goooooooooooood!! I have never ever tasted anything the like! Wow! The salmon we have in Luxembourg, I tell you, that's just an imposture :-) Can't be real salmon... just can't be, because this piece of red salmon, THAT was THE salmon :-) Anyway...so that's that.

We paddled on and had two really long land passings and finally, kinda out of nowhere, it got really stormy! There were waves on the lake we were paddling through... oh my god! We kinda feared we would tip over a few times... the life west thing suddenly became very very important!
Again, just think about it, even in an emergency, who would you call when your phone says "no service" and the only living thing around you are a few Loons (huge Ducks that make noises like coyotes! :-) We were kinda scared the first night, but then Jeff told us what they are, so... lucky us it was only Loons that scared us THAT night...) :-)

Feel the tension? I wanna tell you guys about the second night...

So here we are, on the stormy lake, when we pass Jeff and Mike, who, from the shore yell at us: "Want some tea?"... but we were in no condition to come on land, so we paddled on, soaked... Then when finally we had reached the entrance point, we thought, hey, there were two tents on this side of the island... but we came for adventure in the wild, right? So why not camp all alone on the other side of the island... Well you guys, that was the first mistake... People in Alaska, with only bear spray and two paddles to defend themselves should never neglect the warmth of the thought that there's someone sleeping nearby who has a gun and who knows how to use it... Well NOW we know, right? :-)

Again we ate far away from the tent, we left everything in the bag which we put near a tree (it was too heavy to be put up the tree...sadly...) and went to bed, having no clothed with us that had any scent on them from dinner or the salmon... I guess you could say we slept for an hour or so when suddenly:

padam padam Padam Padam PADAM PADAM PADAMPADAM !!!

We heard something galloping toward us, not just towards us as in direction, no! galloping right INTO out tent!!! We sat up at once, breathing fats, eyes wide open and thought, we are gonna be crushed under those hooves, and we cannot do a thing about it, AND WE ARE ALL ALONE!!

But then we heard it jump into the water and disappear... PUUUHHH!! That was close! We had our tent built up in front of some trees so that's maybe why the Moose ('cauz it was a Moose for sure) didn't run over our tent... just like half a meter past it...

one minute to breathe and get ourselves together... just enough time to read in each others eyes: "thank god we're still here" :-)

But THEN!!

RRROOOAAARRRGH!!!!

HUH!!??

Davy looked at me and I looked at him, and we knew... There wasn't only a Moose... but that Moose was running away from a bear.... and THAT bear was in OUR food!!!

So after five long minutes Davy stuck his head out of the tent and came back in fast (the bear spray tight in his hand) and said to me: "there's a big black bear in our food bag! What do we do??"

So here we are... WHAT TO DO?? ... when you're alone in the WILD, with no reception, and a mile walk (past the bear) before you reach the other people... Now that's the thing when you're out in the wild... it's just you, and you have to take all your courage in your hands and be strong...

We had nearly decided on leaving our foodbag behind (Davy's black good old hiking bag by the way :) ) when suddenly Davy said: "Oh no we got all our money in that bag, plus my passport and lots of gear... !!!" I couldn't believe my ears! We had left all that with the food!!?? Come ooon!

Oukey... so here's the plan we said, we go towards the bear, standing tall, talking loudly, making noise with the bear bells and just cut off the top of the bag and get whatever food we can save... and leave immediately by canoe... So that was the deal... After a few very long minutes we had chased the bear three meters away, where he climbed up a tree only to look at us with his big black fluffy ears and his predator eyes fixing our moves, curiously. We realized quickly he wasn't interested in us but only in the food, so we got there slowly, cut off the top, saved Davy's belongings and 12 cereal bars plus one dry food dinner. Then we backed off slowly, not turning our back on the bear.

After packing all of our stuff in a hurry, always an eye on the bear (which wasn't moving, just had his head in the bag... MIAM! :) ), we paddled off in the middle of the (thanks god, lit) night. After a land passage,we finally saw an island in the lake, six by twenty meters, far away from the land... and I said to Davy: "Well there's no wildlife there for sure, let's camp out here!"

so that's how our bad story gets a good and happy ending (well... except for Davy's backpack...) :)

Now breathe you readers, we are alive and well! But the story's not over yet!! As we didn't have any food left we had nothing for lunch and paddled on until the rain was so strong we had a break and lit a fire. Just chilling... with an empty stomach...

And there they were again: "Hello again guys!" Oh my god what a relief!! Jeff and Mike were there with us! So we told them the story, mostly to get it all out of the system :) Check the picture below! Afterwards they saved us for good because they gave us a grapefruit and crackers, bread and beef jerky, which would finally enable us to paddle to our destination, a day early but still, we made it :-)

One last night to be camping out there... first island looked kinda spooky, so we decided on paddling on... second land passing had lots of bear paws on the ground... so again, we decided to paddle on to the last campground on Moose river... Not convinced this campground was bear free, we just had to stop and fall into the tent, totally overtired! BUT, not without eating far from the tent, leaving all the scented stuff far away, hanging up our food high in a tree (black bears can climb vertically, but not horizontally on branches... and brown bears just cannot climb...) and believe it or not, this night was wildlife free, except for a squirrel or two :-)

Puuhh!

So after a cup of coffee at the Moosequito's bar, the Lady from the canoe rental came to get us and when we told her the story she said: "well that's a first in the twelve years I've been here!"...

CRAAAAZYYY! :-) And the final line which we heard a few times from Alaskans now: "at least it makes a good story" :-) DEFINITELY!

so all in all we paddled a loooooong way, all the way through the lakes, down Moose River. But it was worth it! Every little thing about this trip was worth it, it was amazing!

... only I guess we had our fare share of wildlife for this lifetime, and we'll not be putting ourselves alone like that into the Wild soonishly :-) But now we know, bear containers for the food, bear bells, bear spray and a gun are the most important things when you go out there... into the Wild!

Now what else did we see, except that Moose and the bear? Well we got nicely acquainted with Alaska's "state bird" as they like to call it over here: the Mosquito!! Huge and aggressive! No way to describe them, they just are a pest! So repellant was effective and more than necessary! Then we also saw a beaver! it was huge! And the tail! Wow, never seen anything like it in real life! I always thought they were kinda tiny... Two bald eagles, another 6 Moose so far, looots of squirrels and loons, swans, Mice and one frog :-) Not too bad for this first week in Alaska!

It's been great so far and it is gonna be even better the days to come! (even though I find that hard to believe :-) )

I hope I didn't forget anything... oh well, you'll hear from us soon enough!

Keep safe (yes ok, we'll do the same here :-) )

AnD

ps: a word out to the moms reading this blog: no worries, we are back in civilization, we are safe and sound, and we will not be camping in the real wild any time soon :) So no worries!

                                                         davy swimming in the lake

                                                            Me swimming out there too ;)

                                                                   our first camp site

                                             dry food, add some water stir and let sit... miam! ;)

                                                           red salmon, look at that color!

                                                                   chilling on the lake

                                                                    paddling some more

                                                right after the bear surprise, island campground

                                                                              loons

                                               no food, so why not relax next to a fire ;)

                                                                 jeff, mike, me, davy

                                                                        another rest

                                                            Moose Mama with two little one's ;)