Driving to Alaska {Arrival at our summer home}

Day 14

By the end of the day we would finally arrive at our campground for the summer, but first, we stopped to climb the Lion's Head.

Lion's Head is the dark mountain straight ahead (below). It looks small from this distance. It's not!

This trail begins on private property. After calling for permission to enter, we began the hike and quickly lost the trail.

Jumping rock to rock.

It was a rough climb, much of it on all fours thru mud and thick vegetation. While Asa was happily rolling around in it, we were dreading sitting in the car next to a wet, muddy dog the rest of the day. Fortunately she cleaned herself off in the snow and it dried before we had to load up.

Once close to the peak, we had to bushwhack thru to the top. The kids declared this the worst hike ever and insisted we never do this one again. Agreed! The funniest part was as soon as we looked out over the glacier, they had completely forgotten how challenging the hike was. While shooting a video, I asked them how their hike was and they both said, "Good." I just had to laugh.

This view just makes you forget the trouble it took to get here!

The Matanuska Glacier at 27 miles long and 4 miles wide is the largest 

glacier in the US that can be accessed by car. A beautiful sight!

Journey offered to take this photo of me. She did a good job!

We were able to follow the trail a little easier going down, but still managed to lose it at one point.

After the hike, we drove straight to our summer spot in a campground where we were about to begin our first campground hosting job. The very long drive that I had been dreading for months, turned out to be a fantastic adventure with gorgeous views and new experiences the whole way thru!

Driving to Alaska {Valdez}

While camped in Glenallen, we decided to drop the RV and drive out to Valdez for the day. 

The mountains just towered over us.

 (All of the photos from the road were taken thru the sunroof.) 

We found this interesting spot to stop for a quick snack and scramble on snow.

We planned to hike to Washington Glacier, but it was completely snowed in (a few feet deep at the road) and without the proper gear, we would get drenched. The kids enjoyed playing in the snow a bit anyway. A few people had their snow machines out. By the way, up here do NOT call them "snow mobiles"!

And suddenly we were transported to a winter wonderland, a magical place called Thompson Pass!

Of course the pictures don't portray the magnificence of this area.

Daddy and Asher way off in the distance.

These photos make my heart happy. Asher declared this the "best day ever!"

 It was truly one of the most amazing places I've ever been. I'm curious what it looks like without the snow, but the snow is a big part of what I love about it.

Check out the heart-shaped patch of tundra!

Eventually we decided we better press on to Valdez,

 even though I think we could have spent the entire day at the pass.

Port of Valdez- look at that water!

We caught a hoary marmot playing on the rocks next to the dock.

We hiked the Gold Creek trail thru forest to the water. 

We could hear an avalanche and looked up to see it happening (the white triangle partway down the mountain).

Before heading back to Glenallen, we hiked to and overlook to get a bird's eye view of the town.

Waterfalls along the road.

Heading back thru Thompson Pass.