These Are the Days We'll Remember

Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Valdez.  Our last days in Alaska.  Wrangell-St. Elias is a huge park - over 13 million acres - and we barely touched it.  We drove over 60 miles on a dirt road that was laid over an old railroad track and then had to walk about half a mile over a bridge to another dirt road where a shuttle van took us another 5 miles to the old mining town of Kennecott.  From there we backpacked to the toe of the Root Glacier and set up base camp, exploring from there.

Kennecott.

Base camp.

Root Glacier and the Stairway Icefall.

View of Mt. Blackburn (over 16,000 feet) from camp.

Having fun exploring on the glacier.

Crevasses and glacier pools.

Valdez on one of those typical rainy coastal days.

Our second night in the back country, we were woken up at 2:00 a.m. by a bear about 15 feet from our tent munching on berries.  He hung out for about 30 minutes, while we made a bunch of noise and readied ourselves.  He made his way around us, seemingly uninterested.  Kristin didn't sleep the rest of the night, or the next night, or the next night...

Here's some berry filled bear poop along the trail.  It was about the size of a cow patty.

Sadly, our trip has nearly come to an end.  We are back in the lower 48 states after another long drive through Canada.  We're making our way to the east coast to visit family for a few weeks and to pick up Kristin's dog, Chloe, from Aunt Kathy and Uncle Brad's.   Even though our trip is nearly over, we are both excited to see friends and family, to get our dogs, and to get back to Denver and hopefully find jobs.  Thanks to everyone for all your support and following our story over the past 15 months.