Ferry Valdez - Whittier

(sara & chrisch) To avoid driving the same route twice within a few days, we decided to take the ferry from Valdez to Whittier. The road from Kenny Lake to Valdez goes over the (name of the mountain range) and the Thompson pass. While organizing our trip, we saw pictures of the Blue Berry state park and campground and wanted to stay there for a night. However, when we arrived at the turn off to the park it was obvious that camping was not possible. The road was still full of snow and it was freezing cold up there. Our decision to drive down to Valdez was quickly made.

MV Aurora - Our Ferry (aus USA Rundreise: Alaska)

The five hour ferry ride was like a commercial scenic boat tour. The sky was blue and we had great views to the mountains and fjords. We saw whales, Dall’s porpoises (same family as the orca, but only a fourth the size) and cute sea otters.

Scenic View (aus USA Rundreise: Alaska)

Wrangel - St. Elias

(sara & chrisch) This is the world larges national park – roughly 1.2 times the size of beautiful Switzerland. The highlight of this area, is the abandoned Kennecott mine. It was once one of the best copper mines containing ore with purity up to 70% copper.

Mt. Blackburn (aus USA Rundreise: Alaska)

Despite Kennecott is located at the edge of the park it is only accessible by unpaved road, following the former rail road track, which we were not allowed to drive with our rental car. We decided to obey this restriction and hired a shuttle bus to bring us in and out. This was worth its costs. On the way back from McCarty we learned why we shouldn’t drive our car on this road – the tour operator had on two different cars a flat tire due to old railroad spikes or sharp stones…
We stayed for two nights at a campground with marvelous view to the Kennicott Glacier and Kennecott on the hill side.

Kennecott Mine (aus USA Rundreise: Alaska)

On our first afternoon we hiked up to the abandoned miner’s village and saw a black bear with a cup cross the road approximately 100 – 150m in front of us. This was our first encounter with bears and we got quite excited. Alone on the road having no place to hide - that’s different than watching a bear in a zoo. Thankfully the bears were not interested in us and disappeared in the forest.
We took a guided tour through the village and the 13 story mill, where the copper ore was grinded and purified.

Ascent to the old mine (aus USA Rundreise: Alaska)

The next day we wanted to hike up to one of the mines. Due to a strong winter with a lot of snow fall all the trails up to the mines were still covered in snow. We decided to try it anyways and left early. However, the snow and mud proved to be too much and after we went almost ¾ up, we decided to enjoy the view and turned around.

Alaska: Anchorage

(sara & chrisch) After our arrival in Anchorage Airport, we went to the Alamo counter to pick up our economy car. Wow, our Toyota Yaris was not much bigger than a shoe box and we were unsure whether we can fit our entire luggage into this little thing. Christoph had assumed that we’ll get again an upgrade – but got severely disappointed. However in the end it worked out. The trunk was filled with food for about a week, what we bought at Wal-Mart, the backpacks were lying on the back seats.

We spent one night in a hostel in Anchorage  and the next morning we took off towards Kenny Lake. On our way, we visited the Alaskan Native Heritage Center. The exhibitions were really good and we learned a lot about the native Alaska culture.  For example our assumption about Igloos, that they are always built with snow was proven wrong We learned that these snow constructions are only temporary shelters during hunting and that their permanent Igloos are built with wood and covered with mud and grass for insulation.

Salt Lake City

(sara & chrisch) After our two weeks camping trip in Utah’s desert, we returned to Salt Lake City where we enjoyed the hospitality of Rose and Mike. We met them during our stay in Kenya and promised to visit them while traveling to the US.
It was such a blessing to have a nice place to stay, take a shower and escape the heat and dust. Moreover we loved the fellowship and the great discussions with them about Africa and the things we did during the past year.

Michael, Rose, Sara & Christoph (aus USA Rundreise: Utah)

On the second day on our stay, we visited the Snow Bird ski resort just a couple of miles away from Salt Lake City. The hike up the hills led us through some snow from the past winter. Such a contrast to the heat we experienced in southern Utah. Back at their place we enjoyed their swimming pool, relaxed and got ready to continue our adventure.