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.

Utah – a State of Contrasts - Part 3

(sara & chrisch) Bryce Canyon
This is national park impresses with many sandstone hoodoos arranged in a halve circle called the amphitheater. From a ranger we learnt that this park doesn’t’ deserve its name since there is no river. Nevertheless, of all interesting rock formation we saw In Utah we liked those in Bryce the most. We did along hike, the loop of eight with really spectacular views from different perspectives. We stopped many times, not due the high altitude, but to take pictures. Nearly no effort was too big to get the perfect shoot.

The other thing worth to mention about Bryce is the extreme of temperatures. While the temperature reached close to 100° F (40° C) it was below freezing in the night.

Last but not least Zion, the promised land
Zion is with about three million visitors per year the most  frequented national park in Utah. Due to the many different attractions, the presence of trees and the Virgin River we loved it the most.
We walked upstream through the Narrows, where we drowned one of our Cameras, luckily the one which had already some defects.

We hiked all the way up to observation point which provided a great overview of the whole valley and steep sandstone cliffs on both side. And on the last day, we climbed the Angles Landing trail, a really exposed hike up on a narrow ridge to a high cliff. On the way back, we met some of Saras former working colleagues from Tafers, where she worked four years ago.

Utah – a State of Contrasts - Part 2

(sara & chrisch) Canyon Lands: Island in the Sky and Needles District
Early next morning we left Devils camp ground and drove an hour to Island in the Sky, the most developed part of Canyon Lands National Park. It is located above the confluence of the Colorado and Green river, only accessible through a narrow land bridge. After we secured a nice camp site at the only 15 place first come first serve Willow Flat campground we drove back to the Dead Horse State Park, from where we could overlook a different part of Canyonlands and the Colorado.

Later in the afternoon we met David and Christie van Dyke at the campground. They flew from Michigan to Utah to spend some days with us. Already on our first evening we went on a strenuous hike half way down to the canyon and of course all up again. It was worth it to see the vertical wall.
The probably longest and most spectacular hike we did was the Syncline Loop. In some areas we couldn’t believe that a path should really be going through the rough landscape. We had to climb a bit around the rocks until we finally reached the bottom of the canyon. Then we had to walk the 1500 feet up again. Thanks to a good wind the temperature was bearable. However, when we reached the camp site again, van Dyke’s tent was gone: We found it about a fifty meters away hanging in a bush. The wind persisted and disturbed us while we were cooking and eating. Everything we didn’t hold or fixate with rocks was blown away.

After the sweaty hike wind and sand we really wanted to enjoy a hot shower and decided to stay the next night in a lodge. On the way, we shortly visited the Needles District, the second of three parts of Canyonlands. Early in the evening we arrived at nice and big two bedroom lodge south of Monticello. After some cleaning we prepared and enjoyed a feast meal (American and Swiss barbecue).

Capitol Reef
Our next destination was Capitol Reef National Park, four hours south west of Monticello. The highway was very scenic and led through Glenn Canyon National Park. The Natural Bridges monument was as well located on the way and so we visited the three large bridges.

Due our small detour we arrived late in the afternoon and the camping ground inside the national park was full. So we had to look for another place to stay and found finally a beautiful isolated camp site. Here we enjoyed our camp fires eat Smores and watched the night sky.

On the second day in the park we did our final hike together up to the Cassidy Arch, where we could stay on top and then continued through the narrow Grand Wash (an impressive canyon).
On Saturday morning we had to say good bye. Van Dykes had to head back to Salt Lake City to start work again on Monday. We had a great time together and drove sad about the lack of their company to Bryce.

Utah – a State of Contrasts - Part 1

(sara & chrisch) We spent two awesome weeks in Utah and experienced many contrasts. First to mention the temperature: extreme hot during the afternoons and freezing cold at night (even below freezing). Although all the five national parks we visited had majestic Navajo sandstone formation in common, they were all unique.

Salt Lake (City)
We arrived in Salt Lake City on Sara’s birthday and enjoyed a nice meal in a down town restaurant. Since we arrived at 9 pm it was hard to find a place that was still open. We immediately felt like home in Bern… 

The next day we did some sight-seeing of the town. However after the guided tour through the Mormon auditorium, an impressive construction which can seat 21’000 people, we had heard enough about their religion and decided to rather explore the Salt Lake. We drove one hour north to the Antelope Island, where we hiked a little bit and went wadding and Sara swimming, respectively floating. The highlights of the island were numerous bison we saw.

Delicate, Landscape and other Arches
After a six hour drive south we arrived at Arches National Park, famous for its Arches as the name indicates. On the first day we did a guided walking tour through the Fiery Furnace, narrow canyons with many smaller Arches. The same evening we hiked up to the famous Delicate Arch and took pictures of it red glowing in the evening light.

The next morning we hiked through Devils Garden, where we saw Landscape and Double-O Arch. The hiking path was really interesting but strenuous, mainly due to the heat. Despite we started early in the morning it was already warm and when we returned around noon it was terrible hot – we understood the meaning of its name now.

We camped inside the national park at Devils Camp ground, with big camp sites and spectacular sun set views. But there was no shade and during the afternoon it really felt like hell. We had to leave the park and find some shade down at the river side.