{this moment} - trying to capture Alaska

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. See Soulemama to play along.

{photo by my husband}

North Pole, Trans-Alaska Pipeline and Pioneer Park

This is officially the last post of all things Alaska. There were a few minor adventures that I didn't want to include in some of our bigger days so I decided to save them for the end and put them all together. They definitely deserve mentioning; I mean, we went to the North Pole, for goodness sake.

Speaking of which, when I told the kids we were going to the North Pole to visit Santa's House, they all looked at me quizzically and said, "The north pole is NOT in Alaska!"

Although North Pole, Alaska would have you think otherwise.

We did meet a few reindeer and the house was a pretty cool experience with some lovely handmade ornaments that I fell in love with.

And the kids were able to pile into Santa's sleigh. How cool is that?!

We also visited one of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline sites. This site, near Fairbanks, had a visitors center with lots of info on the pipeline, it's purpose, and the building and management of the pipeline.

Paulie had to jump up and touch it, of course.

Our last evening in Fairbanks, we visited Pioneer Park, which Paul and his siblings actually visited as children.

They had lots of cool memorabilia and artifacts from the early days of Fairbanks, including the railcar that Warren G. Harding rode in during his Presidential visit to Alaska.

I think the most popular attraction though was the -40 cooler room that you could visit.

They weren't kidding! It's really 40 below!

Paulie brought a cup of hot water to watch evaporate before it hit the ground. Philip brought one too and actually threw it on Paul requiring him to make a hasty exit with a frozen-burning scalp.

The rest of the walk around the park was less eventful, and it was a fun place to spend an afternoon learning about the pioneer days of Fairbanks.

Blueberry Pancake Trail

The last day we were in Alaska was a mostly full day since our flight didn't leave for home until 9 pm. Paul and I spent the morning on a hike since the kids were on a fishing trip with their aunts and uncles. We headed out just after breakfast and were met immediately with Fireweed illuminated by the morning sun. I realized at that moment that I think we saw Fireweed every day we were in Alaska, which might have been the only wildflower (except perhaps yarrow) that we saw every single day.

The trail we chose to hike, out of the more than a dozen available on the grounds of our hotel, was the Blueberry Pancake Trail. In order to get to the Blueberry Pancake Trail, we had to hike up Blueberry Hill.

On the map, Blueberry Hill looks very small, and it is compared to the mountain which the tram rides up to, which Paul and Paulie actually hiked right before we had to leave for the airport (2 miles up 2000 ft elevation), but Blueberry Hill is the hill that the ski lift climbs so it's no small potato itself.

Once we got we near the top of Blueberry Hill (and I can't say that without thinking of Blueberries for Sal), we found several large patches of Cottonweed, like a giant spilled his bag of cotton balls in clumps on the ground..

And there we found the entrance to Blueberry Pancake Trail.

One last look at the mountains before entering the forest.

I was amazing again at the greenery everywhere in the forests here. It's impossible to capture the beauty of it.

And once again, the lichen, moss and small green plants reminded me of a Elsa Beskow or Thornton Burgess book.

There were even these teeny, tiny white flowers to accompany the miniature forest village.

And teensy mushrooms that I could see Woody, Hazel and Little Pip searching for.

The wooden boardwalks were fun to navigate through the forest. In many places you could see the lichen and moss growing directly underneath the boards.

We found a spider collecting food for dinner.

And a moss-covered hollow log that we could imaging Johnny Chuck hiding in.

The many varieties of fungus growing out of the trees were a fascinating discovery. I've never seen mushrooms like these before. And some of them were so large and beautiful.

Toward the end of the trail we even found a few bushes of wild blueberries, which made me a little nervous we'd run into a bear. (Hey, remember I told you this reminded me of Blueberries for Sal!)

What a treat to find these growing in the wild! (since we didn't spy any bears on a blueberry hunt)

And best of all, as we were exiting the path (which was a one-way trail) a sign. Very helpful to know at the END of a hike!

Alyeska

This morning, bright and early, we headed out of Denali toward Alyeska, which is about an hour south of Anchorage, not too far from the Portage Glacier tour we took on our first day in Alaska. We spent a good bit of the day traveling, but the mountains all around and clear weather made it worth the scenic drive. As we were nearing our destination, we were treated with an appearance by some Dall Sheep on a cliff near the Seward Highway.

So beautiful and elegant they were jumping from cliff to cliff and over the rocky terrain.

Once we arrived at Alyeska, this is the sight we were treated with:

And the view out of our expansive hotel window:

After letting the kids burn off some steam for about an hour in the hotel's salt water pool, we headed up to the tram to the Seven Glacier Restaurant on top of the mountain.

While we were waiting for the tram, we basked in the glow of the late afternoon sunshine and the mountains peeking in around us.

Upon lifting in the tram, I wanted to be in 4 different places at once taking photos from all of them! This is the view to the west as we were riding north in the tram.

And straight up to the tram drop off and restaurant:

The view down:

And once we were at the top heading to our dinner reservation, I couldn't help pausing for a few more photos from the top of the mountain.

After dinner, I walked around the property taking a few more photos,

and captured a paraglider shortly after takeoff.

A few more shots from every direction I could manage atop the mountain.

Then it was time to head back down the tram.

with snowballs in tow (apparently they found more areas to explore than I did!)

We descended the mountain and I took photos from the east side this time.

And a shot of the hotel as we headed down.

When we arrived, the kids needed to throw their snowballs, of course!

What a fun time we had exploring the Alyeska mountain and catching the view from the tram. We can't wait to explore this place more tomorrow!