Another One Off The Bucket List!

First, we forgot to post on Tuesday but HAPPY(belated) SOLSTICE.  The solstice is a HUGE deal in Alaska.  There are many celebrations and festivals as it is the lightest day of the year.  And in Alaska that means a lot.  We believe the sun rose around 4:30a and set around 11:45p here in Anchorage.  We played tennis and sipped wine until about 10:30p and it was still light when we walked home.  Crazy.

Second, yesterday we did one of the coolest things we have done in Alaska thus far (aside from getting engaged), and we are overly excited to tell you all about it.  You'll have to bear with us through a lot of pictures and stories, but we think it will be worth it.

On the drive into Anchorage back in August, we passed a glacier called the Matanuska.  We were told that it is a glacier you can actually walk on.  We were in a rush to get to Anchorage and the Alaska State Fair, though, so we did not stop.

Here's a picture of the glacier from our adventures yesterday:

A few months ago, while at Sheep Mountain, we learned that our friends Jimmy and Suzanne met in Juneau while Suzanne was vacationing there with her family.  It turns out that Jimmy was an ice climbing guide, and Suzanne had been on his tour (very sweet!)

We asked Jimmy and Suzanne if they would be willing to take us out ice climbing.  And they agreed!  So yesterday we rented the necessary gear (crampons, helmets, boots, etc.) and went out to Matanuska to explore.

Here we are totally geared up and ready to start exploring more of the glacier:

And here are our incredible friends and faithful guides:

Walking on a glacier is an amazing feeling.  These are geological creatures that have existed for crazy amounts of time.  And the rapidness with which they shift and modify form is simply stunning.  Here are some glacier pictures:

We walked around a bit to get comfortable walking with crampons.  They definitely made it easier to walk on the ice.

Along the way, Jimmy pointed out neat glacial features to us.  For example, he (thankfully) pointed out a few moulins.  Basically, these are never-ending holes in the glacier.  As Jimmy put it, if you fall into one of these, "you are never coming back."  He told us that people have tried dropping red dye into moulins in the past to see where it comes out . . . it never did.  Here's more information from wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moulin_(geology)

And here is Tammy looking into the moulin.  Note the safety hookup to ensure Tammy did not fall in:

You can also see how blue the ice is.  That is because a glacier is highly compressed snow and ice that absorbs all of the colors in the spectrum aside from blue.  For more information, check out wikipedia's entry on blue ice: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_ice_(glacial)

The other thing about glaciers is that as they move they form crevasses.  This is a deep crack in the ice, as can be seen below.  Although it looks like it might be fun to explore, the quickness with which the glacier moves, as well as winds pushing the ice around, makes these things highly unstable.  These also make glaciers more difficult to explore in the winter and early-Spring, as snow covers the crevasses making it more likely that you'll fall into one if you don't know what you're doing.  Thankfully, going out in June meant most of these were fully exposed.  And Jimmy and Suzanne knew what to do!  For more information, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crevasses

We also got to do some ice climbing as part of the adventure.  We started by using ice axes (what Tammy is holding above) but soon moved into technical tools.  Here's Tammy scaling the first wall we did with technical tools:

And here's Steve:

Basically, you would dug the technical tools into the ice and then push your crampon into the wall to push yourself up.  It was a workout for the legs, but a ton of fun.  Then would come the coolest part:  to get down the ice wall you would simply lean back against the ropes and just walk down:

We were also really thankful to have a master knotsman, belay-er, and rope guide with us.  Jimmy was awesome.  Here he is getting ready for our final climb (described below):

At the end of the afternoon, we decided to try our hand at a more difficult wall.  This ice wall was above a pool of water with an unknown depth (Tammy stuck her axe in and it didn't hit the bottom).  We had to start to the left of the pool, then traverse over to the center, and then climb up.  It was terrifying, exhilarating, and rewarding all at the same time.  Here's Tammy:

And here's Steve:

Jimmy and Suzanne were awesome company and amazing guides.  We're so thankful that they gave us this opportunity and we hope to continue practicing on rock walls and (maybe) ice walls in the future.  Hopefully, by some point, we'll be able to get to this level:

Another one off the bucket list: Ice Climbing!  Hooray!  An amazing Alaska experience.  And we have progressed on glaciers since the beginning:  in July we took a boat to one, in the winter we walked across a lake to one, and now we have walked on one.

Steve's friend is coming in town next weekend and we're going to explore Denali (including white water rafting!)  Pictures are sure to come!

The Denali Highway

Hello!

Now that the engagement flurry is calming down, we can start talking about our Alaska-specific adventures again.  And this weekend's adventure is the perfect one to get us back to the blog.

This weekend the Sheep Mountain crew (plus a few new additions) went out and drove the Denali Highway.  The Denali Highway is a 132-mile road that is unpaved for 110 miles.  It travels from Paxson to Cantwell (which is 27 miles from the entrance to the national park) and gives some of the best views of Alaska there are to be seen.  You can see everything from Denali to the Wrangell range.  It is truly awesome.  And when you have a great group of people you're traveling with, it is even better.

We started the trip Friday after work and camped about 30 miles north of Glennallen.  The next morning we woke up and headed out onto the gravel road:

As we said, the views were stunning:

After 25 miles or so, we stopped and went on a 3 mile hike to Tangled Lakes:

Peter brought his fishing rod and tried to catch us some dinner.  It didn't work so well:

There was also a little boat at the edge of the water.  We're not sure what it was for, but we assume it was for people going to cabins around the area:

We got back in the cars and drove even more.  Around mile 85 we got out again and decided to climb up a small ridge.  Of course, being near Denali, there were bears around the area.  Here's the paw prints to prove it:

We drove another 20 miles and then camped for the evening.  The next morning we packed up camp and headed out on the road again:

After 133 miles, we reached the end of the road and turned back toward Anchorage.  But not before we got one last look at Denali (Mt. McKinley) along the way:

P.S. More about the controversy surrounding calling the mountain McKinley or Denali later.

So that was the trip.  It was a lot of fun, very dusty, and stunningly beautiful.  We still can't believe we live here.

Tomorrow is summer solstice: the most sun we will have all year.  We're climbing a mountain at midnight and watching the sun dip.  We'll see how it goes!

Engagement Cake!

Welcome back!

First of all, thank you so much to all of our loving friends and family for the outpouring of excitement you have expressed.  We are really excited about moving into this new chapter of our lives and have already begun the wedding planning process.  We understand this process ebbs and flows over the next few months, but we're going strong so far!  So thank you again for everything.

On a side note, on Monday night we reached 180 readers in one evening!  That is awesome and we'd love to hear from all of you!  If you enjoy the blog, leave us a comment and let us know!  If you have questions about living in Alaska or visiting this magnificent state, we'd love to answer them!  This blog is for you just as much as it is for us to keep a record of our adventures here.  So let us know you're reading!

Moving on, one of Steve's co-clerks and our good friend, Elena, threw us an engagement party on Tuesday evening.  The prior morning she had created this amazing Alaska cake for Al Roker's morning visit to Anchorage.  So, with some touch-up work to represent us, she created this amazing engagement cake for us:

That's Tammy standing on top of a mounain while I propose.  A halibut, walrus, polar bear, and eagle watch, with the polar bear reminding us of the date.

The ENTIRE cake was edible (including the congratulations banner, the champagne bottle, etc.)  It was awesome.

She is an incredible cake creator and also an awesome lawyer!  Steve's co-clerks came out for the celebration and helped toast to our engagement.  It was really heartwarming and we really have appreciated all of their amazingness.

We have a fun adventure planned for this weekend that we'll report on next week!

The Proposal: By Steve

Some people have been asking about the proposal story, so we thought to ourselves "why not put it up on the blog that has been detailing our adventures in Alaska together?"  So, here goes.

As you may remember, during the winter we went for a hike up a mountain.  It was called Mt. Baldy.  The hike resulted in this picture on the blog (p.s. for those looking for foreshadowing, the peak we are facing in this picture is where we were standing when I proposed):

Well, what the blog post may have failed to mentioned (for fear of scaring our families) is that we got temporarily lost on our way down the mountain.  It was only for about 20 minutes, and we could see the end destination, but we slightly misplaced the trail and ended up walking through 2-feet of snow.  

While doing this, I was exceptionally calm, light-spirited, and happy . . . which, if you know me in trouble situations, may not always be true.  It was in this instant when I realized that it was Tammy's presence that was making it all ok: she kept me calm and gave me a sense of comfort and security.  I knew I had to spend the rest of my life with her.  The proposal location was set.

Flash forward to this past Saturday (June 11, 2011).  We decided to go on another hike up Mt. Baldy:

We made it to the top of the ridge and paused.  Tammy got curious and thought the proposal was about to happen.  Tammy was mistaken.

We then climbed higher, all the way to the mountain's summit.  Steve set up his tripod, ran back to Tammy, and got down on one knee:

All the rest is history.  She was kind of surprised (she had 10 seconds of notice because that is how long my self-timer runs for).  We drank some champagne and ate some strawberries I brought up:

And we spent some time soaking in the fact that we were now, officially, engaged:

After we made it to the bottom, we headed to Girdwood for a dinner at Jack Sprat's and a relaxing evening in the Alyeska Resort:

Of course, no set of engagement pictures would be complete without the signature Tammy face:

So that's the engagement story.  We have gone from one of our first dates in May 2005 to being engaged in Alaska in 2011.  And we are so excited to see what the future has in store for us together:

                                               (Us in Greenfield Village, Michigan on one of our first dates)

Alaska in Sunlight and Bloom

Hi, Everyone:

Sorry for not putting up another post about Kodiak, but Steve was at Drew and Sunny's wedding all of last week (as well as in town for his brother's high school graduation party), so we didn't get a chance.  Needless to say, our time in Kodiak was simply stunning and Steve had a lot of fun reconnecting with old Gimble and 515 friends!

Back to Alaska.  As every day passes, we come to realize just how unique this state is.  And last night was no exception.  Our friend from the synagogue, Abram, had proposed hiking Near Point last night . . . a mountain a little ways outside of Anchorage.  We were excited, but because of work schedules we couldn't start until about 7p.  We weren't sure we would make it to the top before dark, but decided it'd be nice to just hike for a few hours anyway.

What we forgot was that the sun is out LATE these days -- as in, last night it set at 11:35p.  So we had the unique experience of summiting a mountain at 9:30p last night, making it back to our car around 11:15p, and still driving home in bright sunlight!

Here's Tammy close to the top of Near Point. You can see that the sun is out and Alaska is now officially in bloom:

Here are some more pictures of the surrounding scenery (all of these pictures were taken between 9p and 9:30p):

Here's what the summit looks like from below:

And here's what it looks like from above.  Note that you can see Anchorage far off in the distance:

It was a pretty unreal experience and we're really glad Abram proposed it!

More hiking this weekend, possible Denali trip next weekend, ice climbing soon thereafter, and then we move into the visitor stage.  The summer is picking up here in Alaska!!!!