An Unexpected Visitor

When you live in Alaska, sometimes you get unexpected visitors at your window.

I was sitting on my couch, right next to the window browsing the internet on my laptop. Suddenly, I heard a heavy SNIFF SNIFF from nearby. I looked at my windowsill where my cat was sitting and found a large snout pressed up against the screen. "Who's dog is that?!" I thought. Everyone in Alaska has large dogs as pets, so it would make sense to think a curious dog belonging to a neighbor was trying to take a peek inside my room. This was no dog. A young black bear was trying to climb inside! My cat was not happy about this. She poofed up larger than I have ever seen her and started growling. Then, without warning, she slapped the bear right across the face through the screen! I couldn't believe it! The bear, now mortified, turned around and ran back toward the safety of the forest.

These are the only photos I managed to get during the incident.

In this first one, you can see in the center of the photo, there is a bright patch of sunlight. In that patch, there is a light brown lump. That's the bear.

 I couldn't believe what I had just seen. This blurry image doesn't do it justice, but here's Kiwi all poofed up at the window.

My cat has become quite the Alaskan!

Well, since then, I've purchased a new telephoto lens! I just happened to have it in my car on the appropriate settings while driving home. As I approached my driveway, two cars were stopped in the road. They were letting something cross the street. THE BEAR!

I watched it trot back up the hill and proceeded to drive into the lot. There he was. All I had to do was roll down my window and hold down the shutter.

Despite the color of his fur, this is indeed a black bear. Black bears can have many different hair colors, just like us! This little guy is a blondie.

Yep.. that snout looks awfully familiar!

We believe this bear to be the cub of a large sow we saw last summer. She made me late for work while attempting to get into our dumpster with her two cubs. Once a cub gets to about this size, however, they're usually referred to as yearlings or juveniles. His mother isn't around to take care of him anymore. He's been kicked out and has to fend for himself now. 

Sprinting toward the lawn now.

Into a gallop.

And away he goes!

Hm.. I wonder if he'll be back for dinner....

Amazing Whales!

Since our tours have started up again, we've had the opportunity to see some pretty amazing whales! Thought I'd go ahead and post some of the pictures here.

Here are some orcas we saw a little while ago. The baby is sticking his head up out of the water!

Baby, female, and big male.

Lots of spray.

Just passing through.

A group of humpbacks bubblenet feeding!

These guys were very close to our boat!

Watching a nearby humpback dive.

Whale tail!

One of our boats caught in the spray.

Our boat is so small compared to these whales.

A nice tail closeup. You can see the water cascading off the top of the tail.

It's incredible that we get a chance to be so close to these amazing creatures. We're certainly very lucky!

My Alaskan Anniversary

I just recently celebrated my Alaskan Anniversary- the day I came to Juneau, Alaska! If you remember back to May 28, 2011, my first day was filled with excitement, anxiety, and even a little fear. You can read all about it HERE.

I must say that THIS May 28th was VERY different from my first. Jonny and I decided to rent out a Forest Service Cabin, hike to it, and spend the night! There are lots of Forest Service Cabins that dot the wilderness. If you come across one and you're dying, you can find shelter inside. Some of them are nice and elaborate, whereas others only have the bare essentials for survival. A cool thing you can do is to go online and reserve one of these cabins for yourself and camp out in the wilderness for a while. It's like camping, but you sleep in a wooden tent.

If you look at the map below, you can see all of Juneau. At the very northern end, there is a place called Point Bridget. We drove down the highway until we came across the mile 38 marker, parked our car, donned our heavy backpacks, and hiked all the way out to the point. The cabin is indicated on the map by the little red square.

Here we are at the beginning of the trail! We have our camping gear, backpacks and portable grill all ready to go!

Here's the trail sign.

The day was hot, the sky was clear, and the scenery was BEAUTIFUL! Here is the gorgeous meadow we crossed.

 Jonny and I looking out at the mountains across the sea.

We couldn't get enough of that sun!

Large trees like these sat in the boggy marsh.

These ponds reflected a vibrantly blue sky.

And here's the cabin!

The inside really wasn't anything special. Jonny sits at a wooden table. There are also some wooden bunks behind us.

But we made sure to sign the guest book!

I spent most of my time stacking driftwood and making a fire. We cooked hot dogs and made s'mores.

We also spent a lot of our time lounging in the sun and watching multiple Humpback Whales swim by. You can see them spouting in the distance.

And this was our view from the cabin! It was right on the rocky waterfront in its own private little cove.

We had a great time watching the rocks emerge as the tide went out.

It sure was a special day! We'll always remember it!

What We've Been Up To

Hi everybody! Sorry about not updating for a little while- guiding season has started once more and we're now in the full swing of things. Jonny and I are now "Lead Guides," so we're responsible for helping new guides out with the training process. It sure has been fun!

At the beginning, I was doing a lot of driving since many of the other guides had not yet obtained their commercial licenses yet.

But we DID get a very special new driver this year!! Isn 't Jonny just too cute behind the wheel?

Jonny driving one of the company buses.

We had some rather snowy beginnings this year. Here we are out in the storm doing our boat crew training. It was really coming down!

Watch the Voyager brave the storm HERE!

New guides climb up onto the boat to observe the life raft and emergency beacon.

And here's our rescue dummy! We had to fill him up with weight and practice rescuing him during the snow storm.

We also helped out at the Nature Center at the top of Mount Roberts. They sure had a lot of snow for us to shovel up there!

And what training isn't complete without a visit to the glacier? Here, guides experience the West Glacier Trail.

This is one of my favorite candid pictures of us on the trail. Our most experienced guide is trying to keep us all together as he points out something of interest. But what happens when you get a bunch of guides together on a trail? We talk about EVERYTHING!

We had another snow storm just as we were leading the group on the Moraine Ecology trail. There was so much snow at the end of April that we had to modify our route at the beginning of the season!

Here I am at the glacier a few weeks later. Thank goodness that snow melted!

Lately the weather has been very nice. Here's our view out at Auke Bay where we go whale watching.

We're having fun as we begin a brand new season and work on training our new guides. See you out on the trails!

Mud Run 2013

Hi everyone! We just had a fun-filled day of snow and mud doing Southeast Road Runners' Spring Tide Scramble! This was our second year in a row doing it, but our first time while it was snowing! It's a 4+ or 7+ mile run (depending on which you choose to do) starting on Douglas Island at the Fish Creek Bridge.You run across the channel at low tide to the mainland and then back again before the water rises! Jonny and I chose to do the 4 mile run. The rules are that you can choose any route you wish to make it across, as long as you reach the American flag that marks that you're back on the North American Continent. After you reach the flag, you loop around it and then come right back! I used my phone's GPS to map my route. Here's where I ran!

And here are some snapshots I took while running. Here's the starting/finish line with registration tents and refreshment tables. It started snowing pretty good right away, before the run even began.

Here I am with Jonny before the run. I made myself a rainbow tutu to wear, just for fun!

Our friend Andrew sports his cutoff Carhart's.

And we're off!

Making our way to the channel.

Running through the wetlands. It's a free-for-all!

Getting through the tidepools.

The water's getting deeper!

Making our way through more snow.

Slippery algae-covered mud!

Finally reached the flag! Time to go through all of that again before the water comes back!

If you'd like to see a video of us running, just click HERE! I know that this video isn't the highest quality, but it was the best I could do while running through such difficult conditions. I'm lucky I didn't drop my phone in the ocean! haha

I ended up splitting up with everyone in our group right away, so we all reached the finish at different times. Jonny and I got back in a little over an hour- much better than last year! Why in the world would we subject ourselves to this, you may ask. Because it's an experience! Where else in the world can you do a crazy run like this? I hope to add a few more pictures later on, so check back soon.

Take care everyone!