Greatest decision we ever made was getting a room the night before!! Rested and ready for the 4 hour train ride to Seward. Jimmy is getting excited again knowing we will be in Seward soon. He is excited to show me around. Jimmy worked in Seward for two years at Adventure 60 North (A60N) as a sea kayak guide, this is where he met Joel who was the best man at our wedding.
It's amazing how many people were at the station waiting to go to Seward... it felt like a million people there. Getting on the train we felt like we got down graded to car E since we had been in car C this whole time, but it turns out it was an upgrade...more leg room then you even know what to do with!
On this train ride we got to see a group of moose just laying around and then quite a few dall sheep running around. Dall sheep are quite amazing animals to watch move around, they run up a side of the mountain like it is nothing. Usually they look like white specks almost snow like on the mountain but these were low and could see them up close and personally. Unfortunately most of the good pictures are on my camera which i can't upload until i am back in Ohio.
This section of the train, Anchorage-Seward, is by bar the best section. You follow the Seward Highway but you get off the main road and through wilderness which is gorgeous. We start to see glaciers which are fascinating in their own way! First time seeing a glacier in person... everything is better in person.
We have officially arrived in Seward and it is beautiful just like i expected! Clear blue skies (which i hear is not normal for Seward) and mountains showing all their beauty. We ride to our camp site, once we load our bikes back up, and get to call it "home" for the next few days. It's exhausting setting up and taking down camp each day! Off to say hello to Rick Brown, the owner of A60N. Jimmy showed me the first building he was in and then we ride up to the new operation and man have they grown.... quite the operation now!
Rick Brown (you can never just say Rick) gives us a tour of everything he has done, he is quite a talented person and is doing very well for the business. We plan to meet up for dinner but first a hike up Marathon Mountain. If you get a moment look up the mount marathon race every 4th of July... you will be quite impressed. We start up the Jeep trail and make it to the bowl of the mountain. You can see Seward from above surrounded by mountains, i am in my happy place!!! We could not have asked for better weather either!
Off to dinner with rick brown and some of his guides. According to Jimmy he has not changed, the most generous guy ever. Now i have dreams of living in Seward and working at A60N... i need someone to plan my life and tell me what i need to do so i have a path to follow.
Our second day in Seward and we wake up to rain, it's suppose to be sunny but the sun didn't get the memo. We ride to a cute coffee shop, resurrect art gallery and coffee, which will soon be a daily routine for us. Jimmy got a cinnamon roll the size of his head and i got a mondo coffee, apparently it's "go big or go home" for us. While sitting there Rick Brown showed up and his friend Devon, who jimmy use to sail with on trips back in the old days. We spend a couple more hours at the coffee shop before we ride to A60N to borrow ricks 4Runner to do a hike.
It's still quite cloudy but no rain which we have to take advantage of the day so we decide to hike mount Alice. The trail starts on the side of the road at a pull off with no trail head, if you know about this hike you must be a local. We take about 4 steps up the trail and realize we forgot our bear spray, not something you want to forget when hiking in Alaska. Turn around to get bear spray and then we attempt take number 2.
After taking about the first 20 steps you enter into what looks like jungle, something that you would not expect just by looking at the forest from the side of the roads. It was magical, green moss hanging off huge trees, big luscious leaf plants growing on the floor and the best thing of all NO bugs! We start hiking and even though the views are great, hiking straight up hill is not. Apparently Alaska does not believe in switchbacks.... it's more like 'let's get above tree line the quickest way' which in theory sounds great but it's just pure evil. After about a hour we get to a clearing that looks over Seward (opposite from marathon mountain), even with clouds it looks pretty sweet.
Hiking up and up we go soon to be above tree line... then it start to level off and include switch backs. Now the entire area above us is completely covered in clouds! Kind of an eerie feeling when you can't see anything in front of you or above you, especially when a bear could jump out at any moment and attack. Hiking along the edges and across really starts to get my heart going, i hate heights.
We did get to see a couple ptarmigans and a marmot, those puppies are huge (compared to how big we thought they were). Jimmy has done this hike before so we wants to get up and over to look over onto a glacier, the only problem he doesn't remember how far we have to go and the clouds don't help. It also doesn't help that the trail seems is disappear a couple of times. After about hiking up 3 hours we stop to have a snack before we turn around and go back. Even with the clouds we could see some scenery and then we see a gap of blue skies and the sun popping out. We look up at the blue skies and BOOM the peak of Alice appears... that was pretty incredible feeling experience that and then we realize we have a long way to go. And within minutes the clouds cover everything again.
Back down we head still not completely comfortable going down and not being able to see our surroundings. I hate hiking down!! After about 2.5 hours later and a super steep descent we make it to the road and truck. Overall it was a good hike! Back to A60N for shower (new this year for them) then camp for dinner and rest.
Bring on the rain the rest of the week!
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