Alaska

I just got back from Alaska yesterday and haven't had interent access in a week, so I'll write all my adventures in one longer post.



August 2009



I'm on a cruise ship with my mom, aunt Debbie, my grandma, grandpa and my 3 little cousins: Francesca (14), Eleni (13), and Gianna (10).The boat has like 7 restaurants, a gym, a pool and a basketball court along with different lounges and clubs where different activities liek bingo and trivia happen. Despite all these things to do, I was a lazy bum while on the boat and played DS's with my little cousins. We played Pac man against one another (where one person is Pac man and the other 3 people are the ghost things and you have to kill the Pac man before he gets 15,000 points. If you are the Pac man and you geth 15,000 points you win.) and me being extremely competitive, won every time and didn't let them win once. I also got 147 out of 150 stars on Mario 64 for DS.



Monday the 24th
Today we arrived in Ketchikan, Alaska where I took my 3 cousins off the ships; we decided to go canoeing on Lake Harriet Hunt. When we got to the lake it had begun raining, but the locals told us that this was the normal weather so we got into the canoes nonetheless. As we paddled across the water, our guide told us to look for bear and deer and wolves; the only animals we saw were two ducks. Nevertheless, it was still a cool experience. It was not the most exciting excursion, but when I looked at the scenerey it was really nice. It was just three small canoes on the mile wide by mile long lake, surrounded by forests and trees, which was enclosed by mountains on all sides (which peaks's were covered by mist). It looked like something you would see on a post card or something. And I got to do something with my little cousins too; that was pretty cool as well.

We got out of our canoes for a while and hiked around the woods looking at trees and wildlife. I hate plants so when the guide was talking about the trees and flowers, me and my cousins were taking pictures in front of every huge tree we could find. One of the trees's names was Bruce the Spruce-- I thought that was pretty funny.

After our hike we got back into the canoes and went into the middle of the lake, and on the count of three all three canoes screamed "ALASKA" at the same time and we heard this huge echo shouting back at us.



After that excursion we got back on the boat again. The rest of the day consisted of me and my cousins taking a million stupid/ funny pictures. We also saw 2 killer whales swimming next to our boat at dinner. It was the first time I had seen whales so I was pretty excited. It was funny because it was the first time a lot of the crew had seen a whale as well, so the windows were flocked by crew members and guests together. ( A day before this, while we were sailing up from Seattle, our boat sailed past hundreds of dolphins. When I looked out the window, I could see hundreds of dolphins swimming and jumping along side the ship. That was really awesome.)



Tuesday the 25th



Today we arrived in Juneau, Alaska. I wanted to do something alone with my mom before I left to travel by myself, so we chose to see glaciers.

To get to the glaciers we had to take a helicopter, something I had never done before. As the helicopter rose above the land I could see everything: the port, the town, the landscpae. We had to fly over forests and through snow covered mountains passes: the scenery was amazing. The glaciers themselves were extraordinary as well. They are these huge pieces of ice that expand every year, and they are so strong that as the expand they knock down forests and cut out mountain sides. As we flew over just miles and miles of ice, there were canyon structures cut into the ice. These creveses were blue as ocean water and some dropped down hundeds of feet. There were also a lot of ponds which held fresh drinking water (when we landed I drank some of the water).

We landed and walked around the ice. We looked down into the canyons to see how deep they actually were; some of the I could not see the bottom. The coolest part about was just looking across the glacier, and seeing nothing but ice for miles.


When we got back on to the boat, we set sail through Glacier Pass/ Tracey Arm Fjord, which was a small passage of water surrounded by mountains on both sides with hundreds of icebergs floating in the water.

Wednesday the 26th

Today we arrived in Skagway, Alaska and I decided to go rock climbing. It was an amazing experience but I was extremely scared because it was my first time climbing. I learned pretty fast but there were times were I thought I was going to die (even though I had a harnass attached to me). There was one time when I was trying to pull myself over a piece of rock that jutted out of the mountain. I was about to pull myself over this obstacle when my foot slipped and I nearly fell a few dosen feet. Luckily I was able to catch the side of the rock; I had to hold up my entire body with just my hands. As I dangled 80 feet up in the air, I slowly pulled myself up on to the top of the ledge.
Even though there were harnasses and ropes attached to me, I was still pretty fearful, especially when I reached a whole section of rock that was completely flat. In this type of situation I had to try to reach the highest hand hold, and pull my body up. Sometimes this required me to jump up, relinquishing all sense of balance and stability I had, in order to reach the crevesses. If I jumped and didnt reach the ledges I would fall a dozen or so feet and just have to try again.
I also did some repelling, which was cool. I would kick off the rock and drop like 7-10 feet at a time. It was pretty cool.
Adam, my insturctor was a really cool guy. He travels all over the world to climb, hike, surf/ kite surf, scuba dive and to do other wilderness survival things. He said he actually started all his climbing and adventures right after he graduated high school, because he decided to take a gap year like myself. Well, this was his 3rd year of that gap year. He seemed really happy and had an awesome life, maybe my story will end in a similar way, with me traveling all over the world for years and years doing amazing things. That would be pretty awesome.

(Also, I was climbing with 2 other people, a couple for Washington D.C. . The man's dad went to Regis, and since I am obsessed with Regis, that news made the excursion even better.)

Later that night there was a chocolate buffet. 5 long tables just filled with chocolate flavored desserts. It was extremely tasty, and I thought I would mention it.

Hi-lights of Alaska

Helicopter ride
Walking on the glacier
Spending quality time with my mom
Playing DS's with my cousins
Rock Climbing

Alaska was a pretty cool trip. Like I said above I got to spend good time before I left with my family and I did a few once in a lifetime excursions.