OK, so, you're probably wondering why this post starts out with a picture of the ass-end of a car. We will tell you.



One of the cool and kooky things we did on this trip was visit some hellishly remote areas of Alaska - areas that Mr. Tikistitch couldn't reach on his student budget the last time he visited the state. Alaska is not a place for nervous fliers (ie, like tiki). We think the statistic is one out of every 71 people there actually owns their own plane.



Small planes (and we mean, puddle jumpers) are pretty much the way you get from here to there in a place like Bettles.



And we don't just mean to kooky remote tourist vistas, nor to hunting spots, we mean, if you want coffee, you gotta fly it in. If you want ice cream, you gotta fly it in. If you want fresh orange juice ... well, you know.



(The lodge owner, Annie, also grows some fresh vegetables in her "greenhouse." But that's another story. We can report arctic tomatoes are delish.)

Anyways, we were kinda curious, since most everybody seemed to have a car of some kind. Which, didn't seem to fit on a little Piper or Cessna. Unless maybe you had some MIT students to disassemble it?



When we inquired about this, the locals told us, in thick Alaska accents, "Well, there's the Ice Roooooad."

I perked up. "ZOMG, you mean like Ice Road Truckers, the greatest TV show in the history of the universe????"

"Ayup."



In case you are unaware of this show (to which we inquire, WTF????), basically, a few months a year, a river freezes over. And, some madmen driver guys take their 18 wheelers up and down. Like it's a road. Which, it really isn't. It's a fucking frozen over river.

So, all the beat up little Hondas and Toyotas and Chevies you see in Bettles and suchlike areas? With the freaky out of state plates and years out of date tabs? They all got driven up the ice road, dudes!!! In the middle of the freaking Arctic winter!!

Alaska = teh awesome.

Mr. Tiki just done posted more aurora pix.

One sooper sekrit of northern lights viewing: they actually look better in photos! Ya, rilly. You see a flash of green in the window and run outside and for a bit you're like, "Er, is that ... clouds?" And you're all freezing and stuff because you're north of the frickin' Arctic Circle. And then your husband takes a picture and you squint into the little display window it's like all cool and colorful. And then you look up again and it's still all greyish and you're like, "Er, is that clouds, or what?"

Anyways, preeeettttttyyyyy!

No, it's not an Alaskan version of Marlboro Country. Alaska has a chain of mountains which are all pretty much active volcanoes - the reason the mountains are so high and pointy. This valley was named when it was first explored, soon after an eruption, so I guess it was actually still smoking. It no longer steams like Yellowstone, but the weird scenery remains.



Anyways, this was at Katmai, which is where we went to see big old bears nomming salmon. GIANT bears nomming salmon. Giant HONGRY bears. Keep this in mind.



Like so many adventures in Alaska, this began by getting on a Partridge Family school bus. That's the driver on the left. Even though a real live park ranger went along on the tour, she seemed to be somewhere around 17 years old, and also appeared to to know quite a bit less about everything than the bus driver.

There was also an adorable older couple along. The husband had more than a bit of trouble getting on and off the bus, not to mention keeping his balance once earthbound. He was, IIRC, 90 years old (no lie!), though they both looked to be in their 70s.

The bus ride was actually kinda fun. We spotted a lynx, which is one of the shyer critters around. Even the bus driver got out his camera to take some pix.



Anyways, we stopped at this overlook. The big deal of the day was to eat our ham sammiches, and then, once full of belly and smelling of nummy food, hike down to the bottom of the valley. Through HONGRY BEAR COUNTRY.

Since I'm about as chary about heights as I am about flying (not to mention anything having to do with the word "hike") I asked our young ranger if this was a shallow descent, or if there would be anything to give a committed acrophobic a panic attack. She assured me that the hike was gentle as could be. Though, when the sweet older couple expressed interest in coming along, suddenly she became evasive, and finally, swept us away on the hike before the couple had officially decided whether or not to accompany us.

The hike was indeed mostly a shallow descent, but the ranger for some reason seemed determined to make it all in double time. It wasn't yet an aerobic challenge, just, what with roots and plants and rocks and all that nature stuff, a challenge of tiki's coordination, which is minimal.

The scenery was indeed pretty kewl, what little time we had to gather it in before Ranger Sprint decided to spring off down the hill. We had a discussion about Grizzly Man, a film that came up over and over again during our stay in Alaska. It turned out that there has actually NEVER been an encounter of a bear with groups of 4 or more. Since there were about 6 or 7 in the tour group, it was therefore no problem. Of course, being the stumbling type, we began trailing around at the back of the pack. Which, usually isn't so worrisome, except that, as you will remember, we were in HONGRY BEAR COUNTRY.



You can prolly see better pix of the weird-tastic scenery in Mr. Tiki's flickr set, he being a better photographer (as well as far less out of breath).

Finally, we got to the very bottom.

At which point the ranger said, "Bye-de-bye!" and, before anyone could object, charged back up the hill. Alone.

Leaving us all alone in HONGRY BEAR COUNTRY. After taking some photos and catching our breath, we began our ascent. Unfortunately, at the halfway point up the hill, just where the trail became most overgrown, the other tourists decided to take an alternate route to the top, leaving Mr. Tiki and ourselves in a group of two. Which is, ya know, less than 4.

Did I mention, HONGRY BEAR COUNTRY????



So, up we marched, through the tall, potentially bear-obscuring weeds, trying to make haste (but not too much haste, as you're NEVER supposed to run from brown bears) as well as keeping up a patter of witty dialog (as bears don't care for the sound of the human voice, especially, we hoped, pattering wittily).

Sadly, we ran out of witty dialog far below the rim, and had actually resorted to naming states of the union in alphabetical order. (Gus decided that there needs to be a law that for a new state to be admitted, it has to start with a letter that hasn't been used yet.) And, thanks to aerobic non-fitness plus anxiety, tiki ran out of breath for any kind of speech somewhere after that.

Needless to say, after a bit of anxiety, we somehow made it back to the ranger station. With a few more grey hairs. Dripping with sweat. In a NOT PLEASED state.

The sweet old man, who was waiting at the station, announced to all that that he and his wife had "wandered down" the trail a bit after we'd all left (ie, abandoned them), and that after talking to the ranger about their ramblings, they had decided that they actually descended "about halfway" down the trail. That is, through the steepest, most overgrown part, most BEAR-tastic bit.

He had not broken a sweat, but we decided not to disabuse the fellow of any notions.

And also vowed that we would NEVER visit this particular park again without bringing our trusty chainsaw.

And maybe some Navy SEALS.

Ba-ack in Seattle again.

Still have a lot of photos to upload. About 8 loads of highly toxic laundry to deal with. Plus while we were away, someone evidently broke in and left a pile of eBay boxes for me to sell!!!!!! (Or, maybe that was me.)

Just so you know what tiki's life has been like for the last two weeks, this video is from when we were "flightseeing." Though it sounds kinda swank, what flightseeing amounts to is squooging yourself and your gear into a Rat Pack-era rickety plane, often held together with visible bits of duct tape, they flying to some remote area and making power dives over unsuspecting moose. (If you look at Mr. Tiki's Flickr set, he's got some great pix of surprised moose looking up from where they were having a nice quiet drink and totally going "What the f---???")

Flightseeing is fucking awesome, in other words.

Which was kind of a surprise, as tiki is the original white knuckle flier. Seriously. We'd take a pony express carriage before we'd fly.

Anyways, Saturday morning, our pilot, Jay, announced he'd take us up to see Gates of the Arctic, and then on the way back we'd land for a bit at "the airport." This last elicited massive chortles at the Brooks Range Air office. (Which is, you know, two nice ladies, but they chuckle pretty loud.)

Anyways, after a quick flight tour of the peaks at Gates of the Arctic, and some random buzzing of Dall sheep, he turned south, and this is what happened. (Notice he unwisely let tiki ride shotgun.)



After we got down, I was like "Holy shit! I can't believe you landed the plane on a gravel bar." And he was all, "Yup." (Taciturn bush pilot dude.) He then told us he "maintained" it sometimes, and proceeded to pick up a few particularly larger-than-average rocks and toss them aside.

We took a couple of 737s home today. They didn't buzz any wildlife. And they landed on runways. It's cool to be home, but, ya know, it lacked a certain panache.

So, after waiting for the entire 15 day vacation for a rare combination of aurora activity and clear skies, on the final night of our stay here in Bettles, at 66 degrees north, nature decided to give us a little light show. We chose to watch from the lodge, though Mr. Tiki gathered his 75 lbs of camera equipment and charged out to the local airport landing strip, where he snapped some photos.

Up in Bettles, AK for the final leg of our Sarah Palin Memorial '09 tour. Intarnets tubes are quite clogged, so probably no big updatey 'til we're home. Staying at an absolutely fantastic place, the Spirit Lights Lodge, run by Annie and Bernard, and just had a couple of mind-blowing days of flight-seeing with some super cool bush pilots of Bettles Range Air.

Mr. Tiki decided to take a dip in the local waters, along with our pilot.

So, last day at Denali park yesterday. Gonna try to make this coherent, but espresso guy was out of whipped cream, so our mocha was a little strong. As we've mentioned before, with rare exceptions, you don't get to actually drive your own vehicle into the park's ten kajillion acres, instead you have cram onto a schoolbus with all your ten tons o' photo equipment.



Some folks NEVER GET OFF THE BUS!!



It's OK Mr. Tikistitch! We won't bite you!!

Anyways, were actually on the bus yesterday along with some kind of Nikon enthusiast group. They all had kajillion million dollars of photo equipment along with them. They sat in the back of the bus, so we didn't hear much from them during the ride, except at stops, when you needed to squnch down to avoid being bonked be debarking tripods.



Tripods ready???

( LJ cut for excessive scrolliness )

OK, so, sated with plenty of fish chow-dah and beer, will try to write something relatively coherent regarding Denali experience.

The initial impression was not great - we're staying at some kind of cruise line-built "chalet" that actually looks more like the Disney version of a woodland lodge - all that's missing are animatronic bears playing the fiddle. BTW, what's up with all the DEAD STUFF in Alaska, anyways? Is there some kind of state law that every single room must include taxidermy? We're gonna be out of sorts when we get back to Casa de Tikistitch and there are no more stuffed moose heads. We mean, there's taxidermy at the friggin' airport when you arrive!



Anyways, the park itself is so overwhelmingly overwhelming, that it kind of overwhelms anything else in the universe. We saw a map somewhere that superimposes an outline of Alaska over the other states and, well, it pretty much takes up the entire continental United States. Consider that the vast majority of that is owned by the US gummint, and a big chunk of that is this park and you get the picture.



Most of the park doesn't even have roads. What roads are there are pretty restricted, so to tour the park, if you're not a diehard back country dude, is you get on a schoolbus. Yes, a schoolbus. A crowded schoolbus. 'Cause, besides all us chubby tourists, you got back country dudes with all their gear, and photographer dudes with all their gear.



Little-known fact: you need at least 500,000 lbs of gear to take picture of Denali. IT'S TRUE!!!!!

Anyways, once you all squooge onto the bus and get into the back country, and go miles and miles, and then miles and miles, and then the road goes gravel, and it goes down to one lane, and it winds through some mountains, and then suddenly, someone will scream OMG MOOSE and all panic!!!



We got bumped with telephoto lenses. A lot.

But, then you get some kewl shots, like Mr. Tiki's psychedelic moose!



But, we've kinda taken up too much time, and are clogging Intarnets.

Here's our Flickr photo pool:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/guspamalaska/

...with more of Mr. Tiki's kewl photos and our silly photos. We need to see if the mocha stand is still operating this late at night.

Totally stealing one of Mr. Tiki's more prettiful photos 'cause I didn't take anything worth shit yesterday.

We went on a cruise of Prince William Sound. In retrospect, not highly recommended, though Katmai may have spoiled us. We got there quite early, as you have to squooge through a narrow one lane tunnel to get out to Whittier, and it's only open once an hour for traffic. Anyways, it was pouring, we got bad instructions about parking, so ended up beaching the rental car in a mudhole maybe a quarter mile up the road. Then advised there was no place inside to wait out the 2 and a half hours 'til boarding, blah blah blah, so ended up not pleased, huddled under a tarp, losing feeling in fingers and toes.



Anyways, limited time on Intarnets here (dang tubes is clogged again) so suffice to say, we ended up being crowded in cheek by jowel in the upper deck, due to lower decks being crammed equally full of busloads of Japanese tourists. Limited opportunities therefore to actually see anything from the craft, as there was always a human amoeba of tourists in the way - they never went anywhere in groups of less than 60, or so it seemed. Despite the cruise video showing mobs of wildlife, what little we saw (ie otters) we steamed right past to the J tourists would have an opportunity to stand, one by one, and get each and ever one's photo taken in front of a glacier. No, I'm not kidding. Also, the ranger dude claimed global climate change is due to an ice age, or some damn crap he heard on Beck's right wing babble show.

Anyways, Mr. Tiki took some pretty pix of glaciers plus cute sea otters, so not all is lost!