Alaska 2 Years Later

Just returned from a trip back to Alaska. We were there almost 2 years ago to the week, and the changes were interesting. First, we stayed at Alyeska again, which since last time has been purchased by the guy whose dad owns GEICO. He has promised to build a new chair up to the glacier bowl (you still have to hike a traverse up to it now...) and to make the resort a more attractive place for vacationers and snow lovers. It looks the same right now on the outside, but the bed was wayy less comfortable. Last time we had the most comfortable bed I have ever slept in, and this time, not so much.

We went to Portage Glacier, one of the most spectacular sights I've ever seen, expecting the worse after seeing what the Mt. redoubt ash cloud had done to the Alyeska Snow, but were pleasantly surprised...here is what it looks like last week...
This is what it looked like in 2007...not much change, even when we got up close to it.

However, Exit Glacier just outside Seward had changed, and the ash from the volcano could clearly be seen coating the glacier...Here it is last week...

And this is what the "toe" of the glacier looked like in 2007, a pretty dramatic difference.

Just south of Portage Lake and Glacier is Byron Glacier, a place we really love to hike. The weather was horrible this time, rain, sleet, windy and about 35 degrees, but we hiked it until our gear was soaking. Looking up at Byron glacier, this is the scene last week...

And this is what it looked like in 2007. There was much more snow 2 years ago, even though the time difference of our visit was just one week.

The biggest surprise for us was what the volcano, which is only about 70 miles away from Alyeska, did to the top of the resort. Last time we were there, the top of Alyeska still had tons of snow and even was running a ski and snowboard camp for local schoolkids and teens. You can even see someone on the chairlift in the middle of my photo...

This time, the ash from the volcano settled onto the snow one day in mid-May, and that same day the resort got about 20 inches of volcano-laced snowfall. When the sun came out a couple of days later, the reflective nature of the glass-pumice fragments made the snow all but disappear completely, closing the resort weeks earlier then normal. Here is a shot of what it looked like last week.

Take-aways? Alaska is an amazing and wonderful place, and Alyeska is an excellent location from which to stage your explorations on the Kenai Peninsula. Oh, and the Chair 5 restaurant in Girdwood has great pizza. While we were at Alyeska we also experienced a volcano-related 5.6 earthquake, so it's a great place to visit, but as we drove around the Kenai, we were keenly aware of the "Tsunami evacuation route" signs and the "volcano safe-location" indicators...

Thanks for looking, and you can find the rest of my shots at my webshots page...click the link on the right to access it.