Week 65 - it's all about wildlife

Pretty early on, our captain announced that we were taking a different route because she had received an exciting message. However, she didn't reveal more. After 20 minutes, the announcement came: Orcas ahead of us. 

All guests jumped up and went to the outside deck. And indeed: an orca mother and her calf were swimming in front of us. They surfaced frequently to breathe, and you could clearly see the black and white pattern. 

Then, more orcas joined from the other side, and one even leaped out of the water. Fortunately, Franzi had the camera ready and captured the shot of her life. 

According to the captain, two families of orcas met here. This scenario is apparently quite rare. 

As if we weren't lucky enough, we were able to observe a humpback whale breathing and even spotted a black bear on the shore. 

Additionally, we visited a puffin colony as well as a sea lion colony. 

A perfect day and now we can finally check orcas off our bucket list :-)

Our seat neighbors were from Colorado, and we had a great conversation. He had a professional camera with him and promised to send his photos later. We, of course, will share them with you as soon as we have them. This may take a while, as they are currently in the backcountry of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, doing a kayaking trip. 

On Monday, we continued to the Russian River Falls. One of the best free spots to observe bears catching salmon. Unfortunately, we didn't see any bears, but the salmon were diligently jumping. 

The salmon season is in full swing, and the rivers are full of anglers. In Alaska, you can only catch a fish as an Alaska resident, so Julian is not going on any fishing trips. 

Before heading back to Anchorage, we hiked to Crow Pass and Raven Glacier on our way. 

In Anchorage, we went on a souvenir hunt before finally leaving the city behind. 

We drove up Hatcher Pass, just beyond Anchorage. A relaxing drive awaited us, along with a campsite with a mountain view.

The next morning, we took a short hike at Summit Lake to enjoy the 360° view. Then we went to Independence Gold Mine at Hatcher Pass. The mine is one of the largest gold mines in Alaska and has been closed since 1951. You can walk freely over the old mining area and read the information boards. Gold was and still is an important topic for Alaska. A total of 141,000 ounces of gold were extracted in the mine. 

We then headed toward Denali National Park. We did a hike to see the mountain Denali, which shares the same name. We had a cloudless sky and could see North America's highest peak at 20,000 ft (approximately 6,090 m) crystal clear. Mount Denali is visible without clouds for about 100 days a year.

To see more of the national park, we booked a shuttle, as the park is closed to private vehicles from Mile 15. For $30 per person, you can go up to Mile 43 and hop on and off as you wish, similar to a hop-on-hop-off bus. The park has a high density of moose and caribou. To see these as much as possible, we booked the earliest tour, departing at 6 AM.

So at 4:50 AM, the alarm rang, and by 5:30 AM, we were at the bus station. On the journey to the return point, we only saw one caribou. A little disappointed, we set off on a short hike and did spot a female moose on the mountain.

To maximize our ticket, we took the bus back to the return point and then spotted a grizzly bear. Far away but clearly visible on the meadow.

So, we drove straight back and had ourselves dropped off at a distance. And indeed, we were able to find the grizzly again and observe it calmly.

Our group expanded with 2 girls from Ireland, who are also in Canada on a working holiday visa.

Fortunately, we maintained the recommended distance of 300 yards from the bear, because suddenly it charged in our direction. Thus, we walked backward, bear spray at the ready in hand. Though the bear slowed down, it kept moving toward us continuously. We must have walked at least a kilometer backward before the bear changed direction and started leisurely eating flowers.

Then a bus came by in the wrong direction and prohibited us from walking toward the exit, as there was another grizzly over there as well. So we were trapped between two bears and had to wait until the next bus with available seats arrived. Again, we were lucky we adhered to the instructions, as the second grizzly was just 1 meter off the road behind a bend. We would have unknowingly walked right into it.

This thrilling day ended with a pizza. Tomorrow we plan to go back to the park and hike at Mile 15.

After that, we're slowly heading toward Whitehorse, as the start of work is getting closer.