Alaska!

The relationship with Yumay has been gradually growing over the year and since we are both "up or out" kind of people we figured a two week hiking trip through alaska would be pretty beneficial to our relationship... along the fact that we both like to travel!

I just forfeitted going to race in Primal Quest with team DART (Matt Hart blew out his knee and they needed a replacement fast) and kept my promise to Yumay, though she was cool enough to give me the choice, since she knows that that would be a big dream of mine! Hindsight can sometimes be a beautiful thing too and I am glad I went to Alaska!

So we set off to the Kenai Peninsula, saying in Seward and Cooper Canyon for almost a week. There we mostly hiked, and took a cruise to see sealife. It was just incredible how pristine the landscape is, even with the masses of tourists the land still very much seems untouched in most places.

Out in seward on our first day...

And on our boat cruise...

Humpback about to impress the tourists...!

The not so lucky ones....

Talk about the catch of the day!!

A nice hike at copper canyon

Marmot

The glaciers sure were impressive too..

Now Yumay is a lot of things but not the greatest most careful planner, and I lack as well in the category, so we totally underestimated the temperatures..... (yes, alaska, but its august for gods sake!)... fortunately she is a trooper and we were able to camp most of the days... as it was more fun (we usually had the whole campground to ourselves...) . We hiked several days, among them some monster hikes in cooper canyon, where we came across a gigantic cadaver (nicely cut up in 4 big pieces and wrapped with cloth) of a moose, which freaked us out a good bit, but then fortunately soon after saw the hunters, a couple from Alaska that hunts a moose per year to have meat through the winter. They had to cut it up in 6 pieces alltogether and carry it out over two days..., incredible!!

Denali National Park

One of our many campsites...

Enjoying making dinner...

I see dead moose!!

Anyhow we went up to Denali National Park as well and encountered some gigantic grizzlybears, but we were in the bus driving through the park, and were about as safe as taking a ferry ride in switzerland, however the adrenaline still pumped pretty good sitting in the bus just a few yards away from a 1000lbs grizzly!

Last but not least.. the grizzly...