Juneau = Beautiful

After our trip to Fairbanks was over we had about 36 hours to prepare for a flight to Juneau. I was pumped to see Southeast Alaska. I had heard of the amazing forested islands and was looking forward to something like western Washington. The only difference was in Juneau, they have a glacier that comes all the way down to sea level and can be seen almost from the airport. It was pretty cool to see as we drove around, but then after we finished our work we were able to take a kayak tour of the glacier which produced these amazing pictures.















This waterfall was covered by Mendenhall glacier about 7 years ago. It is now about 100 ft away from the ice. The glacier recedes 24 ft per year.














Mendenhall glacier is 12 miles long and 200 ft deep where it hits the lake. It has boulders the size of cars caught up in the ice.














Chris in his kayak loving life.















Laura and Debbie. Debbie was our guide, and is the cousin of the head of Campus Crusade. I guess it pays to know people.














Debbie said if we touched the icebergs we'd probably sink our boats. I didn't test it.














This is a hole in the glacier that goes down into an ice cave which we explored for a while.














Basically, if I could live in an ice cave I would. This cave was about 150 ft long. I"m standing across a stream if its hard to see. The ice was crystal clear above us.

Life in Alaska

Pictures at last!!!

I'm sorry its taken me so long to get this up and going. I've been aiming at it for almost a month. To my supporters, I hope this gives you some good pictures of what our travels have looked like so far. These pictures are the highlights of our Fairbanks trip, with more from Juneau to follow.

This is the team, from right to left they are Wes, Scott, Amy, Laura and myself. Wes just graduated from Montana State University. Scott has been on staff for four years and was previously at Central Washington University. Amy just graduated from University of Montana, and Laura is from Oregon State University. Other than Scott, we're all interns which means we're up here for the year. Scott hopes to stay and keep the Alaskan ministry going in the future.

This is Wes and I climbing around in Denali National Park. In these pictures we are both over 500 feet up a shere rock face. We didn't really need climbing gear for these intense climbs because we are just that good. The views were incredible. Over Wes' shoulder is a huge river valley, and the mountains surrounding Mt. McKinley were massive. This was a nice side trip on the way back from Fairbanks. Nature in Alaska is big, everything is big, the rivers, the mountains and the valleys. Its amazing.

While in Fairbanks we had the opportunity to hang out with the Campus Crusade group from University of Alaska Anchorage. They joined us for a saturday outreach at the campus and then our team, the UAA students, and some Fairbanks students hung out and played games at a local church. As you can see it was some good times.

Los Anchorage

This blog is in salute to the best city nickname since Spokangeles. I heard the term in Fairbanks, as a way to slam Alaska's most populated city. I think its fitting. You can find anybody in Anchorage. People come here from all over the world. . . to escape the rest of the world. It creates a heck of a melting pot, and with the spread out, somewhat unattractive nature of the town, comparisons to the great Californian city are immanent. I still like Anchorage, its got beautiful scenery all around and should drop to -40 degrees like Fairbanks, which is a plus. Plus, I'm here for the next eight months so I better enjoy it.

This is my first post. I honestly don't get this thing yet and feel guilty for selling out to something new. First cell phone, then facebook and now blogging. I won't let it get me down though. I think this is a good thing. At least thats what I tell myself.