US's largest and most remote state, few American's make Alaska their home, leaving the wildlife and natural beauty the true owners of this vast state. People from all over the world visit Alaska to take wildlife watching cruises which began from the most southern part of the state and go as far north as the arctic circle. Some of the best fishing, kayaking, hiking and some of the best mountaineering in the country if not the world can be found here. My first stop in Alaska was back when I was in the Marines and our plane broke down on the way to Japan. The brief unintentional stay in Alaska didn't give me much of an experience except for a little bit of what winter was like in the city. My first real trip to Alaska was in May 2009, as I set out to climb the tallest and the coldest high altitude mountain in the world, Denali! Unfortunately bad weather on Denali made the climb much longer then it should have been, and I wasn't able to visit other parts of the state. Next time!
Alaska Links
	Anchorage is by far Alaska's biggest city with over 40% of the population living here. When I visited Alaska in May, the weather was in the mid 50s or so, but later in June there were days when the temperature reached close to 70. My first trip in January however was met with some very cold temperatures, but not as cold as you would imagine. The temperatures were usually in the upper teens and that's only about 20 degrees colder than Virginia's winters. Above are two summer photos, one of the entire city on the left, and on the right of a Salmon cafe, something Alaska is famous for. Below are two winter photos when the sun wouldn't rise until 11am! Bottom left is one of the main streets in downtown Anchorage covered with ice, on the right is myself wandering the streets aimlessly.
During my visit in 2009, Anchorage hadn't even existed for 100 years yet. The city is located at the top of the Cook Inlet which was discovered by Captain Cook way back in 1778. In the early 20th century, a railroad port was constructed here and soon after a local economy formed and the city was officially founded in 1914. On the left is a state of Captain Cook that overlooks the Cook Inlet. From this inlet you can even see Denali, America's highest mountain despite it being 265 miles away! On the right is the Alaska Railroad headquarters.
Downtown Alaska looks like any other city in the summer time. There actually is a lot to do here with several museums, nice restaurants and plenty of unique stores found only in the state. Above shows two photos from the downtown area..
I got the impression that there are two ways to survive an Alaskan winter. Even though it's not nearly as cold as I expected on average, Anchorage gets its share of subzero temperatures. I saw a ton of liquor stores in Anchorage, so maybe drinking at home with friends is all there is to do when you only have 5 hours of daylight and it's too cold to go outside! Though this was something of the past, Alaskan fur was also essential to surviving winters, but is now more of a luxury. I visited the shop on the right in 2004 and a very old man there told me several stories of Alaska and both US and foreign presidents that had come and bought fur from his store. He was still there in 2009 but probably not 2014..
On the upper right is a doll wearing some traditional Eskimo fur that the natives would use in order to survive the winter. The other two pictures were taken from the fur shops where they can be used as rugs or jackets. They aren't cheap though; I saw some fur coats for prices that were just below $10,000! If you just want a souvenir then grab some fur shoes or a doll, but even those were a couple of hundred.
The spring and summer of course are the ideal times to visit the state. I personally wouldn't want to live in Alaska just because of the long dark winters, but the 360,000 people in the Anchorage area don't seem to mind. Above and below show some of the unique houses I saw in the city. There were also dozens of city parks with public tennis courts, soccer fields and other places for the neighborhoods.
	Another surprise in Alaska was how green everything is in the summer. The upper left photo of evergreens along a trail was more of what was expected. The lower left however is the same type of scenery I'd see back home in Virginia. And one other thing I didn't expect were the gigantic and extremely annoying mosquitoes in Alaska. Of all the places I have ever been to in my life, Alaska had some of the most persistent mosquitoes ever, who would have thought they even existed a few hundred miles south of the arctic. By the way, all these photos were taken in various trails right by Anchorage, so you don't even have to leave the city to enjoy a little bit of the outdoors.
These surrounding photos are also from within Anchorage. The two photos above are from Salmon's Creek, where you can actually see Salmon returning upstream at the right time of year or go there to fish. I think late summer or fall is when the Salmon return because I waited for a while and didn't see a single fish. Below are some more of the bright green found in Alaska's forests.
Denali, or Mt. McKinley is both the United States' and North America's highest mountain. This is what I came to Alaska for, to try to climb the second hardest of the seven summits. Denali's altitude is 6,190 meters or 20,320 feet. It is the only 6,000 meter or 20,000 foot mountain in the world outside of South America and Asia. Located 2 degrees below the arctic circle, it is often called the coldest mountain in the world. I spent 24 days climbing Denali and made the summit. Click here to read about my Denali climb, I have over 75 photos of it alone.
The climb to the summit of Denali had lots of extremes from temperatures of 40 below zero to 70mph winds. You begin pulling a sled with close to 150lbs of gear and later on end up climbing fixed ropes, traversing steep terrain and crossing exposed ridges. It's hard work but well worth it for those who reach the summit. Above are two photos of me, below are some photos of fellow climbers during our descent.
	Denali has it's own national park that spans an area of almost 10,000 square miles, larger than country's like Puerto Rico or Cyprus. One of my biggest dreams is to return to Alaska and spend time on the lower elevations of the park. It's home to large populations of animals like grizzly bears, moose, and many arctic animals such as reindeer and gray wolves. Since my visit of the park was limited to being on the mountain itself, my only views were of surrounding mountains seen above. Mt. Hunter is on the left with Mt. Foraker on the right. Foraker is America's second highest mountain at 17,400 feet. Whenever I return to Alaska I will definitely spend time in Denali national park, and other places such as gates of the arctic, Kodiak island, and maybe even doing a cruise or visiting the capital of Juneau.

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