Flashback: Wasilla

I was in Alaska only a few years after Sarah Palin had been the Republican nominee for Vice President, so we'd all heard of Wasilla, where she'd been mayor before becoming governor of Alaska. I seem to remember we saw her house across the water.

But we weren't in Wasilla to look up the Palins, we were there to visit Iditarod headquarters. We got to see lots of sled dogs and hold puppies, and go on a short training ride with one of the dog teams. There wasn't any snow yet, obviously, so the dogs pulled a wagon instead of a sled, which conveniently had room for four extra riders. It was tremendous fun; I'm not sure I've ever wanted to do anything as much as those dogs wanted to RUN.

One last glacier

This is basically a historical artifact at this point, as the glaciers in Prince William Sound, like most glaciers on our poor wounded planet, have been rapidly shrinking. So it's a flashback in every sense.

PWS waterfalls

More Prince William Sound

I wrote at the time that I was disappointed not to see whales during the cruise around the sound, but that the glaciers made up for it. I hadn't been to Iceland or Antarctica then, so these were my first glaciers, and I took far more closeups of blue frozen water with streaks of dirt than even I can find a need for.

The glaciers on the mountains were gorgeous though.

Flashback: Prince William Sound

I uploaded this picture without realizing I'd posted a virtually identical picture in 2014. But this one has that kittiwake flying over the water, and it's definitely a view worth looking at twice.

And now for something completely different

At first I though this must be some kind of bison, but it's actually a muskox.

There used to be herds of muskoxen across Alaska, Arctic Canada, and Greenland, but the Alaskan population was wiped out by the early 20th century. They've since been reintroduced in several of the parks and wildlife refuges.

It's too bad the sun was behind her (I think this is a female) so I couldn't get better pictures of this very strange creature.

Another youngster

This is a young elk.

Plus a moose!

Most of the moose I saw in Alaska were at a distance, so I couldn't appreciate that strange squarish snout they have. This moose at the AWCC was a juvenile—old enough to have been abandoned by its mother, but not old enough to have turned into an asshole.

But it turns out I had more reindeer

I found a folder, cleverly named AWCC, that I had clearly never investigated. So here are some more pictures of the reindeer.

One last look at Wonder Lake

I'm done with Denali—the mountain anyway; I may find a few more pictures from the bus ride through the park. So here's Wonder Lake again; it was, without exaggeration, one of the most perfectly beautiful places I've ever been.

Between the mountains

Looking down on the spaces between Denali and the surrounding mountains.

Twin Peaks

Denali has two summits. The South Summit is the taller one.