2 trips to Alaska, BOTH times marathoning played second fiddle.
2013: ice-climbed Matanuska Glacier (100 miles north of Anchorage). 5 years later: canoeing/crampon-hiking Mendenhall Glacier (easy 20 minutes outside Juneau). FAAANNNNTASTIC! Booked today’s Ice Adventure Tour 2 months before leaving Colorado. Probably not the best pre-race prep, but ya’ll know from my hike pics – I don’t shy away from glaciers, snow or high altitude.
Today’s itinerary: Canoe 2+ miles ‘cross glacier-fed Mendenhall Lake, roaring waterfalls/tree-surrounded by Tongass National Forest (wildlife eye-candy), then crampon-hike over blue primeval ice. Sign me up! Adventure Day!
Every year we see a wide variety of glacial features come and go. This year guests have witnessed and posted photos on everything from ice caves to the very rare site of icebergs calving into the lake. However sights like these are NOT an everyday occurrence, AND CANNOT BE GUARANTEED. Mother nature does what it wants, when it wants.
On every tour, you get the chance to canoe through a glacier lake, hike beside, and even onto the glacier ice itself. The Mendenhall Glacier is constantly flowing and the landscape is always changing. For this reason, we have expertly trained guides who assess the glacier’s movements and continually make new routes to show our guests the best of what the glacier has to offer on every tour on that given day!
Met up with Liquid Alaska Tours at the Tramway, close quarter-mile walk from my hotel digs. Quick 20 minute van ride to our launch north of Juneau. BALD EAGLES EVERYWHERE. Counted 6 on light posts surrounding Juneau’s Macaulay Salmon Hatchery. As local salmon swim upstream/return to spawn thru Gastineau Bay, birds & bears are awaiting. DINNER 😊
Do’s & don’ts speech, life jacket – and paddle. 10 long strokes, break. 10 more strokes & break. 2 ½ miles across Mendenhall Lake. Outside, active, super FUN – LOVED canoeing across a glacial lake in Alaska. That said, lot more strenuous than running 2 ½ miles (different muscles I guess). Guides were kinda task masters ‘bout the paddling. Faster we reach the glacier, more time we have to adventure. Aye aye, Captain. Got it. As luck would have it, both were native Coloradans. Alamosa & Pagosa Springs. Small world.
Shored our craft left of the HUGE retreating glacier. Group-carried the boat several feet inland; boulder-propped, secure. No soul wants to hike return & find their only transport home floating away in 40-degree (iceberg-drifting) water. Nope, not me.
Crampon fitted. Permafrost & ancient ice ahead. Glacier hike. No ice cave spelunking this season. Caves formed/existed but none strong enough to support human weight. Amazing visuals though. Absolutely nothing disappointing ‘bout this day’s journey.
Silt-littered white, primeval BLUES, killer crevasses, pools of glacial water 200ft deep. Two HUNDRED feet deep.
Tonite, I’ll be glacier dreamin’. Mendenhall ❄️😴❄️
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- Liquid Alaska Tours
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- Mendenhall Lake
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- Nugget Falls
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- first peek
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- Mendenhall Glacier
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- docked, boat secured; fitted with crampons — hike on!
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- silt field
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- ice cave
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- laden with crevasses
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- Ice, Ice Baby ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
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- primeval blue
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- human ants
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- dwarfed by Mendenhall’s enormity
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- 1,000ft drop
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- 200ft DEEP
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- newly formed crevasse
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- final gaze goodbye
Late Monday a.m. start – didn’t wake ‘til 8 (slowly settling into lazy vacation life). Yogurt, handful of nuts. Day’s first stop: the Pilgrim Monument.
— The Pilgrim Monument was built between 1907 and 1910 to commemorate the first landing of the Mayflower Pilgrims in Provincetown on November 21, 1620.
— The Pilgrim Monument is the tallest all-granite structure in the United States. The granite came from Stonington, Maine, and each stone is the thickness of the wall.
Toured the tired lighthouse museum. Hasn’t really changed over the years but I go every visit – LOVE history, LOVE our American story. Climbed 116 steps to the Monument top & took in its ocean view. Stunning. Best way to start a Monday morning 🙂
Walked Commercial thru P-town’s West End; met up with a local kayaker just past the Causeway. Paddled to the tip of the Cape three years ago. This trip toured Provincetown’s extensive water estuaries. Launched 2 hours before high tide, meandered thru tall field grasses…like something from the African Queen. Water fowl, fish, green crab & [salty, edible] pickle grass. Beached on a sand bar & enjoyed a short swim while waiting for the tide to come in.
One final dinner, one last evening show – then sadly, vacation time came to a close.
Tuesday morning ferry, another beautiful sunshiny day — AND 4 hours playtime before my airport return home. BOSTON! Day choice: Public Garden and a local cemetery. [Honestly] it’s the history that interests me, not crypts & dead bodies. Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Paul Revere – these early revolutionaries & signers of the Declaration fill our school books.
WOW, whatta summer! Visited both coasts of Canada, family vacationed in St. Louis, road-tripped thru Yellowstone, pony-trekked the Tetons…then ended ‘heat’ season, celebrating the big 5-0 on scenic Cape Cod. #noregretlife
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- 116 steps to the TOP!
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- sunshine & ocean – who doesn’t love Mondays?
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- in 1620, Pilgrims first landed here (before Plymouth Rock)
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- Provincetown Causeway
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- launched 2 hours before high tide
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- sand bar beached & enjoyed a swim
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- European green crab
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- our Nation’s 1st Chief
National Geographic: People’s Choice Adventurer of the Year
Always partial to climbers & mountaineers, but couldn’t be more inspired by kayaker, Aleksander Doba. At age 67, this retired engineer kayaked SOLO across the Atlantic – from Portugal to Florida – paddling primarily at night (when temps were cooler), sleeping no more than 6 hours a day (in multiple installments).
“If 67 years young can do it, you can do it, too.” —Aleksander Doba
Absolutely anything is possible – Aleksander’s journey keeps me focused & charged. Super inspired!
The votes have been counted—a record-setting 521,000 of them. They’re a testament to the inspiring quests of all our 2015 Adventurers of the Year. But there can only be one People’s Choice Adventurer of the Year, and that award goes to Aleksander Doba.
At 67 years old, the Polish adventurer made the longest open-water kayak crossing of the Atlantic in history. Using just his arm strength and considerable willpower, Doba paddled 7,700 miles in his 23-foot kayak, OLO, departing in October 2013 from Lisbon and arriving six months later in Florida. The retired mechanical engineer, now 68, is the only person to kayak across the Atlantic, continent-to-continent, alone, unassisted, and under his own power. He battled 30-foot waves and got entangled in the Bermuda Triangle. His engineering skills were tested time and time again.
Doba is not hanging up his paddle yet. In spring 2016, at 70 years old, he plans to attempt crossing the Atlantic Ocean solo by kayak again, this time starting from New York and finishing in Europe.
favourite 2 excerpts from his story:
When he was too far from shore to see any birds, Doba was surrounded instead by marine wildlife, from fish and dolphins to turtles, whales, and sharks.
“Dozens of sharks checked on me, but one was ready to attack me, and I had to whack his head with the paddle really hard to make him leave,” Doba remembers. “On the warmer part of the Atlantic Ocean, flying fish were a big, unexpected attraction. When a few landed on my kayak, I didn’t have to eat my lyophilized food for dinner that night.”
This was not Doba’s first transatlantic crossing in OLO. In 2010, Doba spent 99 days of the First Transatlantic Kayak Expedition paddling 3,400 nautical miles (3,913 miles) across one of the narrowest points of the Atlantic, between Dakar, Senegal, and Acarau, Brazil.
“The First Transatlantic Kayak Expedition was to check myself and my kayak. The second trip was to ‘raise the bar,’” Doba says. “I have two sons and two granddaughters. I hope they will learn not to be afraid to dream, turn dreams into plans, and bring plans to reality. Then there is satisfaction of great achievements.”
Aleksander Doba, 2015 People’s Choice
