22 May Alaska: The Wild Frontier

Whenever the same thing happens to me, the same thing happens. And what seems like a philosophical tearing coming from the depths of a tormented soul, comes from the fact that I never learn the lesson. Once again, I have insisted on confronting the elements, the cold, the snow, the mountain...

And once again, the mountain has insisted on reminding me that I am more of a desert person...

The problem is that I love to travel anywhere out of season. I know that if I go in summer, they will tell me that it's too hot and that winter is the best time, if I travel in winter, too bad, because spring is full of colour and if I plan it in spring, they tell me that autumn is the ideal season to see the mating dance of the grouse...(by the way, impressive, I've seen one in El Lateral trying the same dance). I don't care, I see less things, I know, it's all much harder, yes, but I still see incredible things, and they are just for me.

Even if I had to cover a lot of kilometres with snow up to my knees. Besides, I had bought that orange coat, which suits me so well, and matches my honey-coloured eyes from the farm in San Francisco, that I had to look for cool places to wear it. Yeah, yeah, I'm getting a lot of use out of the coat, for one I have....

Of the many things to do in Alaska, my favourite is NOT a night out drinking, at least where I went. The wildlife on the city's doorstep is an attraction for the adventurous, which multiplies the male population to three times the female population. In fact, it can be said that in Alaska there are more bears than women, (and some of the women we saw were less feminine than that bear we almost bumped into...) (I know a very pretty one) (woman I mean, not bear). If you go out with the Czech guy for a beer, the fun is guaranteed..., a jamboree, a jajaja....

and hahaha...

So let's go and see nature in its purest form, which is where Pavel and I went on brokeback mountain (but let the air flow). I had got Mount MacKinley in Denali National Park in my head, incredible landscapes, wildlife and great challenges, so with this claim, it was easy to convince the Czech to come and see it. It was a bit more difficult to convince him that the storm we were going through was just a passing summer storm...and that the sun would come out later, which is why it was in May.

We only came across the famous Alaskan truckers on the road, tough guys who drive their trucks across Alaska in extreme conditions. We took the opportunity to follow in their wake in the snow, but even so, I don't remember how many times we went off the road and got stuck in the snow.

I don't know if you know what permafrost is. They are those layers of ice that over the years have become as hard as stones. Don't worry, I'll take you home an example, because after the cold we had this day, my ears have become like this, permafrost.

According to the continuous traffic signs we had to be alert because we could also come across a large number of abercrombies crossing the road, a non-stop, non-stop thing.....

No wonder that after a few days, when we finally saw the first moose, with the excitement, I felt like hugging him....

By the way, that intelligent look on the bug's face must be very similar to the one I get every time someone tries to explain the risk premium to me.

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But the suffering was worth it, here you have Mount Mackinley, the roof of North America, 6194 metres. It seems as if it wanted to reward our efforts by appearing for a moment among the clouds to hide minutes later, definitely, threatening, in case we tried to climb it. Although I had long since given up the urge, and with no Spaniard around to tell me that "there's no way to climb it"...

So we set off again, heading south towards the Kenai Peninsula, as the route we had planned was cut off by almost a metre of snow (in terms of thickness, I mean, it would have been very easy to jump over it).

Although the alternative route we followed wasn't very good either. I think the car I rented, brand new with only 100 miles on the poor thing, still hasn't recovered from the scare. I don't know how many miles we drove through mud, rivers and waterlogged areas to get to the Matanuska Glacier. That night I gave him an extra ration of super petrol, he had earned it.

Here I am going to expand a little with the photos, because the place deserves it, although like everything I like in this life, it hides in its interior a serious danger. Once again, the ground sank at our feet and we were on the verge of falling into a great crevasse of sharp ice walls and abysmal depths, from which only thanks to our great physical preparation and cat-like reflexes we were able to escape certain death. (It is possible that here I have gone a little overboard in describing how the events happened...).

Before continuing with the trip, I am going to show you one of those photos in which I open the jar of essences so that you can enjoy a few drops of my art... Never well understood, but art. It's a birch forest, I don't know why but lately I've been painting them in all my pictures.

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And while we continue on our way south, a little bit of culture, you know that I like to give it that scientific / informative touch, and then you tell me that you don't learn anything from my blog.

I don't know if you remember that Alaska was sold by the Russians to the Americans in 1867. Well, despite the fact that almost 150 years have passed, there are still traces of its Russian past, including a few Orthodox churches that are home to a considerable number of descendants of those settlers.

This church is the one in the village of Ninilchik. The village was founded by three Russian trappers, Smirnof, Strogonof and Gorbachev (I think, it is possible that the names dance a bit, because we had to drink a few beers on the spot...) and their descendants still live in the village. They invited us to celebrate Orthodox Easter with them, which we gladly accepted. I mean delighted until they told us that the celebration was at 3 in the morning, which was just when I remembered that I couldn't because at that same time I had I don't remember what...

Further south, at the tip of the kenai pensinsula, is the fishing village of Homer. There the eagles, and especially the Bald Eagle, are as abundant as the pigeons in the Plaza Mayor, although I hope with fewer intestinal problems than those in Madrid.

Not for nothing but even Felix Rodriguez de la Fuente himself couldn't get a photo like this when he was walking through the gullies on the trail of the dormouse...

These are not eagles, but they are a lot meaner.

Are you still awake? Are you alive?

I guess not, so I'll leave you for today, as I realise I've gone on for a long time. Next day I will give you a boat trip in the fjords of the Kenai Peninsula.