Dawson City Music Festival

Towards the end of July is a great time of year because it is when the fireweed is out and it is time to drive to Dawson City for the music festival. Traveling with a bunch of friends on a road trip through beautiful Alaska and Canada. The hills that burned a few years ago werefull of fireweed.

Dawson City is a great little town on the Yukon River. In order to get across the river, you have to ride on a ferry boat. There's a great little campground to stay at. There is a casino there with Roulette. And of course, there is great music.
After we all arrived, we went out for a good burger and a beer and got ready for a great night of music.
Getting ready for a great night of music of course included drinking gin and tonic in the parking lot.

Be careful when taking photos in the beer garden. Canadians are very slick at sneaking into your photos and looking hot.

Here's our whole crew of Fairbanksans early on in the night. We were just gettin started.

Somehow the next morning we all got up and either ran or biked up to the top of the big hill behind Dawson City. There is an organized race every music festival weekend up to the top. It's a pretty grueling run up, especially after a late night of partying.

Followed up by another great night of music and partying.
Ashley was the most adventurous and got into the crowd surfing. Pretty awesome! She was up there longer than most people - quite impressive.

A Most Excellent (Kayaking) Adventure

A group of 6 of us drove down from Fairbanks through an old mining tunnel underneath a mountain (10 minutes of driving to get through the tunnel) and into Whittier. We got all our stuff and kayaks loaded onto a sea taxi which took us a couple hours into the Prince William Sound to the mouth of the Harriman Fjord. We spent 3 full days kayaking around to glaciers in the Fjord. A fantastic voyage full of laughter, conversation, camp fires, relaxation and reflection. Weather was perfect and the scenery was inspiring. Check it out below.

Ed brought his clipper, which is a collapsable wooden frame kayak. It is actually somewhat complicated to assemble, but Ted and Ed got it put together in no time.

After everything was loaded up, we all took off. The first day, Ted and I shared a double kayak, while Ed and his nephew Mark shared Ed's Clipper, and Tina and Ali used their single kayaks.

The second day and third day I got to kayak with Mark.

Here we all enjoy our fabulous campsite. It is difficult to imagine a more perfect spot.
Mark and I spent a lot of time on our hair during the trip.

We even took time to do some yoga.

A lunch break...

We were all sad when the boat arrived to pick us up, signifying the end of the trip.
But, luck was on our side when the boat captain took a detour to check his shrimp pots and then shared more than half of the haul with us. We had an amazing feast the next day back in Fairbanks. Fresh shrimp is one of the best things I've ever tasted. mmmmmm...

Delta River Float - Fourth of July

A wonderful Wedding

Lars and Sharon got married!!!! Yay! It was a wonderful wedding. They both did so much work to prepare and it really turned out very nice. Everyone had a great time. Especially the kids cause they had a big moonwalk and some other big carnival type games. There was good music and dancing too. A big dance party took off even through a heavy downpoor. We all got really muddy and wet, but kept on dancing. It was soooo much fun! Thanks Lars and Sharon for a great night!

Kesugi Ridge - Memorial Weekend 2007

It was 80 degrees Farenheit when we left Fairbanks... the perfect introduction to this trip. Neither Brian or I packed many warm clothes. We went for the lightweight packs. Didn't even really have a change of clothes. Just a couple MRE's (military Meals Ready to Eat) that don't require cooking and sleeping bags. Oh, Brian brough Josie as well (his chocolate lab).

Friday night we left Fairbanks for a 3 day weekend. We just hiked in a short distance on Friday night when we arrived and camped. This was our campsite. Pretty nice. Then on Saturday we headed up higher.

We were having a good time and decided to go off on a side hike even higher up into the mountains. We went up and up and up. Up into the snow where we got our boots really really wet.

We went way up into the snow. We had a bit of trouble punching through the snow and in some places it was quite deep - waist deep.

On the way back down, we got tired of punching through the deep snow and decided to roll down the mountain. We got really dizzy doing this, but it was sooooo fun!

The mountains were nice and on Saturday during the morning it was a beautiful day. Then the weather started to change.

We camped Saturday night and woke up with the tent covered in a thin layer of really wet snow. Our boots were frozen. We could barely get our boots on and when we did, our feet felt like ice blocks!

We decided on Sunday morning that we would just finish the last 18 miles that day so we could get out of the cold, bad weather. So, we hiked and hiked. It was such a beautiful trail. I want to go back and do it again sometime when the weather is nicer. It took us a long time, and the weather never improved much. We got rained on most of the day on Sunday. We just tried to follow the Kairns to keep on the trail.

My feet didn't like the 18 miles of hiking in wet boots on really steep trails. Especially the trail down from Kesugi Ridge to Byer's Lake. It is really steep and your toes get jammed in your boots! This is how my toes look almost 4 months later - still nasty!!!