Johnson's Pass

Yesterday was a drizzly day in Portage.  The bears were laying around all day long.

Hugo was just chilling by the cabin.

Joe Boxer found some protection from the rain under some bushes.

I actually had a short day at work since I was doing a presentation in Cooper Landing at 8pm.  So I headed in around 2pm...or so I thought.  Just as it was time for me to call it a day and get ready for the presentation; 4 tour buses arrived.  So I stayed a little longer at the bear enclosure.  After the buses left I was relieved from standing at the bears, and went to get brush for the moose.  They LOVE willow branches!

We headed out for Cooper landing around 6:30.  It takes about an hour to get there.  It is south of Portage.  We went to Kenai Princess Lodge where familys stay while on vacation.  We finished our presentation, and it went smoothly. 

Snickers was well behaved the whole night.  He is chowing down on some peanuts.

We wanted to stop at the Russian River on our way out.  It is one of the main places that the Red Salmon run though.  We were hoping to spot a brown bear or two.

There are salmon left overs that have been cleaned by people fishing.

We had no luck in the end, but we will be going next week for another presentation....so we will keep our fingers crossed. 

Today, thursday, I wanted to go to Girdwood to get a bike fixed up.  We have an extra bike that the center lets us use, however, the chain is broken and the seat is duck taped.  So, I figured I would get the chain and seat fixed so that I would now have a bike to use when I wanted to go somewhere. 
The bike was fixed up and I was ready to go for my first adventure on it.   We also went on a short walk as we were waiting in Girdwood for the bike to get fixed up.

This is Alyeska that I went skiing on this past winter.  Now it is ready to go hiking on.

 I know they are just dandelions but I still think they are pretty.

This river runs right through Girdwood.

After I picked the bike up we went back to the center to get ready for our bike ride.  We decided to go to Johnson's pass which is supposed to be a really nice trail.  The whole trail is 27 miles so I would like to be able to do that one day.  We hoped in the yukon with our bikes and drove about 10 miles down the road to the trail.  I quickly learned that this was a different type of biking that I wasn't used to.  I think I will invest in a helmet for the next mountain biking adventure.  It was such a nice day for this bike ride!

  About a mile into the trail we came across this beautiful waterfall.  We put our bikes to the side and hiked up to it. 

 There was also this cool looking plant that was every where.  I still don't know what it is if anyone may have ideas. 

We continued on....

The previous picture was the last stop we made before turning around.  We only went 4-5 miles each way and I am exhausted.  The trail was much shorter than the typical rides I go on, but the terrain made it much more difficult.  I had a blast and can not wait one day to be able to bike the whole trail. 

Goodnight Lower 48,
ErIn