Bates Nordic Skiing: The McClellands Go to Alaska

11 McClellands (my family, uncle's family, and uncle from Wyoming) made the daring journey into grizzly infested Alaska this July. Our trip started in Hatcher Pass (2 hours outside of Anchorage) in cabins where we did some hiking in the beautiful Talkeetna Mountains. It took a few days to get used to sunlight 20 hours a day, but we were able to get our beauty sleep using Buffs as light blockers.
Our second destination was McCarthy, population 20 and 60 miles away from a paved road (I later found out that Molly M. coincidentally has a cabin in McCarthy). Here we did some more hiking (Ing would've love this trip), the first day up into an old snowy abandoned copper mine called Jumbo, the second along an enormous glacier. Instead of

carrying bear spray or guns for protection we
sang as loud as we could while traveling through grizzly country (the von trapps don't hold a candle).
One of just three sunny days our whole trip was spent on our drive from McCarthy to Valdez,
a small town on Prince William Sound. We rented kayaks and paddled the 40 miles into a cabin about half the size of a leanto that my dad and uncle built 30 years ago. From there we
hiked, kayaked, slept in tents, played cards and fished. Our fishing excitement reached its max when cousin Sophie thought she had caught a huge silver salmon, we all watched as she reeled in an enormous piece of seaweed and some jellyfish tentacles.

Wildlife sightings included 2 black bears, lots of otters, seals, jumping fish, 1,000,000 jellyfish, sea lions, local Alaskans and dolphins.
On our kayak back to Valdez, we watched a 1,000 lb. sea lion snag a couple of excited fishermen's enormous silver salmon (they weren't too happy). Another sea lion encounter occurred when cousin Matty kayaked over one and it popped up just a few feet away snorting and spitting water, needless to say we all paddled as fast as we could in the opposite direction.