Today we had a chance to explore downtown Hope. The buildings and flavor of the early days still have a certain charm.
The downtown general store/cafe has been serving customers since 1896 and the turn-of-the-century log Social Hall is still hosting community meetings and events.
The brown painted building is the old Hope School. The other one is the 'new' school, but it's still basically a one-room school house. It houses all grades and there is just one teacher.
This building on stilts is a bear cache, a safe place to hide food.
The town even has a historical museum with several old buildings from the gold rush days, interesting exhibits and some older residents who love to spin a yarn.
The town sits right on the shore of Turnagain Arm, just where Bear Creek comes rushing down the hill. There were plenty of salmon fishermen out this morning - we chatted for a bit with a guy who had driven here from Maryland to catch a few fish.
We said our goodbyes to Hope and headed out again. First we headed to the 'end of the road' to check out a nice view over Turnagain Arm and the Chugach Mountains.
Later we stopped in some state forest land for a short hike along Six Mile Creek. This is a pretty dramatic bit of rushing water, said to be among the best white-water rafting in the U.S. Just beyond the creek, the land was posted as a mining claim - better not take home any pet rocks from around here.
Heading back towards Anchorage, we stopped to visit the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. This is a big sprawling complex, a non-profit organization that takes in injured and orphaned animals and provides them loving care and spacious enclosures. Animals that cannot be released into the wild are given a permanent home at the Center. Here are photos of musk oxen, black bear, bison, caribou, and moose.
After wandering around admiring the animals, we went to the little town of Girdwood to have lunch. Girdwood started as a gold-mining town originally named Glacier City. We ate at The Bake Shop - a nice spot - delicious (and huge) sandwiches in the almost-warm sunshine, flowers all around, mountains as a backdrop. Not bad at all.
Girdwood was largely destroyed in the 1964 earthquake, but was rebuilt and today is a year-round resort community. It is home to the Alyeska Ski Resort, the largest ski area in Alaska - our destination for the afternoon. Some of our group tried out the chair lift which travels 2,000 feet up the side of Mt. Alyeska; the 1.25 mile ride goes over timbered slopes, jagged cliffs, waterfalls, and alpine meadows. It sounded nice, but most of us opted for a hike in the rainforest - we walked a couple of miles on the Winner Creek Trail, one of the many trails that feed into the Iditarod Trail. It was a nice walk - wet, green, and lush.
On the way back into Anchorage, we rode by the airport to have a look at Lake Hood Seaplane Base - the largest floatplane base in the world. It operates much like a taxi stand or rental car operation at most other airports, but in Alaska there are lots of lakes and not many roads. Floatplanes provide a key means of transportation to vast areas of the state - and in winter, they just switch the pontoons for skis and land on the snow. We were told that 1 in 6 Alaskans has a pilot's license and 1 in 10 has a plane. It's a different world up here ....
And then it was over - the end of our group tour. We said our goodbyes and Patrick dropped folks off at various B&B's around town. Of course, it was still broad daylight, so we took one last walk around town and enjoyed a nice salmon dinner before getting organized for the last part of our adventure.
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