Day 157 - June 6

Two picture day!! It has to be a two picture day because we did two completely different things in one day.

Monday dawned comfortably as we woke in our beds at the Princess Lodge at Copper Center. After no shower the day before, 7 miles of walking, and a long dusty drive back from McCarthy to Copper Center, the Lodge was Ah-mazing. It didn't hurt that they offer a military appreciation rate of only $71/night... $24 less than our cabin the night before. Go figure.

From the Lodge, we headed back to Chitina (pronouced Chitna for those of you who would think you'd use all the letters in a word... don't worry, I'm one of you) to try to dipnet in the Copper River. With no Alaska fishing license (or appropriate gear due to not having a license), my role was mostly as watcher - and official photographer. Had Christina caught anything, I was also going to take on the role of chief fish-filleter (at least I'm an Alaska resident so I was allowed to do that). But with no fish in the net, there was no need to fillet (whew! I'm NOT good at that), and we (I) just had fun trying.

About 7-8 knots of current, a dipnet made for the Kenai River, not the Copper River, and Christina having to try to manage it herself meant more trouble than fishing was really worth. She tried REALLY hard, though... definitely determined to get SOMEthing. Now she knows for next year, though.... different gear and bring along Brad for brute strength!

We left Chitina around lunchtime for the drive to the Matanuska Glacier. Our accommodations that night were at another cabin - this one was one of the public use cabins in a state park (click on the link for the glacier cabin). We ditched our stuff there and got our gear together to head out to the Glacier itself... the reason for the stop there!

Yeah, I totally hiked on a glacier. (And that shot is straight out of the camera.)