Bears woof (photos from Eagle River)

It was the middle of the night. Okay...no, it was probably 5:30 am and bright as noon and in my tent I had my sleeping bag pulled up over my head in a vain attempt to keep warm and ward off the sun. The first sound woke me up. I almost whispered 'did you hear...' under my breath to my tentmate, but then I heard the second noise - I'll say 10 feet away from my head so I know I'm not exaggerating. It was a very gutteral woof. My heart pounded for what seemed like an eternity and I couldn't even summon the courage to poke my head out of my sleeping bag to see what time it was. Eventually when I heard someone snoring from a nearby tent I was able to go back to sleep, thinking that the noise would surely announce our presence.

Anyway, I think that little creature in the picture above made the noise. Look closely and you'll see my first Alaskan black bear. I saw him on a hike back from sunset.

So, to back up a bit - I made a friend named Mitchell on the airplane from Dallas-Anchorage and he gave me his phone number. He said that he lived in Anchorage, and if I needed to go to Wal Mart or anything he had a car and would be happy to help out...oh and by the way, he was working with Americore and on his way back from a restoration Habitat for Humanity Project in the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and he had some friends in Anchorage, so if I wanted to meet some cool people...

So I met up with Mitchell and his friends on Friday night who were so nice, laid back, and interesting - and within minutes of my being there they'd invited me on their weekend camping trip. We went to Eagle River, a town maybe 10 miles north of Anchorage, and took off into the Chugach Forest - 2 miles' walk from the Visitor's Center is a really nice campsite. Apparently the rest of the trail goes all the way to Girdwood, I want to hike it by the end of summer. I am seriously stunned by how friendly and open everyone is, and the scenery warn't bad either.

Our campsite.The river off the trail; down a ladder from our campsite.

View from a nearby yurt. It's run by the Forest Service for $15/night (future reference, o Alaska bound New Schoolers...) and it was vacant when we were there. We used the bear bin and clicked the views.

Campfire.Keep hiking beyond our campsite, into the Chugach and toward the town of Girdwood, and here's what you find. We played here for a while.
I warded off bears.
Forded mighty rivers.

..continued to ford rivers...
...devised new strategies for fording rivers...

Sunset. Well, sunset in a purely decorative sense - the sun never completely left its hold of the sky; we used headlamps for a few hours but even then it was just a tiny, tiny bit twilight.

I really, really sincerely hope that anyone else going to Anchorage that has any questions about anything contacts me. I've had a really awesome week and I want to share as much as I can.