Expeditionettes: living in a van down by the river

Scottie and I have been in Alaska for a few weeks now. This place is amazing. After arriving in Fairbanks, we fixed up Scott's van and took it out on the open road. We drove through Denali around 11pm on the 5th of June and the sun's golden glow was still shining, illuminating the earth, the clouds, and the snowcapped peaks which surrounded us. It was like that all night until the sun decided to rise out of it's colorful repose and rise up into the sky the next day.

We first ran the Nanana river, camped at Troublesome Creek, and did some fishing. We didn't catch anything, but you could see Denali (aka Mt. McKinnely for non-Alaskan people) from our fishing spot and it was gorgeous. Scott and I headed south afterwords, took a nice hike up the little Susitna river. The hike turned into a breath taking run towards a glacier under imposing snowcapped mountains. Afterwards we put on the little Sue and it ended up being a really fun, continuous class IV creek. Sort of like Big Creek back home. We met a nice couple who took some pictures and emailed them to me... here is one of them.

here is another...

and one more...

After that, we paddled 6 mile creek (no photos of that one, sorry) and stayed with Beer Can Dan in Anchorage. Then we picked up Scott's friend, Matt, and paddled Ship creek. We had a small brush with the law there, and got some warning tickets for being on military property (no photos again, sorry). We hiked into Ingram Creek one day, but no one had been in it yet this year and it looked pretty snowy. We were worried about the logs and ice bridges that may still be in the river, so we are gonna save that one for later this summer. Maybe when Stacy gets in town. We paddled Canyon Creek and Bird Creek as well. The water up here is really cold, but the weather is pretty nice.

Here is a picture of the falls at Bird Creek.