Scenic Route Travels 
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This is a blog about my adventures, disasters, and daydreams while exploring the world. It’s about what I’ve learned from the places and people I’ve encountered. But above all, its about taking the scenic route. It’s almost never the easy or sensible way, but it takes you to some incredible places. Happy Travels!
Man, is it hard to get anything done during summertime in Alaska. My house is a graveyard of abandoned projects, because who can be productive when there are hours of daylight and miles of trails waiting? In a flash, Juneau has gone from an unfamiliar dot on a map to the home I’ve been looking for. It’s like I’ve found a kindred spirit in its moody, endless wildness. Rain or shine (but… Read More
This adventure starts in a 10×20 storage unit in a sketchy Anchorage suburb with a dead car battery. I was at step 3 in a meticulously crafted plan that had an amazing amount of possibilities to go wrong. Fresh off the earliest flight from Juneau, I had less than 36 hours to drive my car north to Tok, down through the Yukon, and back into Alaska to catch an afternoon ferry from… Read More
What was living in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve in the dead of winter like? In a word, ineffable.
The past few months of living in Glacier Bay, I’ve taken any opportunity I can to see more of the park. In true Gustavus fashion, the more my roommate Addy and I explored, the more people reached out to offer us gear to borrow and chances to do something new. We’ve been ice skating on a pond near the post office where the town gathers to play hockey on frigid days. We’ve… Read More
I left Juneau by ferry, well before the sun had begun illuminating the inky black landscape. The only clues as to what surrounded us were the pre-dawn cries of gulls voicing their complaints at the hour and the lapping of dark waters against the hull. It wasn’t until the sky faded to indigo that I could make out white-capped seas and distant peaks on the horizon. Around me, other passengers slept beneath… Read More
Pulling together my thoughts from a tumultuous and challenging year, I had to face it: This was my least traveled year yet. But it was also one of my best. While my parents made their way across the African continent by boat, plane, safari jeep, and camel, my geographic range rarely strayed from Alaska. But what a state to call home. I was warned early on about the ways the Land of… Read More
The odds were not in my favor. Out of over 12,000 applicants, only 400 lottery tickets per day are given out during the annual Denali road lottery. And of those, only one of the four days is over the weekend- the others on weekdays, so you’d have to take time off. And then, once you’ve been lucky enough to secure a spot (some people apply for years without success), the issue of… Read More
My first experience of Lake Clark National Park & Preserve was a glimpse of a waterfall, falling hundreds of feet from sheer rock cliffs. The clouds parted again, and this time I spotted the jagged, turquoise peaks of a glacier splayed out between mountain peaks like the tongue of some gargantuan ice god.
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