Are you ready for this? BIG update!!

Today was the first time since I got here that I was able to really get out there in the wilderness....and I do mean OUT THERE! I took a van tour out of town and along the White Pass trail of the 1898 Gold Rush. Words cannot describe the power and awesomness of what I saw today, and neither can the pictures. I shot some great video (which I promise is coming soon), which does come pretty close to giving you an idea of the actual scale. We went up over 3,000 feet and standing there, looking all the way down into the valley with mountains towering over you in every possible direction, makes one feel very small and insignificant. I was mind-blown by it and still am. The tour was free for me because I'm a resident and it's one that I intend to re-visit more than once this summer. Here are a few shots of the trails and valleys at the start of the trip.







About halfway through, we stopped at Dead Horse Gulch, a deep valley where - during the Gold Rush - hundreds of thousands of pack animals were cruelly pushed into to die when they were too weak to travel any further. The plaque there is weathered and the picture might be too small for you to read it, but it's written as if the animals themselves wrote it and I actually found it to be kind of touching.





Towards the end of the trip, we reached the White Pass Summit, elevation over 3,000 feet, and got a spectacular view of the valley below us.




Our journey into the wild ended at Tormented Valley, which lies on the Alaska/Yukon border. The valley gets its name from the constant, brutal weather there and it was like suddenly being transported into the Arctic. Freshly fallen snow covered everything and with the clouds, it was an endless sheet of white. In some places, you literally could not tell where the mountains ended and the sky began. The mountains in the far distance were breath-taking and I couldn't get a decent shot of them...but I tried.





Returning to Skagway, we took a detour and stopped at the scenic overlook above the town, which gave us a nice view of things.




There are plenty more pictures where those came from, but I don't want to overload you. Meantime, I'm ready for another weekend!

Snow pictures

Here are some shots I took of the fresh-fallen snow on the mountains Wednesday, followed by pics of the low-hanging dark clouds that night. I took some incredible video of some of those ominous clouds and as soon as I finish out the disc I'm shooting on, I'll start posting video clips, either here or on myspace or both. Tomorrow I'm hopefully going to be able to take a tour and maybe do some more hiking, so I'll definitely get some good material from that.

The Magic and the Mystery

You know, there have been a few times since I arrived in Skagway when I've wondered if living here and working here would kill the magic and mystery of Alaska. I thought about that a good little bit while I was working this morning and just as I did, the things that I love the most about this place suddenly made themselves known. It had been raining almost all day and then the rain abruptly changed to snow for about an hour. The amazing thing is that it was warm enough to go outside without a jacket, yet it snowed big huge flakes for an hour, then the sun briefly came out, shining off the fresh blanket of snow on the mountains, then dark clouds flooded back in and it's raining again. That hour alone reinforced to me the awesomeness of being here. I'm finding myself ceaselessly amazed by this place.

Gold Rush Cemetery

Spent my second day off visiting some of the souvenir shops that are only open when the cruise ships are in town and picked up some really nice shirts, then I hiked about a mile outside of town to the Gold Rush Cemetery and Reid Falls. The snow on the mountains hasn't started melting yet, so the waterfall was not much more than a trickle. I'll head back out in another month or so and see if it's picked up any. It was pretty spooky out in the cemetery, though, so there were some good shots.

Three-Day Weekend!

Well, it's the end of my second week in Skagway and because I had to work two or three hours overtime, I've got
three full days off. Today I went out to Yakutania Point, the popular hotspot in town. To get there, you go to
the southern end of town, by the water, and cross a footbridge over the river and into the woods, where you follow
a trail out to the rocks and a stunning view of the mountains and the Taiya Inlet. I spent almost an hour just
sitting on the rocks and staring out at the water. A humpback whale cruised by briefly, but it was otherwise quiet.
That's already one of my favorite spots, so I imagine I'll be spending a good deal of my time there. Now, what to
do with my second day....

Yakutania Point photos:

Life in the AK-49*

*A take on AK-47, "AK" being the abbreviation for Alaska and it being the 49th state. Credit to my bro Daniel (see below) for coining this phrase.*

Well, it's taken a whole week, but I've finally adjusted to life in Skagway. It was a bit lonely for the first few
days and the thought of having to endure it here for five months was overwhelming, but those few concerns have
faded. I'm enjoying the small-town life, which is actually much smaller here than in Anniston and right now I'm
hoping that the end of the season never comes. People here are very friendly. When you walk down the street,
everyone you pass says hello and people sometimes strike up conversations with you just to find out where you're
from and if you're in for the summer or just visiting. Everyone knows everyone else here and people are calm,
carefree, and tolerant of everything, which is the polar opposite of life in Alabama, or anywhere else I've ever
been. It's also safe here, with one of the lowest crime rates in the world. People here go for walks in the
middle of the night, they don't lock their cars, and they don't even lock their houses. NOTHING bad happens here!

The two guys I work with in the kitchen are cool. First is Scott, a thirty-something chef working his second summer
season in Alaska. His second and his last, because he's actually going to be opening a restaurant in Vietnam this
November. He's technically my boss but he's nothing like a boss. He has a lot to oversee and take care of, but he
never gets stressed out and never loses his temper over anything. He laughs, jokes, cuts up, and even set up
internet connections for the rest of us to use at work anytime we want. Secondly there's Daniel, a Seattle native
who's my age and has come up to Alaska for the first time to make money because he has a baby on the way. He's also
very cool and we've hung out quite a bit this last week. Daniel also came up with one of the greatest and most quotable quotes I've ever heard. It is as follows: "I promised myself I was gonna stop swearing and I did really good....last night while I was asleep, but then I woke up this morning and as soon as I opened my eyes, the first word out of my mouth was 'fu*@!'" Also, Steve, the guy who hired me, had a barbecue for all
the employees at his house Saturday night. We built a campfire in the backyard (you can literally make a fire
anywhere you want to up here) and cooked out for about seven hours. The wind was ripping through town at about
twenty miles an hour and was cold as hell, but nobody really cared....that's just the spirit of Alaska.

Speaking of which, I had forgotten how much I'd fallen in love with this place when I came up last summer. Cruise
ship is definitely the best way to see Alaska, because you move a lot and you see things that you can't even get
close to when living in one of the towns, but being land-locked makes it quite a bit more personal. To just be
able to breathe the clean, mountain air, walk in the dirt, feel the rain on your face, and put your hands in a
freezing river is almost like touching God. I'm no closer than I ever was to understanding the power this land has
over people, but at the same time I am....just not in a way that can be put into words. I wish I could literally
get every one of you up here to see this, because these pictures I'm posting are sh*@ compared to the real thing.
It is so incredibly beautiful up here, but it's an almost overwhelming beauty. This may sound strange, but it's a
beauty that can be harmful if you're not prepared for it. I'll let you ponder the meaning of that.

Keeping an eye out for the northern lights, too, but I apparently just missed them. Last weekend when I was in
Juneau, they had a pretty intense display one night, so it's still not too late in the season to catch them. I'll
keep looking. Until then here are the latest photos:

Me, Scott (middle), and Daniel (right) on opening night. I'd been cleaning up and that's why I'm not dressed as snappily as they are.



Shots from the ferry ride from Juneau to Skagway:







And now downtown Skagway and the waterfront, the mountains, and the river: