Adventures of The Sweeties

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Getting Outside

We packed up the family and drove to Denali Park back in early May. The park was not officially open yet so you can camp for free in the campground and drive 30 miles on the park road.

This Ptarmigan was the first animal spotted. We were driving along and Wyatt yells STOP!! so we stopped and he said he saw a ptarmigan and we had to back up to look for it. We backed up and saw nothing so started driving again and again he yelled STOP! so we repeated the procedure with the same result and were about to chalk it up to a 5 year old imagination when we saw this little guy. Wyatt really is very good a spotting wildlife, we should have never doubted him!

We saw tons of caribou.

and lots of moose but unfortunately no bears.

The weather was not so great, it was cold and really windy (even snowed on us off and on) but we took advantage of the wind by doing a little kite flying.

We did get one good hike in despite the weather. The boys are getting to be great little hikers and we got up high enough to get some good looks at Dall Sheep. Wyatt kept pointing to the tallest peaks and saying "I think I could get to the top of that one...even though I am only 5 I could still do it!" The day these boys can out hike Mama and Papa is probably not too far off.

Still a bunch of snow up here.

The hike did go a little too close to nap time so I ended up carrying Sam on the way back down.
Are you wondering why Papa didn't carry him?...so am I!!

We stopped in and visited with the parks' sled dogs. I found out that they adopt out dogs from the kennel, I am really wanting a skijor dog so I was very intrigued by this idea. There was one dog named Muddy that I fell in love with, but he was already spoken for :(

We worried about sleeping in the tent, last summer every time we went camping Sam would be up half the night crying. This time it took him a while to settle in but once he did he was down for the count and we got some good sleep in.

We drove the 30 some miles into the park two days in a row which was a lot of time in the car for the boys but they seem to enjoy it, especially when they didn't have to be strapped in the carseats. The being able to bounce around was exciting for them, although Wyatt was sure to keep in eye out for the police so we wouldn't get sent to jail. We also got to go visit some friends of ours that live just north of the park.

In late May we took a nice family hike to Bear Creek, which is about a 45 minutes south of Delta. We didn't actually see any bears but we figured that at least one had been there not too long before us. Sam said "That is the biggest poop I have never seen in my whole very long life."

We had to stop so the monkeys could climb in the monkey tree.

Papa found this Junco nest along the trail.

We went up high enough to look for some sheep with no luck but we were treated to some nice looks through the spotting scope at a nest full of Raven chicks on the cliff.

Looking forward to many more family hikes this summer!!

Monday, May 28, 2012

Hutlinana Hot Springs

Back in early April Ellen and I headed out to Hutlinana Hot Springs which is about a 5 hour drive from Delta out past Fairbanks and up the Elliott Highway. We almost made it but a few miles from the trailhead we got a flat tire :( But of course being the strong AK women that we are we got the tire changed and we back on our way in no time.

The trail is about 6 or 7 miles in to get the the hot springs. We opted to walk and pull our gear in sleds because we didn't know what the trail conditions would be and sometimes it is easier to walk instead of ski when you are pulling a bunch of gear. Turned out the snow was perfect for hiking, nice and firm and the weather was great too.

The area along the trail had burned last summer and the woodpeckers had moved in and were going to town on all the burned spruce trees.

We did come across a little bit of overflow but it was solid so with some careful footing it didn't cause too much trouble.

Once we made it back to the hot springs were ready to hit the water!

We set up camp opposite the creek from the Hot springs. We stayed two nights and mostly had the place to ourselves. Two other campers showed up late on the second night and we passed a couple day trippers on the trail but it was beautiful, quiet and very relaxing.

The second day we went for a hike to gather firewood and go explore a bit, we saw tons of wolf tracks.

The trail out behind the springs is a long gradual uphill the whole way so we took our sleds up and sledded the whole way back down. It made for some pretty exciting sledding but nobody got hurt and we sure made it back a lot quicker!

Finally got some much needed quiet time to read the book that my friend Mike wrote, South From Alaska- a great read you should check it out!

This was our second trip out here but definitely not the last!!

Catching Up Again

Way back in late February our baby turned three years old!! We just had a small gathering with a few good friends.

We enjoyed some specially requested raspberry cake.

Opened a few gifts but the birthday boy insisted that everyone cover their eyes while he opened each gift..I think this is a birthday first.

We were also treated to one of Nancy's fabulous sky lanterns. This may have been the best one yet, it cleared the tress and just kept on going. We wondered what the neighbors would think if they happened to see this drifting by.

Every year one of our favorite winter activities is to make a trip to the ice park in Fairbanks.

And every March we host the Delta Dog Daze ski/skijor/dog mush race. We had a small crowd this year but a good time was had by all.

Wyatt and Torleif had an especially good time getting rides on the kick sled.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Happy 5th Birthday Wyatt

We celebrated Wyatt's 5th birthday back in January, January 6th to be exact. Wyatt decided he wanted a pirate party so that is of course that is what we did.