Alaska!!!

This post is well over-due but it's also too good to pass up. So a couple weeks ago, I flew to Alaska with a friend John from Snowbird at the drop of a dime. I booked my flight Sat at 2:30pm and was boarding that night by 10pm!

Alaska is an entirely different place! It has the most coastline than any other state in the US but their coastline is MUCH different than CA's!

ANCHORAGE:
We flew into Anchorage and stayed at John's friend's Rob's house (I know how confusing that sounded!) Rob has a pretty sweet view of of 'moose heaven' just before the coastline. We liked waking up and eating breakfast in the jacuzzi while looking for moose...here is the view from the jacuzzi-



ALEYSKA
We went and checked out Aleyska ski resort and their tram while we were in Anchorage. Their tram is pretty weak in comparison to Snowbird's but I guess we can't all be #1.
Here I am with Shyla on the chairlift. She totally rocks and came out to ski with us for a couple runs even though we called her a couple hours before we showed up. I used to work at Snowbird with her and was stoked she was such a trooper!

My favorite part about Aleyska, besides the fact that it was snowing and they opened Christmas Tree chutes for the first time in weeks was that their hours are from 11-6! We skied from 1-5:30 which was perfect because we took the red-eye so we were still able to get some rest before a good day of skiing!

ALASKA RENDEZVOUS
The real reason we flew to Alaska was to heli ski! Something I've never done before and was totally stoked to try out. This was by far the most extreme activity I've ever done...yes, even scarier than sky diving!

The weather was not in our favor but that's ok because heli skiing kicked my butt so badly that I'm not sure I would have been able to do it much more.

Here comes the helicopter


Loading up our stuff


Our fabulous guide, Rob goes first to check out Broccoli Bowl


First run down and ready for 5 more. Getting back on the helicopter :)


X-COUNTRY SKIING
So when the weather wasn't good to heli-ski, we went out X-country skiing! This was quite the experience because I've never tried this before and now all I have to say is 'sorry' to anyone I've ever tried to teach ski/board...I'll be much more patient now!

This river didn't calm me down like it was supposed to...only made me nervous cuz I was still working on my control


I'm obsessed with lunging and think I've now found the perfect sport!!!


We stayed in a motorhome about 200 yards from the helipad with a couple other motorhomes. One of our treks out we decided to take our 'neighbor's' dogs...made the journey (which happened to be day #1) pretty entertaining!



MOOSE!!!
One of the cool things about Alaska is that you see more moose in the 'city' than out in the sticks! I saw more walking alongside or even on the highway than out in the woods! Since I was always driving when I spotted the moose close up, I didn't get any pictures :/ I did however score plenty of pictures of their amazing mountains...I'll spare you and only post 1 :)