Snow, Orcas, Sunsets, and Sitka!

Wowzers, it's been a while since my last update. I've been super busy but have had a TON of fun the past few weeks. My friend and I decided to go hike Eaglecrest Monday afternoon since our tour was cancelled due to 8 ft high seas. It was amazing... we hiked and hiked in the sunshine, finally making it to the Nest at the top. After a quick break and snack, we strapped in and had some magical turns down the mountain. The snow was perfect... soft enough to have some fun, but firm enough to grip and rip. Here are a couple pics from shreddin'...

After that adventure, well, actually during that adventure, I found out I would be going to Sitka with my crew to work a couple tours. I was excited to be going somewhere I've never been on my birthday, but kinda bummed that I couldn't spend it with Dustin. We had a 6:30 crew time Tuesday morning, which was my birthday, and wouldn't return until Wednesday night. Sitka was a 6ish hour boat ride from Juneau. We had one tour Tuesday morning in Juneau, then as soon as the passengers departed we were on our way. We were on the St. Aquilina, which is a slightly larger than our normal boat we work on, and it's a good thing because the seas were intense the first couple hours. It literally felt like a carnival ride... the seas were super rough and it was hard to walk anywhere on the boat without flying all over the place. Eventually the waters calmed down and we just enjoyed the ride. The scenery was absolutely stunning the entire trip. Southeast Alaska has got to be the most beautiful place on the planet. After what felt like forever, we finally made it to Sitka around 8:30pm.

After a few birthday drinks we all crashed out since we had another 6:30 crew time in the morning. Woke up, did two tours, seeing all sorts of awesome wildlife. Sea otters, LOTS of sea otters, humpbacks, eagles, sea lions, and even brown bear and her two cubs on a beach were among the critters we saw. After working those two tours, we got the boat ready to head back to Juneau. We didn't end up leaving Sitka till 4:30, so it was 11pm before we got back to Juneau. The trip back was so awesome! The views were just as stunning as before, and we got to see an amazing sunset as we got closer to Juneau. We came across of pod of orcas and we stopped to watch them for a while. We all went out on the bow of the boat and got some good pictures of them. I still can't believe how beautiful it all was... cruise ships in the sunset, orcas swimming all around us, the moon was so bright and beautiful. Wow. It was amazing. Simply amazing. I took a ton of pics on the trip, and you can see them all by clicking HERE, but I will post my best ones below :)

 

Tomorrow holds another adventure that will be EPIC! It involves a helicopter and my snowboard. :) I will post about that trip tomorrow night. 

Peace.