Wednesday, June 26th-Thanks Kyle Ellis!

A few days ago I was writing something about Fairbanks and Kyle Ellis, a Cascade alum, suggested Chena Hot Springs. I haven’t spoke with Kyle is 10-12 years but I’ve followed him and his family from Alaska to Florida. Talk about a change in weather!

We drove up there today and made a whole day of it! First, the road from North Pole is isolated because our NAV system took us to Chena Hot Springs Road on the backroads. It was a nice easy 50-55 mph drive to get there. On the way, we hiked the Angel Rocks Trail which was either 2.8 or 3.8 miles long. We couldn’t tell which part of the trail we were on and there were almost no signs on the trail. It was a nice hike. We had lunch on one of the Angel Rocks and here is a pic I took of the view:


The trail was moderately strenuous because it had 900’ of elevation change. It was so quiet on the trail and at the rocks that we could hear the river and creeks gurgling and bubbling.

We also saw Mrs Marty Moose and her calf in the Chena River State Recreation Area on the way. They both posed for us. Here’s their pic:


The Hot Springs were nice and relaxing but I can imagine they would be more popular in the deep dark depths of Winter. Oh, I almost forgot. Diana and I noticed some haze over Fairbanks when we were at the Univ of Alaska-Fairbanks yesterday. We didn’t know what was causing it but we figgered it out today! There was a notice posted at the trailhead that there was a 500 acre forest fire that closed some of the trails in the area. We kinda forgot about it until we were on our way back to the campground (Home?). Here is a pic of the smoke that we saw through the windshield of the truck:

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