Alaska - Thunderbird and the Abandoned Mine

The morning after we got back from Denali we were sort of at a loss for what to do. The train was the big draw and we hadn't thought much beyond that. Anchorage has some museums and things but Sam was pretty excited about mountains and hiking so we opted for more of that. We live next to the museum district in Houston, but we most certainly live nowhere near mountains so for me it wasn't much of a decision. The big problem was where to go. Uncle Eric took the day off to hang with us and while driving us around told us a lot about the surrounding areas. In some book or mag David saw something about Thunderbird Waterfall so we decided to hunt it down. Totally worth it. Iguazu it is not, but it was a beautiful hike and the waterfall itself was lovely too.

I actually look pregnant in this picture...but my belly isn't as large as it looks. I had on a tank top, long sleeve shirt,  a North Face fleecy jacket, a North Face shell, pajama pants under my jeans and Ugg's on. Pretty standard dress for me while we were there. (Which earned much eye-rolling in my general direction by my sweet, male family members.) ;)

David wanted to see a ghost town so after lunch at McDonald's we headed up into the Talkeetna mountains a bit more and tried to find the old independence mine. What we hadn't really expected was to find it still blocked by 1.5+ feet of snow.

A pretty, rocky stream on the way up the mountain that I just fell in love with. I suppose I should mention David took quite a few thorns in his hand on his way back to the car after getting a good picture of it for me. The things we do for love :)

On the way in before we realized just how deep the snow still was.

The teeny snowman we managed to scrape together before Sam was so cold he wanted to get back in  "silver car."

Ominous clouds. Nearly every day we were there we could see snow falling on the higher peaks. When we started seeing those clouds Sam and I turned back towards the car and David went on towards the mine. We were NOT dressed for snow, much less a snow storm!

I had questioned all of my layers after the Thunderbird hike but didn't regret it at all  by the end of the day. Especially after Sam and I got back to the car soaking wet since I was able to lose a few layers and not have to sit in wet stuff.

I think we might have been trudging at about .25 mph...

The mine as seen from as far as David got before the drifts were so deep it just ceased to be worth it.

As usual we headed back for the house and Grandma Audrey had yet another fantastic meal waiting for us. We were SO spoiled!