Saturday dawned, and we anticipated a leisurely drive back to Seward. After all, we had packed in so much already on our road trip. WRONG ! After another rudimentary breakfast at the Marina Cafe, we gathered our belongings and headed out. The drive back from Seward to Anchorage is the shortest of the three legs we did, but as we stopped multiple times, it turned out to be the longest.
Our first stop was the Alaskan Wildlife Conservation Center. This is essentially a pet refuge for wildlife, and very well done too. In large open and wild enclosures, the center accommodates wild animals that have had misfortune, particularly young animals that have been orphaned. We saw moose, bison, sitka deer and elks. We didn't catch site of any of the three brown bears, hiding in the undergrowth of their 18 acre compound (though we did see the coyotes that shared the enclosure). We also saw Adonis the bald eagle, who had been shot and wounded by a hunter and had his left wing amputated. The place exuded an overall feeling of goodness and decency, and we left well satisfied (although I still hadn't seen a bear).
On our way out, we took a brief detour to drive up close to the Portage Glacier, an impressive blue ice floe sliding down from the mountains. We drove through the adjacent campsite, which was very picturesque and allowed hundreds of campers in tents or RVs to have the equivalent of their own 'private rooms' between the trees.
From there we headed to Girdwood, a small ski resort town, which housed the Alyeska Resort Hotel. We met up with Shane and Missy again at The Bake Shop where we ate lunch, before taking a long hike through the local trails to the hotel. En route, a woman stopped us to say that a brown bear and her two cubs had been seen around the chalets we had just left. I walked the rest of the way both nervous and excited about finally seeing a bear, not sure whether I would run or stop and take pictures.
We reached the hotel without incident, and walked into the hugely impressive lobby. The hotel exuded luxury, and we could understand why Amy's brother Nathan had his wedding here. However the main attraction was the Tram Railway, which took us to the top of the mountain. This would have been heavingly busy in the winter skiing season, but in the summer just a handful of us rode up to the summit. I couldn't persuade Linda to go up (too much like a roller coaster, I guess) - just Tom and I with the others. I don't know why I was surprised to see snow at the top - we'd seen snow at the top of all the mountains we'd driven past - but it did feel strange walking out onto a snow-capped peak in the middle of July. While walking around, we spotted a couple unpacking large rucksacks, and sorting out some interesting equipment. Turns out, there is a healthy trade in tandem paragliding, and once set the instructor and his passenger simply jumped off the summit and glided gracefully down to the valley below. We saw two other groups go while we were there, and Ryan was very tempted...but not tempted to descend the mountain on foot, as Shane and Missy did, managing to get back to the cars first and scrawl a (clean) message on the dirty window.
Shane had mentioned their trip to the Crow Creek Gold Mine, and Tom was very interested. While Amy and Mary took Natalie back to Anchorage, we drove three miles up a dirt road to find that the place was now closed. It was after 6pm, and this was turning out to be a long and tiring day, which was why Tom's temper was not good. We promised that if he really wanted to do this, we would return, and set off home ourselves.
Returning to Bob and Mary's was just like coming home, and we had a marvellous evening with a simple but delicious chicken salad (so enjoyable after all those restaurant meals) and a late evening of card games and far too much wine...
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