Our oldest daughter and her husband live in Eagle River which is a residential community between Anchorage and Wasilla. For several years she was branch manager of a regional bank in Palmer which is next to Wasilla. Not only do we know a lot about the area, but our daughter has been involved in numerous community meetings with Sarah Palin. I spent about 6 weeks with our daughter helping our son-in-law build a deck on their home among other projects at the time that Sarah was running for governor...her signs were everywhere, in almost every front yard. More about Sarah later.
In the winter, everything including the fences, phone poles and wires are white because the moisture in the air freezes on everything. The roads are covered with about 6 inches of frozen hardpack ice...not black ice, although there are some patches of it-dangerous stuff, we have it here in our mountains. Everyone uses studded tires, not chains. Winter temperatures run between -15 and +22. The sun rises very low on the horizon about 10 am and sets by 3...the lighting is like a prolonged dusk with lots of golden reflection. The daylight turns into a prolonged twilight that basically lasts all night. Many nights, I would be working on our daughter's house and just getting exhausted only to find out it was almost midnight. Arora borealis is visible most nights, and the color I have seen has been mostly green. It's like WOW.
Alaska is incredibly green because during the summer, most of the days are cloudy and misty. The forest is mostly what appears to be spruce (like Colorado) and the dirt in between the spruce is chock full of alder (which they consider a weed) which when cut back to the ground just grows right back and fast. Their state flower, Fireweed, is everywhere. It is multi-stemmed about 2-3 feet high covered top to bottom with majenta-colored blossoms.
It is quite common to encounter moose wandering the streets of downtown Anchorage and along the highway between Anchorage and Eagle River. Anchorage has over 250,000 people with Home Depot's, Loew's, Borders, etc. Anchorage is encircled by the Chugach mountains and the mountains in Denali, including Mt. McKinley, are visible from the hillsides around Eagle River and Anchorage...it is beautiful beyond belief.
Salmon fishing on streams is called "combat fishing" because you are shoulder to shoulder and those salmon are about 3 feet long. Average halibut catches can easily be 150-250 lbs...if I remember correctly the record catch for halibut is over 400 lbs. More soon...
Sample pictureAirline tickets are seasonally very expensive. Several years ago, we got Alaska Airline visa cards and we use them to purchase everything including our property taxes and utility bills. We accumulate about 100,000 air miles each year which pays for several trips each year. We love it up there any time of year, it is incredibly beautiful out in the country there. Some areas in Colorado like the Conejos River valley around Platoro are similarly Swiss-like, but I have to admit that even Alaska does not match Kandersteg and Grindelwald in Switzerland...maybe its the cow bells and dunkel bier.