Conger Chronicles: 8/19/12 CHENA HOTSPRINGS, AK

We left North Pole and traveled 60 miles to Chena Hot Springs. This is a resort that advertises they have a prime aurora viewing spot in the mountains, a hot spring to soak in and an ice museum. The ice museum is what I’m here for. I had seen it on tv several years ago and just had to come up here to see it for myself. You can park your rv there for $20 a night with no hookups. On the way up we checked out a few dry camping possibilities I read about just off the main road in case we didn’t want to stay at the resort. As it turned out the resort was not that great, not what I expected. I did however enjoy touring the ice museum. They used to call it the “Ice Hotel” but had to change that because they were not legal in many ways to run a hotel (no fire sprinklers, etc.). The ice museum is completely carved out of ice with a double wall of material around it and chilling system that blows cold air in between those 2 walls to keep it frozen. Everything inside is carved from ice by two local artist. They actually have a few bedrooms in there that you can rent. Of course the bed is carved from ice as well. There is a small chapel, a bar in which we had an apple martini and many, many beautiful sculptures of ice. Some actually were painted from the inside different colors, some had colored lights behind them to illuminate them. I thoroughly enjoyed it. We walked the resort grounds. They have beautiful landscaping here with colorful flowers everywhere. We thought we would enjoy the hot springs but after checking it out we didn’t like the looks of it either. It’s amazing what photography can do. These springs looked really neat on paper, but not what we expected. We decided to pass. We didn’t like the area for RV’s either so passed on that as well and back tracked 8 miles to an area we saw earlier. This pull off is called “48 mile pond”. It’s owned and maintained by the state recreation department. It’s only 1 tenth of a mile off the main road, has two ponds that are beautiful and several informal camping areas and no fee to use this area. The first night there were two other rv’s and a few tent campers back in the woods. We found a nice level spot with the beautiful mirror like pond for our front yard. The pond is like glass reflecting the trees and mountain behind it. This is an amazing spot, we love it here.

8/20/12 CHENA HOTSPRINGS, AK

We drove up the road 1 mile to take Angel Rock hike. It is a pretty strenuous 3.5 miles up a mountain with beautiful views and giant granite rocks. The hike takes you around the granite rocks and back around to the parking area. We made it in around 3+ hours. No wildlife sightings here but it was a nice day and a good hike. We were hoping our rv spot would still be available when we got back and it was. The only other campers tonight were an older couple that parked up close by the road. We had the whole place to ourselves. This is a jewel that you don’t come across often. We may just stay a while longer. After cooking up some steaks on the grill we were inside reading when Norm looked out the window and saw a cow moose and yearling standing in the pond. It was an amazing sight that we enjoyed for a long time before they made their way across the road in front of us, over to the other pond and out of sight behind the trees.

Fall is approaching Alaska. The trees are starting to turn yellow with some red here and there. It should be a burst of fall colors in a few short weeks. We feel the need to go home but sure do want to stay. We had planned to leave tomorrow but now Norm’s talking about staying a bit longer. This spot we are in is as close to heaven as you can get.

Our amazing camp spot at 48 mile Pond near Chena Hotsprings