Fairbanks Trip

I realized that I never finished my story about the Fairbanks trip! To get it moving forward...Fairbanks and Chena Hot springs was a lot of fun.

Chena Hot Springs is about 60 miles out of Fairbanks along Chena Hot Springs Road. When we drove up there, it was dark and snowy. This is fine, except that when anyone passes the other direction or if you get too close to someone in front of you, one gets a whiteout condition, which is really scary. But we made it there in about an hour or so.

Chena Hot Springs Resort is at the end of the Road. That's right -- the road ends right there! It's more of a lodge than a resort, and is all run by a generator (meaning, for example, there were no plugs to plug your car into -- you just told them when you were leaving and they pulled a generator out to start your car). The first night, we had dinner in the dining room (there is only one full restaurant in Chena), and the food was really good. We woke up though, finding out that we did not have any hot water in our room! Apparently this is a normal thing for Chena since their piping is so old.

The first full day there we went XC skiing, which was fun, but a bit intimidating since we had never skiied without little tracks to help us out. Then, we went dog sledding (see pictures below), which was great, but the wind was very cold. It also made me miss Galileo a bit.

That night we went to see the Aurora Borealis with about ten people from Japan. It made me wish I knew more than Iron Chef terms in Japanese, because we really could not interact very well at all! I talk about the Aurora below in the snowcat picture.

On Sunday, we went Snowmachining. They had a lot of trouble getting us set up, because it was -25F and the snowmachines would not start well. But they got them started, and we drove all over Chena. I think the guy was a bit worried that I was not enjoying my time because I was driving so slow -- the fact was, I am not a speed demon, and therefore spent a lot of time concentrating on keeping safe than enjoying myself. Frank had a great time though, eventhough I put myself into a snowbank.

The other highlight was the Chena Hot Springs themselves. The first day, we went in the hot springs, and it was like one of those Zen paintings where parts of the mountain are not shown, because the fog coming up off of the water was so heavy. It was also snowing, which made for a really cool effect on the rocks and trees around the pool. On Sunday, however, we tried to go into the rock lake, and it was just too cold on your face for enjoyment. We spent about 30 mins in there and then sprinted back to the whirlpools inside.

Anyways, a great trip indeed! I recommend it to anyone!