Hiking around

The last couple days I have been hiking and trying to explore around. Yesterday a new kid named Luke and myself hiked to lake three of triple lakes. As always, the sights are beautiful.

Luke enjoying his first view

One of the lakes

 

Lake two with the beaver dam

This morning, I made Chelsea and Manny get up and hike the ENTIRE triple lakes trail, which is actually three times as long as my trip yesterday to lakes 1, 2, and 3. We took a shuttle to the Chalet, then hiked the 8 and some miles back to the Village. It took a little over three hours, and it was quite a workout. Once we hiked to the top of the hill, mountain, whatever that was we climbed pretty much straight up on, the view of the mountains was amazing. It was worth the trek fo sho. There was also a lot more flowers around than the last couple weeks too.

The start of our hike

 

The water was flowing fast

 

Pretty flowers with some dew

Now I am beat from hiking and working the past couple nights. Today I got off work after 2 hours because we only have 25 people staying here, so there is NO BUSINESS! Tomorrow we shut down for a few days for training and the moving in of more staff. Today a lot of people already came, but I think there is more to come.

Ta ta for now!

Time to get away

Since the last few days have seemed a bit hectic with work, and the with the poor internet connection, I finally found a little time to post some photos from the past few days. There is a trail across the street called Triple Lakes, and the first time I tried hiking, I didn't even make it to the first lake before turning around since my friend, Chelsea, had to head to work. The second time, we made it to lake two before turning around for me to go to work. Tomorrow we're hoping to hike the entire thing, which is 8 miles, so we'll see how it goes.

The railroad that goes through the trail

 The crocuses we found

View of lake one

View on the trail

Me in front of lake one

 

 More on the trail

Since the Village is up and running for the time being, the shuttle between the two lodges here has began, which has given us the chance to get out and shop in some of the small shops and meet some new people around here. I think I have spent the past three days over at the Chalets, and plan on getting dropped off there again tomorrow to hike back on the Triple Lakes trail towards our lodge here.

Chelsea walking down the strip of shops across from the Chalet Lodge

Since I have worked for the past week and a half, I finally got a day off, so I went to Chalet, ate, played some volleyball, and then decided to go white water rafting for the first time. We hit up to class 3 and 4 rapids and stayed relativity safe with the dry suits they had us wear. We traveled down the Nenana River with contains glacier water which is about 30 some degrees. The water melts and meets up to wear we raft within a 12 hr. time period, so it was pretty cold! The weather today was about 80, so it was a perfect day for the trip. We rafted to Healy then got picked up to take us back to Chalet. Perks of working for the company is being able to do these things for free when there's room. Thank goodness! Well, early morning tomorrow, so maybe I should try to sleep for once, which rarely happens.

Out for now...

Time to explore!

The lodge & mountains view from the other side of the river

Well, after a couple days of moving things and then cleaning toilets and showers (which let me tell you, was NOT a pretty sight), I finally got a "day off" with some managers training, lawn cleanup, and moving some people in. Now we have about 40 people on sight? And eventually we will have 126 employees total. After a little training, and a little dinner, a group of us did some exploring and found a trail not too far off the highway.

Walking down to the other river near us

A little view by the riverside

I think the trail was a three mile loop, but we also explored down by the rivers nearby (one closest called the Ninana River) and took some photos. It was a lot colder out today then the last two days so I'm glad I got a managers jacket during training today to wear around. Its lighter weight than my winter coat, and it has a great hood. Now I am ready for my other sweatshirts, bedding, and pillow (which won't be for another 10 days) to get here.

See the high rock with smaller humps below it on the right? This resembles a man and his dog sled team. I cannot remember the man's name, but this is "his" mountain!

I met a couple girls on my hall who are going to be a barista and one a hostess so I was able to hang out with them and get to know them a bit. One is from Texas, the other Anchorage, and both their first time here at the lodge so we can explore around together for a bit. With our low numbers in the Food and Beverage area for the time being until more come in June, I have a feeling I have my work cut out for me so this next week is going to be a challenge!

The way there...

SO! I made it to Alaska aright. Phew, it's about time! No, actually, with all the sleeping I did on the plane I was set to go. Time change didn't phase me a bit. Except with this daylight happening with it being 9:30PM, I don't know how I will manage to get to sleep tonight.

 Flying over the Alaskan mountains

The plane ride was enjoyable, as usual. I talked with the couple next to me on the first flight (the second flight, not so much), and they were from Taiwan. They told me about their lives, as people on planes usually do, and they gave me Taiwanese candy that was real interesting. It's called "Plum Candy" but in Taiwanese, it is called "Small Scallop Chang". (Chang being a small city name). It was honey flavored with a plum on the inside that also had a pit. It was real bitter on the plum side, but the honey part made the candy awesome.

          The Plum Candy

 

I did arrive in Anchorage just fine, and took a cab to a Comfort Inn on the very north side of the city on a large creek. I thought I'd get pizza for dinner, since the hotel booklet was filled with numerous pizza places to choose from, and somehow I chose a Chinese pizza place. It wasn't your ordinary pizza, but had this Chinese twist to it. Odd, but pretty good.

 They did well with the toppings. Can't complain!

The creek behind the Comfort Inn

 The drive up today though was beautiful. I couldn't ask for a better day to have come. Waiting for over an hour for the ARAMARK bus to arrive did get a bit cold by the end, and I needed a jacket on, but once I arrived at The McKinley Village, it was perfect temperature. And with me saying that, who cannot stand anything below 70 degrees (& I came to Alaska why??), obviously it was warm.

 The mountains surrounded the entire bus. Hard to capture completely.

With the park being closed for another week and a half, there was pretty much NO ONE here. The HR, house keeping manager, rooms division manager, chef, a few other helpers and myself. I helped move some things today and cleaned plus other tasks for the rooms division manager. I met many students from Bulgaria and Macedonia. All very nice, but speak super fast. I was trying to learn a few words, but only so many stuck. Hopefully I have it down by the end of summer.

That's all for now. Don't expect a long blog like this everyday since I feel like my energy is going to start draining even more tomorrow with a long day of cleaning dorms for workers. (However, now looking at this blog, it seems pretty short & pathetic...) This place is like a ghost town, and there is only so much time before it's open for business. Time for another summer of hard work.