Day one was a very long and cramped flight on NorthWest Airlines. I have lots of air miles and got good use of then so I can't really complain.

We got in late, got our rental car, a Kia SUV with a total of 8 miles on it, and took off to stay with Tom and Maria in Thunderbird Falls. Tom is the Executive Director of Wolf Song of Alaska and graciously lets me stay when I come up to visit. It was still quite light out, which makes sense, since the sun does not set until 11:40pm this time of year, so finding his place was easy enough to do. That was about all we did on that first day so there were no photos to show for it.

Then, on day two, we made up for the lack of that first day's uninteresting travels. Just a short drive south from where we were staying is a really cool place to hike, Eagle River -- so named for the Eagles, but we did not see any of those on this trip, at least not here. However, there were a lot of trees and other forest type things to photograph as well as the river, of course, and mountains.

I have been to Eagle River a few times, even heard wolves howling once, but this was the first time I have visited in the spring and it was quite a different experience. From the stark white of winter, it is now quite lush and green. Wild flowers were blooming everywhere and there were bears. Fortunately, we did not come across any bears, but there was a list of recent sightings posted. We made sure we made a fair bit of noise on the hike...

They have a really cool visitor center, the Eagle River Nature Center, but rain was forecast and it was not actually raining, so we decided to just go out and take advantage of the dry weather. As it turned out, it remained dry all afternoon.

I brought along my Canon 1Ds, a 16-35mm f2.8, a 28-70mm f2.8 (which I did not bother to use) and my 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 which I used quite a lot for wildflower photos and a few small birds... I did not bother lugging a tripod about. On my last trip up here in January, I purchased a rather hefty Bogan 3033 which is fine for short walks, but rather obnoxious to carry for miles. I actually bought this tripod to use with my 500mm lens which I had shipped up here before I left. Shipping an expensive lens is one thing, shipping a heavy tripod is another, so I thought since I travel up here often, I would simply purchase a tripod just to use in Alaska :-)

Anyway, enough about cameras tripods and the like, I was fine just hand holding my 400mm lens since it has image stabilization and the flowers were quite patient as I attempted to capture their image. Unfortunately, I have no idea what these wildflowers are. I made need some help there. They were quite nice though.

The historic Iditarod Trail comes through here. This has not been used in many years, but has been renewed as a hiking trail to Girdwood, about 26 miles one-way. We did not go quite that far, more like 5.5 miles, round trip.

The trail was easy, but sometimes became a bit rocky, sometimes a bit rooty. We decided it was a rocky-rooty-kazooty trail...

At Rapids Camp, there was river access down a steep bank with log steps. Although it was still overcast, the scene was quite picturesque. Rivers and mountains are quite nice scenes to photograph.

Heading back -- more trees. I had fun with my wide angle lens. There were more wildflowers to photograph as well as cloudy mountain tops in the distance and a series of beaver dams. It was quite a nice first day hike.