Independence Day, Alaska Style

For all the jokes about how Alaska "isn't really a state," we certainly know how to throw down a good fourth.  Celebrations began Friday and continued through the weekend, finally wrapping up this morning when I awoke, exhausted and sore, in my tent after camping. 

The Fourth of July is one of those summer holiday weekends when the majority of Anchorage residents choose to leave town.  Girdwood hosts the Forest Fair, the hippiest, most pot-ridden handmade craft fair you'll ever see.  Groups of visitors and residents of all ages can be seen walking floatily in and out of the trees coming to and from frequent smoke breaks.  There are big-ticket professional art booths, as well as the crunchy tie-dyed underwear booth run by 12-year-olds.  The food-- typical summer festival fare such as funnel cakes and turkey legs-- is of course the best part.  The Forest Fair mantra is "no politics or religious orders" in order to encourage hippie-style harmonious living.  It's a little over the top but always fun to let your inner forest fairy loose with face painting and henna tattoos.

Further down the Seward Highway comes another fourth tradition:  the town of Seward.  This teeny harbor town about 2 hours south of anchorage only has a population of about 2500 people, but a reported 40,000 pack into its tiny streets for this holiday weekend.  The roads are closed to traffic, and instead filled with people, food and craft booths, and runners doing the famous Mt. Marathon race. 

My friend Kate on her way to a top-ten finish in the 2010 race

Mt. Marathon is an event unlike any other; it's a 3,000 foot peak right in the town of Seward, and every Fourth of July about 900 lucky folks get to run up to the top and back down.  There is a lottery for spots every year--capped at 350 per division for trail safety--as well as an auction of ten spots the night before.  People paid up to $2,400 just to scramble up a mountain. There's no set trail, just a rock face, some trees clinging to a cliff, and brush.  It's a full body workout of pulling yourself up the cliff by tree roots and trying not to slip backward on loose rock.  Once you climb the initial cliff, it doesn't get any easier as the trail stays at an intensely steep angle for the next mile of climbing.  Once you turn around, the dangerous part begins: scrambling and leaping through fields of snow and loose rock until sliding down a creek bed and rock face to the bottom.  Runners typically finish the race on Seward's Main Street covered in--literally-- blood, sweat, and tears (and mud).

view from the top!

Details aside, it really is one of the most unique races in the world, and part of my July 4th tradition since I was about twelve years old.  (Juniors-17 and under- run halfway up the mountain before turning around; adults run to the summit.)  This was only my second adult race, and I had no training under my belt (preferring to spend my summer working and partying rather than exhausting myself on dangerous mountains) but I still managed to make it up and down in one piece.  After the race is over, a free shower and donning the finisher shirt put you in a good mood for the rest of the day.  I had plenty of time to enjoy American staples like hot dogs, a parade, fireworks, and beer.  Thanks to my friends watching the race, and ice-cold Alaskan Amber greeted me at the finish line.  And Monday night's camping celebration was another night to (not) remember.  Cameras from the tv show "Alaska State Troopers" showed up at our campsite as troopers attempted to control drunken America fans.  Luckily, their main concern was drunk drivers, and allowed the festivites to go on undistrubed.

post-race festivities

All in all, a fabulous weekend celebrating a fabulous country-- with its own unique Alaskan twist.

Midnight Sun

The Summer Solstice, official first day of summer and longest day of the year, has officially passed.  Ironic that summer has only really just begun and we can already start complaining about losing daylight and the months of darkness that loom ahead.  But luckily, celebrating the Solstice in Anchorage is typically a joyous occasion: it is the exact opposite of those very dreaded aformentioned months of darkness. 

The Solstice celebration in Anchorage began on Saturday, because Anchoragites just can't pass up a nice summer day. (They are often few and far between).  With the Mayor's Midnight Sun Marathon and Half-Marathon, there are plenty of ways to torture yourself in the name of sunshine.  I ran the half, which despite being painful was also the most tanning I've gotten in all summer.  I guess I'll take what I can get. 

Downtown Anchorage was also alive with the Summer Solstice Festival-- basically a lot of overpriced touristy crap to buy and food that's sure to counteract whatever benefit running the marathon gave you.  What a great tradition.  Perhaps the most popular Solstice tradition is the midnight hike up Flattop mountain-- the most overused, overrated hike in Alaska.  Since you can drive your car halfway up the mountain (but  never find a parking spot) and follow a wide, gravel path and built in stairs most of the way to the summit, it is very overly popular on all days of the summer.  The wide, windswept plateau of a summit is perfect for late-night beer drinking and bonfires, both of which are illegal in the Chugach State Park. 

So Saturday night was the first of many Solstice-themed Flattop adventures-- mostly the 9-5 crowd who didn't have the luxury of waiting until true Solstice to make the hike.  The three extra seconds of daylight really made a difference.
What does it really mean to live in "the land of the midnight sun" on the longest day of the year?  Well, there's no tanning available at 2 in the morning.  In Anchorage, the sun set at 11:49 pm and rose at 4:20 am on the night of Tuesday the 21st.  Those four and a half hours of "darkness" never really get past the light blue dusky phase: enough to drive with your headlights on but not enough to be afraid of what's ahead in the shadows.  Drive eight hours north to Fairbanks, Alaska, where the sun only dipped below the horizon from 12:58 am till 2:48 am.  A couple thousand miles north of there, in Barrow, AK, the sun does not sink below the horizon for three months straight.  Then again, it still snowed there last week.

In addition to joining the masses at Flattop, there are plenty of late-night Solstice activities.  Most just include driving out to a scenic viewpoint and watching the sun(not)set:  Beluga Point, the top of Aleyeska Mountain, Point Woronzof, etc.  In a way, the Solstice is a bit like New Year's Eve: it never quite lives up to your expectations.  It may seem like the most exciting night of the summer, but the negligible difference in daylight gain really makes it just another long night of Alaskan summer.  Beautiful, yes, but it hardly turns out to be anything too special.  When I began this blog post at 2:27 am last night, my Solstice festivities had come to an end.  But now we're losing daylight more and more every day, so the rest of the summer will be a scramble to soak up as many minutes as possible before the darkness and seasonal affective disorder kicks in in the fall. 

Unfortunately, I can't get a picutre of the sky at midnight to upload, but I'll post one as soon as I can!