1 month of Alaska = 1 month of Adventure

Alaska was always a dream destination for me, though I never had an answer for people when they asked me for the "why". 
Having been to Alaska now for 1 month just confirmed that Alaska for me is one of the most wonderful places on earth. Though it is still hard for me to pin down the exact reasons - Is it the mountains and lakes? The climate? The wildlife? The people? The shere size of the 50. state of the US? I guess it is the combination.

On the day I arrived in Anchorage I met some local people through couch-surfing (check it out on couchsurfing.com it is a great concept), who took me on a 3 day trail-hike the next day and with that the Alaska adventure had a kicked off and it basically didn't stop until the day I flew out on which I still did a 6 hour trail hike :-).

The program and highlights for Alaska were as following:
- 3 day back-country trail hike in Denali State Park, with a rocking group of 7 people, stunning views, loads of rain and a continuos 13 hour hike through the night, because we didn't want to pitch a tent in the rain anymore.
- Mountain-bike tour around Anchorage and accidentally running into a mother Moose with her young child about 5 meters away from me. Luckily the Moose was totally relaxed :-)
- 3 day sea-kayaking to Bear Glacier, with 8 hours straight paddling, pitching tents without shelter and firewood, pulling two of my fellow kayakers up the river, cruising through a lagoon of glacier water in between of broken off pieces of ice
- 3 day back-country hike in Denali National Park which started of with hitchhiking 300 miles, then once hiking seeing 4 bears up close, a river crossing which we had to abort as it nearly swamped me away, a 11 hour hike up to and on a glacier
- Chilled hiking around Cordova where I ate one of my best Burritos in my life (Salmon Burrito :-))
- 7 days of a roadtrip on the Alaska Highway System which leads through stunning nature. The highlights certainly were: Ice climbing in the Wrangler National Park, Getting up to the Arctic Circle and driving the Denali Highway.
- Several day hikes, such as Exit Glacier, Jumbo Mine or Bird Ridge.

A big thanks goes out to Katharina, we teamed up for four weeks to explore Alaska together, she is a grand travel-mate and took all these awesome pictures... have a look for yourself!!