This past weekend, Andy and I went on a snowy and
very very cold hike to Angel Rocks with our friends Alex and Ethan. Angel Rocks is a
very popular hiking trail about 45 minutes from Fairbanks along Chena Pump Road. We always finish off Angel Rocks with a soak in the Chena Hot Springs. Don and Donna were all pumped and ready to go!
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| In their backpack |
We started the hike by suiting up. It was about -17° (that’s right, 17 BELOW!). We all appeared in various degrees of ridiculous. Alex was the best of all of us. Later in the day we counted the number of layers she had and it was quite astonishing. She commented that she felt like the kid from A Christmas Story, who’s mother dresses him in so many clothes he can’t lower his arms. Her clothes essentially consisted of her going through her house borrowing other people’s clothes; she had on her father (or her mother’s, she didn’t know) boots, Ethan’s shirt, “somebody’s” pants, and three hats.
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| Prepared Level: Expert |
Andy was a walking ad for North Face. I don’t think he had one single thing on that wasn’t North Face. Ethan was sporting a frozen mustache with icicles coming off of it, and I had mismatched layers of clothes I kept shedding and putting back on. Also, my outer pants wouldn’t button because I was wearing like three pairs of them. We were quite a team. Don and Donna came along too, of course. They hitched a ride in Andy’s backpack.
The hike up to Angel Rocks is only about 3.5 miles but there is a quick increase in elevation after about the first half mile. Not to mention, the hike is 10 times harder in the snow. It’s kind of like the winter version of running on the beach – it takes significantly more effort and time to get from Point A to Point B trudging through the snow.
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| Alex and Ethan. |
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| Headed up. |
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| Beautiful moon. |
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| Alex making her way up. |
As we increased in elevation, the hike became much more slippery. For every step we took forward, we took one back. It was quite a work out for your glutes! As we continued on we all ended up over-heating and slowly shedding the layers. We were all carrying half our clothes by the time we reached the top. But, we made it!
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| Made it! Frozen eyelashes and mustache and all! |
Don and Donna made it to the top too! They were chilly!
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| Donkey selfie |
The way down was much faster, we all ran, slipped, and slid our way down, partially out of fun, partially to beat the setting sun (“I have a headlamp, we’ll be fine!” says Andy). Andy and Ethan had particular fun running at full speed down the snowy hills. They pretended like they were being chased by a polar bear or the abominable snowman.
We made it back to the cars in one piece and headed to
Chena Hot Springs. Chena Hot Springs is a resort about 1 hour from Fairbanks. The resort has the hot springs themselves, along with awesome
aurora viewing, an
ice museum, scuba classes,
dog sled rides, flight seeing, snow coach tours, cross country skiing, snowshoeing, and snow machine tours.
The resort also has a really fun
restaurant with lots of eclectic Alaskan decor on the walls.
The hot springs were relaxing and just what we needed after the long hike. It’s too dark and steamy to take any pictures on my phone, so here are some beautiful ones (both pictures credit to Terra Gallery):
Anytime you are in the hot springs, your hair freezes into these long icicles. If you’re patient enough you can form your hair into interesting shapes and angels and the cold air will freeze it in place. Ethan and Andy had fun forming our hair into funny looking styles.
We had a fantastic day with fantastic people!
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