In four hours, we retraced our path on the Sterling Highway back to the Seward Highway, and then turned north toward Anchorage.
We stopped in Girdwood in time for lunch. It’s about 40 miles outside of Anchorage; it think it might be considered a suburb, or a bedroom community. It’s also a ski resort town — home of the Alyeska Resort. We’ll spend the night here in Girdwood. It’s a nice pit stop on our way to Denali, where we’ll end up tomorrow.
We drove straight to the Alyeska Hotel — a chichi chateau at the base of the mountain — then took the Alyeska Tram, or gondola, to the top of the North Face run, where we had lunch in the chalet. After lunch, we poked around at the top of the mountain, admiring the views of the valley and Turnagain Arm, the narrow branch of the Cook Inlet that forms the northern boundary of the Kenai Peninsula, before taking the tram back down.
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| That's Turnagain Arm in the distance, a 45 mile-long finger of the Cook Inlet. |
Looking at a map of the resort, we noticed that most of the runs are double black diamonds. Someone on the tram asked if there are moguls, and the operator said that they get too much snow for moguls; snowfall buries them, and fills in the spaces between them. Alyeska Resort averages an astounding 600 inches of snow per year. (Compare that to the Harding Ice Field, which gets 400 inches of snow per year. And I thought that was a lot!) In 2011, Alyeska Resort got hammered with 1,200 inches of snow!
From the tram on the way back down, we spotted a mother moose and her calf hanging out at the edge of a pond directly below us.
Back at the bottom of the mountain, we drove into the town of Girdwood — basically a square block of hippy-dippy food trucks and coffee shops … and the Girdwood Laundromall, voted number one laundromat in the U.S. by Coin-Op Magazine! And this, dear readers, was the whole reason I planned a stop in Girdwood.
We’re not sure by which criteria the editor of Coin-Op Magazine (it has a staff of one) judges laundromats, but we’re pretty sure he (his name is Paul) has never actually been to the Girdwood Laundromall, which, as far as laundromats go, is pretty standard. I mean, there are stars painted on the celling and a bank of northwoods-themed shower rooms (meaning each stall has a speaker that bleats out loon calls), but that’s about it. It was nice, but I've been in gas station bathrooms that have as much appeal. I did the laundry while Keith played poker with the kids. We didn’t really linger.
We’re staying at the Girdwood Guesthouse, which is, essentially, the lower floor of a house in a leafy neighborhood in the shadow of the mountain (we can see the chair lifts from the driveway). The proprietor, Judy, lives upstairs. She met us at the door and in a very quiet, no-nonsense manner, showed us around our quarters: a small kitchen and sitting area with a fold-out couch, and a bedroom with a king-sized bed and a double futon, and a bathroom -- all done up in dark wood paneling and framed posters of Olympic athletes from the mid-'80s. Staying with Judy is exactly like taking a fall break trip from college and staying with your St. Olaf friend in the basement of his parents’ home.
The best part of the Girdwood Guesthouse: the awesome collection of VHS tapes available for our perusal. We commented on the extraordinary selection to Judy, and she shrugged and said they were left-overs from when her children were much younger. Godzilla? Weird Al Yankovik? The Terminator? Clearly her children are Keith Long’s kindred spirits.
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| Over all of the choice, the kids opted for Star Wars Episode IV. |
The second best part of the Girdwood Guesthouse: This basement bedroom has no windows. It is like a cave in here. I will sleep well tonight.
Keith here: I would like to emphasize the kids watch the original cut of Star Wars, not the Special Edition travesty that was also included in the VHS set.
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