Aurora Borealis is a lot of people's bucket list item, and it's one of mine as well. And I thought, why wait? I have always wanted to go to Northern Europe to see it, but making a short trip there just to see the aurora might be a little crazy (I do have a job to go to..... unfortunately), so we decided to go somewhere "closer", Fairbanks, Alaska.
We took a red eye (as usual) and arrived in Fairbanks Saturday morning, and we rented a car and drove to Denali National Park right away! (2 hours drive with good road conditions) There are still a couple trails you can go on during winter time, and they are right next to the park entrance. We went on the Mount Healy Overlook trail, which has a 1700 feet gain in elevation. It took us 4 hours round trip because it can be hard walking in the snow. With a clear sky, you will be able to see the view of Denali at the top, and it was spectacular as you can see from the pictures above! The snow here is very different from the snow I have seen in other places. They are more crystalized, we didn't find a perfect snowflake, but we found an icy rose! After all, it was Valentine's day weekend!
After this, we went to the horseshoe lake trail, but 5 mins into the trail, we gave up. It was just too icy! There's no way we can make it through without breaking my camera. It was unfortunate, but we decided to head back to Fairbanks to get ready for the aurora viewing tonight.
Before the trip, I checked the aurora forecast, and it doesn't seem like there's too much activity, which is disappointing, but you never know! We got some suggestions from a friend that went last year on aurora viewing locations. We only had 2 nights, and we are very tired after a red eye flight, so we went to a closer location tonight, the Mt Aurora Skiland! we drove there and found out that we have to pay for $30/person to be there to watch the aurora, and they said that if we don't want to pay, then we can go to the public parking a little further down, but the view is not as good. We decided to go to the public parking, which we regretted afterwards because it was actually a good show tonight! We got there at around 10:30 - 11 pm, and we didn't see anything at first. We were looking at the sky for a while, pointing at different clouds, thinking that might be the aurora. At around 11:30pm, we started to see very dim light! Oh my gosh, I was so excited! Then it got stronger and stronger. It was mostly green, also saw some red, and it was dancing a little bit across the sky. It was absolutely the most amazing thing I have ever seen!
I was very sad that I didn't take very good pictures of the aurora, I swear it looked better than my pictures! Part of the reason is that there are a lot of tour buses parked in the parking lot and they left their red lights on, which affected the pictures a little bit. On top of that, I don't have any experience taking these pictures, and I couldn't see the pictures clearly until I got back to the hotel, which I found had a lot of focusing problems..... and the settings aren't the best either...... So, I was hoping I could get better shots the next day after tonight's lesson!
The next day, we decided to go the Chena Hot Spring Resort to see the Aurora, and we found that there are a lot of winter activities (ice museum, dog sledding, hot spring, dog sledding, snow machine tour, etc.) you can do there as well. It's about 1.5 hour drive there one way, and we saw a moose on the way!!!! You don't have to stay there to participate in their activities, which is very nice, but it seems like a nice place to stay for a night or two. There are two hikes around the resort, and we went on one of them, and the scenery is just breathtaking. Everything is so white!!! I am from Southeast Asia, and moved to California, so I have never seen anything this wintery! I felt like it was Christmas again. It was around -5 to 0 F when we were there, and apparently, this is a very warm winter for them! It usually goes down to -30F! Lucky for us! We got warm jackets, pants and everything but shoes. Our toes were already frozen at this temperature, and I think our toes would have fallen off if it was -30!
*I was also looking into this Running Reindeer Ranch (a little bit late though), which you get to walk/hike with this mystical creature, reindeer!!! It was fully booked, so I didn't get to do it, but that might be something I would look into ahead of time next time!
We still have some time before dinner, so we decided to go for a dog sled ride! It was pretty expensive for a 15 minutes activity, but it was fun! Well, we can't exactly do it in California, it is a new experience! But, we saw some people riding snow machines during our hike, and that looks like so much fun, and we will probably do that if we come again next time!
In the resort, there is a cafe in the activity center, which a lot of people just hang out there and wait for the aurora. There's free warm water, bathroom and most importantly, heat! It is a nice place to wait for the aurora. We noticed that there is a big Japanese tourist population at the resort, and everything is either in English or Japanese! Even the people who work in the resort are Japanese! We asked around, and apparently, Japan is only 5600km (about 3500 miles) from Alaska, and if you look at the world map closely, there are a series of islands that almost goes from Alaska all the way to Japan. Some of those islands were occupied by Japanese before World War II. (interesting, huh?) Anyways, it seems like pretty popular travel destination for Japanese.
Unfortunately, the aurora on our second night was very weak, so I didn't get to take better pictures, which is very disappointing and sad for me. But, we did see a nice show the first night! Aurora is there all the time, weak or strong, and with a clear sky and little light pollution, you should be able to see it. I would say, if you stay there for a week, you have a very high chance of seeing an active aurora show, and we were just here for 2 days, so we were pretty lucky to see it at all! That being said, I checked the aurora activity after I got back to LA, and LOOK on the left!!!! The activity was EXTREMELY HIGH THE DAY I LEFT! I am just a little bitter about how unlucky I am when it comes to nature viewing stuff! (Last time was the Uyuni salt flat reflection....) But once again, I am usually on a tight schedule, and I can't expect to see everything I want when I am there. I just wish I could have more time for my travel. C'est la vie.