Chena Hot Springs, AK

After getting back to Fairbanks we had about 6 hours to burn before heading to the airport for our flight home. We decided to head out to Chena Hot Springs for the afternoon. Chena Hot Springs is about 60 miles north of Fairbanks. It is a resort where there are some hot springs to swim in and an ice museum and bar.

Luckily on the drive to Chena Hot Springs, we saw 2 moose! We had been on a moose hunt everywhere, upon seeing the moose; we had officially seen all of the big mammals that Alaska is home too. We were going to be so upset if we had to leave Alaska with no moose sighting! We spoke with a local about the moose population, which is very populous in Alaska, and he said he is in a roadkill program. If there is a dead moose on the side of the road, they contact you to come and pick it up and you can have the meat. Since a moose is around 1,000 lbs., that’s a lot of food! He said he got 3 last year and gave the last one away because they were not able to eat that much meat.

We did not bring our swimming supplies on the trip so we did not make it into the hot springs (it was like 75 degrees out anyway, who wants to swim in a hot spring when it’s hot out?). We did make it into the ice museum though. The ice museum is kept at 22 degrees and had a whole bunch of ice sculptures, an ice bar and martinis in ice carved martini glasses. This was the perfect way to end our Alaskan vacation!

Below are some photos from Chena Hot Springs:

The ice bar! My camera did not like taking photos in here,
so they all look a little blurry.

Courtney enjoying her martini!

AJ enjoying his martini in the ice glass!

AJ loves his Mountain Dew!

AJ and I would love to go back to Alaska again; we think we will visit in winter though so we can see the aurora borealis. That is the only thing we were not able to see. It is just not dark enough in the summer to experience it. If you have the chance to visit Alaska, GO! It was awesome and something we will cherish forever.