Well today was another fabulous day! It started as always with getting up and breakfasted and then I had a little bit of time before my tour started so I had a chill, read my book and chatted to a couple of the other people in the group.

Then I made my way down to meet the others and we walked to the old powerhouse to meet our guides for our day's adventure - rafting 20 miles down the river, followed by a scenic flight over the mountains and Glacier.

So we got kitted up and as usual signed the waiver and then jumped in the van and travelled 5 minutes down the road to the side of the river where we were due to begin our journey. Robin and Sarah our guides got the boats ready and we put on our life jackets and very dashing wet suit jackets and then got into the boats for the start of our adventure. Initially we spent a couple of hours on the water going through some gentle rapids and admiring the view as we went. We weren't actually paddling the rafts, our guides did that for us. As we went down the river we were able to see the different rock formations and the glaciers and mountains in the distance. We also spotted 2 bald eagles sitting on the shore and Mary spotted a bear in the bushes on the hillside.

After a couple of hours we stopped for lunch and explore the little beach/island we had moored on. We spotted moose prints in the mud but unfortunately didn't see any moose. After lunch we jumped back in the boat and continued to make our way down the river this time through the Canyon and down some slightly bigger rapids. As we were making our way towards the tree rapid I looked up and saw a bear walking up the side of the valley and then when we looked closer we noticed there were actually 2 bears. With all the excitement we didn't realise that we were actually right on top of the rapid so got a little bit wet and spun round in the boat. As we continued to make our way down the river our guide spotted another bear on the edge of the river. This time the bear walked out looked at us and as we got excited it ran away and as it did so another bear followed it. All five bears we saw were black bears and appeared to be young bears/Cubs so we were always on the lookout for mummy bear.

This bear sighting was at the end of the Canyon and our rafting trip so Robin steered the raft to the shore and we all got off and played boules while we waited for our plane to come and collect us.

There was a bit of confusion with the plane and in fact we had extended our flight so we could get a better view of the Glacier but they had sent the wrong plane and it was too small so we flew back to the airport and then got into another plane which took us over the Glacier.

Our first plane flew us back along the river passage we had rafted down and then we tried to spot moose but were unsuccessful. When we reached the airport we jumped into another plane and our pilot Toby flew us up and over the glaciers and mountains for 40 minutes pointing out different landmarks on the way. The flight was pretty impressive and at times a little unnerving as he fled incredibly close to the mountains and glaciers and did some pretty extreme turns. But the view was amazing. We saw the Kennecott and McCarthy, glacial lakes in the middle of snow, bright blue rivers, the different rock colourations, mountain goats and
the glaciers and mountains up close. It really was awesome but I was quite pleased when the plane landed back down on the runway.

From the airstrip we were driven back to McCarthy and then went on a walk down to the bridge and around by the community water source as we had heard that this is were the moose and beaver were hanging out. We walked around the area looking for both and although we didn't see either we saw evidence of both - trees stumps which had been gnawed by beavers and lots of moose poo and tracks.
As we were walking around we saw a few different birds including a dipper and a spotted sandpiper and also a muskrat sitting on the side of water eating.

From here we made our way back to the hotel still looking for moose and beaver and then went to The Potato for dinner before heading back to our room to pack ready for our departure in the morning. Surprisingly my bag wasn't too difficult to pack. I'm starting to think I might have lost something!