Alpenglow Coffeehouse — Girdwood, Alaska
Girdwood, Alaska, USA 🇺🇸
I once watched a documentary about Alaskan wild life, and since then I fell in love with this part of the world. Alaska’s nature can beautifully show you the extremes of rich green summers and pale white winters. After that documentary, I grabbed and watched more documentaries about Alaska. I also read two beautiful novels, the master works of an enchanting writer, Eowyn Ivey. To this day, I dream of a trip to Alaska where I can experience its beauty first hand.
An amusing documentary based on the wildlife and experiences of the relaxing sculpture that is Alaska.
— IMDB
In a virtual tour to this lovely state, I looked for a city that can get you a good scoop of the nature and fun that is within Alaska. I have settled on the lovely town of Girdwood, a small resort region not far away from the main hop city, Anchorage. Girdwood takes a lot from its mother Alaska’s enchanting beauty, and can get you all you would love to experience in a focused area.
Where Alaska Comes To Play
Girdwood is “One of the 10 Most Beautiful Towns in Alaska” and located just 25 miles south of Anchorage. We are a very active community offering biking, skiing, rafting, fishing, hiking, gold panning and sightseeing in a beautiful, northern rainforest setting. Glacier Valley is home to Alaska’s only major ski resort, Alyeska Resort. Girdwood is an excellent base camp for all your activities in Southcentral Alaska. We are less than 10 miles from Prince William Sound and only 60 miles from the world-famous Kenai River.
— Visit Girdwood
Several websites are available at your fingertips to research and plan your experience in Girdwood, Alaska. I was honestly overwhelmed with the rich tourist information available from all these websites. You could go to TravelAlaska.com or Alaska.org for a whole view on this beautiful state. You can also dig deeper using websites that are created for Girdwood specifically. One is Girdwood.com and the other is VisitGirdwood.com. For me, the latter proved to be much sleeker and rich in the information about this lovely town.
Alpenglow Coffeehouse — Pin 📍
In my virtual tour to Girdwood, Alaska, and hopefully in a future physical trip, I wanted to look for places that reflect the essence of the Alaskan life. What I was imagining is a cafe or restaurant that is more of a cabin in the woods. I wanted something that can give you a nice view of the mountainous nature all around. In looking for such a place, I found Alpenglow Coffeehouse a great match for my search.
A small coffee house in Girdwood, Alaska that serves delicous hot drinks and baked goods, located 35 miles from Anchorage at the base of Alyeska Resort.
— Visit Girdwood
Being at the base of the Alyeska Resort, makes this spot perfect for an early morning or late evening coffee stop. Green all around the place in summer, with snow-peaked mountains around you, and white and cozy in winter, for a warm up during the day-night. The ramp leading to the entrance of the cafe, with the fenced porch in front makes it a perfect spot for a relaxing and uninterrupted tranquility. This is a place where I could nestle in, spending hours straight, without much of worry while being surrounded by white and green beauty.
This is also a place that is perfect to share with your loved ones. I am not a skiing person by any means. But, I would love to have a trip to Girdwood, and learn skiing one more time in my life, with my wife. The only time we did that was a few years ago in the mountainous peaks of Switzerland. Getting the chance to visit another part of the world, and having fun learning to ski again can be a goal for my next trip.
Embracing Extremes
We are naturally averse to extremes, or at least some of us are. We might get intimidated by extreme geographies and conditions around us. We can think of them as harsh and unreachable edges that are far from the peaceful centers of our own comfort zones, no matter how wide and far these zones can become. On the other hand, we also can learn to embrace these extremes, explore them openly, and possibly bond over them, thickening our skins and enriching our experiences and relationships.
Every part of the world have its own way of presenting extremes to mankind. If you happen to be on a coastal area, then waves of a wild blue ocean can present this kind of extremes. If you happen to be in a city in the middle of a desert, then nature can present you with extremes in the form of soft and magical golden dunes of sand. Being somewhere around a jungle, can get you a path to the extreme lush and wet of the brown and the green. Go higher in the mountains, and higher on the latitudes, and you are able to taste the extremes of the fluffy whites as in Alaska.
Yet, we can always find people looking for experiences that stretch them out into those extremes. They either look for challenge, exploration, expression, serenity, or bonding with those important to them. It could be all that together, which creates memorable experiences that can outlast their little mortal lives.
To the Bright Edge of the World
Talking about Alaska and extremes seems naturally synonymous. This has lead me to a beautiful novel by Eowyn Ivey called “To the Bright Edge of the World”. Loosely based on an actual event, “through journals, letters and documents, it tells the story of an 1885 expedition into the heart of Alaska.”
To the Bright Edge of the World
In the winter of 1885, decorated war hero Colonel Allen Forrester leads a small band of men on an expedition that has been deemed impossible: to venture up the Wolverine River and pierce the vast, untamed Alaska Territory. Leaving behind Sophie, his newly pregnant wife, Colonel Forrester records his extraordinary experiences in hopes that his journal will reach her if he doesn't return--once he passes beyond the edge of the known world, there's no telling what awaits him.
The Wolverine River Valley is not only breathtaking and forbidding but also terrifying in ways that the colonel and his men never could have imagined. As they map the territory and gather information on the native tribes, whose understanding of the natural world is unlike anything they have ever encountered, Forrester and his men discover the blurred lines between human and wild animal, the living and the dead. And while the men knew they would face starvation and danger, they cannot escape the sense that some greater, mysterious force threatens their lives.
Meanwhile, on her own at Vancouver Barracks, Sophie chafes under the social restrictions and yearns to travel alongside her husband. She does not know that the winter will require as much of her as it does her husband, that both her courage and faith will be tested to the breaking point. Can her exploration of nature through the new art of photography help her to rediscover her sense of beauty and wonder?
The truths that Allen and Sophie discover over the course of that fateful year change both of their lives--and the lives of those who hear their stories long after they're gone — forever.
I loved this work by Eowyn, similar to her other brilliant work “The Snow Child”. Being Alaskan herself, she is able to open a window for you to experience Alaska in her picturesque novels. Here is my review of the novel that I shared on Goodreads:
The second novel I read by the elegant craft of Eowyn Ivey, and no regret at all. It took me in a journey of adventure and love through the nature of Alaska, with scoops of myths that spiced up my read.
When I read Eowyn's first novel "The Snow Child", I was taken by it. And since then I wanted to read a similar novel that will take me in a soft journey full of wise narrative, deep emotions, and a tiny bit of fiction. And here I am, back from a similar journey in this novel.
The novel narrative is not like others, as it is composed of diaries and letters mainly in the voices of the Forrester's family: Allen and Sophie. I was taken by their romantic correspondence, and at times I was jealous of not having a diary of my own like they had.
The twists of Alaskan myths that intertwined along with the stories was plainly fictitious, but they have added a tiny hint of suspense and curiosity to the novel that I just needed.
If you like to be taken by sophisticated yet simple to read stories in the rivers, mountains, and glaciers of Alaska, then this novel is for you.
— Abdurrahman on Goodreads
Here are a couple of quotes on the harshness of an extreme winter:
“Such icy stillness. Our breath turns to hoarfrost in our beards, hair. Our eyelashes stick together in clumps of frost. Our lungs ache with cold. The others look to me like creatures with fur of snow; no doubt I to them as well.”
― Eowyn Ivey, To the Bright Edge of the World
“That day I was filled with more love than I ever could have imagined. And when my hands grew cold, you didn’t say we should leave the beach, but instead took them in your own and kissed each of my fingertips, and I was warmed by your breath.”
― Eowyn Ivey, To the Bright Edge of the World
And a couple more quotes to close with, on the spirit of trial, and the beauty of humanity:
“Nothing is impossible. Take one step, and then another, and see where the path leads. Don’t think of the obstacles, only the way around them.”
― Eowyn Ivey, To the Bright Edge of the World
“It’s humanity. We’re complicated and messy and beautiful.”
― Eowyn Ivey, To the Bright Edge of the World
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