It’s safe to say that landing on the Resurrection River near Seward to enjoy an evening with Seward. Mobile Saunas is one of the coolest things I’ve ever done with my airplane.  Surreal is the only word I had for days after to describe the evening.  

Ostensibly, it was not adventurous since it’s a place you can drive a car to . . .  That said, interacting with Alaska, and in a Super Cub, is never NOT adventurous!  Also, everything is an adventure to me.  Plus, this is my website so I get to write about whatever moves me. And this experience moved me.

Seward Mobile Saunas was interested in figuring out wheel plane-accessed spots along water where they could set their sauna for some fly-in rejuvenation. I explored the area and determined that Resurrection River had a number of workable options, but would have to be figured out on the day-of because the location of other vehicles and tents is always changing. On the day-of my friend Cassie joined me and off we went to sauna on the river

Landing itself was really interesting because of the number of vehicles, fire rings, tents, and other obstacles along the river. Objects in motion! I felt like a number of times as I went to line up, a car would have moved to where I wanted to be – definitely an added complication!  As it was, I found a decent spot and taxied over to where they had the sauna set up, which was actually in an area that turned out to be the ideal landing spot.  We ultimately dismantled the few rock fire rings and moved the sauna out of the ideal runway, ultimately finding/preparing a perfect 600 ft strip with a great lineup and clear exit. So in the future, the spot can be more easily utilized because of the prep they can do on the ground and the way we figured out to position the sauna so you can literally taxi up to it. Seriously cool.

Red line is the landing area . . . paced off at a solid 600.’  The river is only about calf deep, so landing on the “island” across the stream likely would have worked too, and avoided car-based complications . . .

The experience of the sauna itself was heavenly. Perched right along the edge of the river, it felt like wilderness and was so stunning. With a cold plunge set up at the river’s edge, a lovely sunny deck to chill on, a warming room to change in, and a luxuriously hot sauna with a huge window… It’s hard to find words for how pleasant the combination is. Sitting in the sauna, we had a spectacular “eagle TV“ show across the river and a great mountain view. The sauna itself is really big as well which is great for a larger group, and really lovely for a group of three like we were.  And we gazed from the plunge toward the Harding Icefield, which made me laugh at so many memories that direction . . .

So many memories in that direction 🙂 Across the spectrum of adventure!

A mesmerizing view to bake in 🙂

I had reached out to my friend Heather, who lives in Seward, to join us and she did! I didn’t give her much information, all I said was to come to Resurrection and meet us to go in the sauna, and I had to laugh because she figured that there would be something far more adventurous and was prepared to cross the river, go for a hike, and a sundry of other ambitious undertakings. I suppose I have somewhat of a reputation for hard things! But the reality is there very little effort involved in this sauna experience!  And it was so rejuvenating 🙂

We easily spent five hours between the sauna, plunge, and sitting on the deck. We had lovely conversation, especially because none of us had seen each other in a while, and the three of us had never even hung out collectively! It was such a special evening of being with two women I’ve known a long time, and who know each other by virtue of the Girdwood community, sharing something so cool and unique as this sauna experience along the river. It’s actually really difficult to put into words this experience, which is odd for somebody like me who loves words.

The sauna was so hot that this glacial cold plunge actually felt refreshing!

It would’ve been lovely to camp, and the company will even set up sleeping arrangements in the warming area, though we just did it as a day trip and that was lovely too. The flight home in the late summer light with calmer air than we’d found in the afternoon was really beautiful and the perfect cap, such an indulgent evening.

For days afterwards, the whole experience just felt surreal. I really love what these guys are up to with these mobile saunas, and there’s something really special about what they’ve built. Again, it’s funny to be someone who loves words like I do, and feel so wholeheartedly lacking in finding the ones that can do justice to this experience.

Ciao Seward!

Does summer light ever get old?!?

10/10 recommend 🙂