Elias Clark leaps off a sand dune in Anchorage’s Kincaid Park as Laurel Griffis waits for her turn with other kids from the Into the Woods summer camp on Thursday. (Emily Mesner / ADN)
Thursday’s warm, sunny weather across a swath of Alaska, from Anchorage up to Fairbanks, was welcomed by many who took the opportunity to play outdoors. Summer 2023 has been a cool one with its fair share of rain. The National Weather Service suggests that the sunshine won’t stick around for long, with rain forecast for the weekend in the Anchorage area.
A paddler rides with the Chena River current through Fairbanks on Thursday. (Marc Lester / ADN)
Sunlight illuminates large leaves of devil's club in the woods of Kincaid Park on Thursday. (Emily Mesner / ADN)
A group floats down Campbell Creek, passing beneath a pedestrian bridge near Lake Otis Parkway during the sunshine with temperatures in the mid-70s on Thursday. (Bill Roth / ADN)
Denali and other peaks of the Alaska Range are visible from a jet flying from Anchorage to Fairbanks on Thursday. (Marc Lester / ADN)
Wind carries cotton from the trees above Jodhpur Street in Anchorage on Thursday. (Emily Mesner / ADN)
Cotton gathers on the curve of Jodhpur Street and partially buries plants along the road in Anchorage on Thursday. (Emily Mesner / ADN)
People soak in the sunshine and eat lunch on top of a Kincaid Park sand dune on Thursday. (Emily Mesner / ADN)
Emily Mesner is a multimedia journalist for the Anchorage Daily News. She previously worked for the National Park Service at Denali National Park and Preserve and the Western Arctic National Parklands in Kotzebue, at the Cordova Times and at the Jackson Citizen Patriot in Jackson, Michigan.