7/2/98
After our stay in Anchorage, we drove to Seward. Seward is on the south side of the Kenai peninsula, and is the northernmost year-round ice-free port in Alaska. (Actually, we found out later that that title goes to Valdez, but it was true during the gold rush days) It is also the gateway to Kenai Fjords National Park. Seward was really great. On day one we saw our first glacier (Exit Glacier) up close. You can walk right up to it! We took about a 2 mile stroll along the edge of the glacier looking into crevasses and ice caves. Later, we took a cruise down Resurrection Bay to Fox Island, and had a baked salmon dinner and a jazz concert overlooking the cove. The evening had the potential to be a total bust, but the music and the food were both fantastic and well worth it. The day was a big success. We also caught up with Steve and Amy Drake, Ward and Karen Polzin and their friends Ward and PJ and made plans for the Fourth of July. On the fourth we caught up with everybody and enjoyed a great day of small-town festivities including a parade, street vendors, and a race. Seward is home to the second oldest footrace in the country (second to the Boston Marathon). It is the Mount Marathon Race, which runs 3.5 miles up Mt. Marathon and back down again, gaining and losing 3022 feet of elevation. We watched the men’s race – the record is 43 minutes, they also run a woman’s race and a junior’s race. There is a little carnage involved on the downhill, some steep rocky chutes that are much easier climbed up than down. After the race we went to Ray’s for drinks and dinner – a lovely meal with good company right on the harbor.
After lounging around all day Sunday (except for my run) we had a very exciting Monday. We took a Kenai Fjords boat tour all the way to Northwestern Glacier and back. This is a 9.5-hour tour in a small, shallow draft boat that gives you lots of opportunity to see wildlife and glaciers. We saw at least 8 humpback whales (including a young calf), two orcas (Transient mammal-eating orcas referred to as the "bad-boys"), sea otters, sea lions, puffins, cormorants, and bald eagles and many other types of sea birds – including the common murres that can dive to 400 feet! I took lots of pictures, and will scan some in when I get them back. It was a great day! The boat was very comfortable (although cold in the wind) and the crew was excellent. This trip is a definite "must do" if you are ever in Alaska.
Tuesday Doug had a little business to attend to, so I took a hike from Exit Glacier to the Harding Ice Field. All the glaciers in Kenai fjords come from the Harding Ice Field a 500 square mile ice field on the Kenai. It is one of the largest sub-polar icefields in the world, home to lots of big glaciers – Alaska is home to 50% of the worlds glaciers. The hike is about 7.5 miles round trip – up 3000’ feet and then down again on the way back, but spectacular. When you get to the end of the trail (which doesn’t lead you out onto the ice itself) you can see the top of Exit Glacier, and all the Nunataks – the very tippy top of mountains poking out of the ice. It was a very forbidding view – and exciting, too as I saw my first black bear up close and personal – it came within about 25 yards of me, up in the snow, before it decided I wasn’t interesting.
After Doug and I hooked up again, we drove to the town of Kenai and scoped out camping. We also had a fabulous dinner at a place called "Through the Seasons" in Soldatna. This is easily the best food we’ve eaten since we left Dallas. The portions were big, the fish (salmon for Doug, Halibut for me) was oh so fresh, the sauces and marinades were perfect – WOW! We will be eating here again! On the way back to Seward, we saw a mama moose and her baby feeding by the side of the road – about 30 yds away – and we also saw a Bald Eagle very close, and got some exciting shots. This is the closest we’ve been to an eagle and he was a fine specimen. They are truly impressive birds!
Wednesday July 8
Stayed in Kenai. Not much here unless you want to fish - but the fishing, especially for salmon is supposed to be the best - 93 lbs is the record from the Kenai river. We stayed at the Beluga Lookout park - it overlooks Cook Inlet, and with big tide swings, sometimes the belugas get stranded on the beach but we didn't see any. It was a great view anyway. We took a hike to Russian Lake, which oddly enough drains into the Russian River, and had a good view of some spawning salmon and some fishermen who weren't having much luck. We walked about 7 miles and the weather was perfect, and stayed our second night in Kenai.
7/10 - 7/15
Drove to Homer and took a car tour around the area. Homer is the best place we've stayed so far. Our campsite overlooked the beach, and we were minutes from the Homer Spit where all the action is. Homer is the end of the road, literally, and there are a lot of eccentrics here - but in the good sense. Homer has a nice funky feel to it, and is in a gorgeous setting on Kachemak Bay near the mouth of the Cook Inlet (big Halibut fishing here - over 300 lb'ers!) with mountains all around it. The weather is fairly mild for Alaska, although we did catch a bit of rain here. We found two excellent restaurants here - Cafe Cups which serves food kinda like PoPoLos, and the Fresh Sourdough Bakery, which is the home of AH!Laska HoHo Cocoa (and some incredible desserts!).
While in Homer we did a lot of really cool things. We took a 2 hour boat trip to Gull Island to see the nesting birds, and we got so close we could even see some of the newly hatched chicks - they look like little furballs. We also got to see and eagle feeding on a common murre. The museum in Homer has got several excellent exhibits, including a floor devoted to the Exxon Valdez oil spill and its legacy. It was heart-wrenching to see the impact on the animals and the land. Oil brings a lot of money to Alaska, but it is still a big controversy where and when to drill, and how much damage is really happening. We did a full-day sea kayaking trip around Yukon island in Kachemak Bay - the weather was perfect and the sea was flat calm and we had an incredible time. There were otters everywhere - right next to the boats - and lots of eagles and seabirds that followed us around. But the coolest thing we did was take a flight-seeing trip to Katmai National Park (there is no other way to get there) and saw the bears. You get to go out on a viewing platform and stand right next to the river where the bears are feeding on salmon. It was VERY exciting. The bears are "live and in person" and big - and they fight each other for the fish. We saw up to eleven adults at one time, spread across the river, and we also a mom with three cubs. You are only supposed to get to stay at the platform for an hour, but they had to close the trail to the platform because of a bear who was sleeping in the middle of the path, so we got to spend about 4 and half hours watching the bears. The rangers are very strict about human/bear interaction, and enforce the rules very strenuously. They have so far had no "problem" bears that have had to be destroyed or removed.
From Homer we moved back to Anchorage for a couple of weeks to take care of the vehicles, do some business, and take a side trip to Nome.
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