This Land Was Made for You and Me

The Kenai Peninsula in Alaska is one of the most scenic places we've been to on this journey.  The landscape is so varied - from ocean views, icebergs, huge snow capped peaks, glaciers, icefields, rocky slopes, ragging rivers, to flat lake littered lands.  And that's all within just a few miles radius.  We've really enjoyed the last two weeks and we both feel as if we're living the National Geographic Channel.  Luke fished with grizzly bears, we watched salmon launch themselves over insane waterfalls on their spawning quest, we witnessed a bald eagle grab an unsuspecting black legged kittiwake (bird) from its nest on a rocky cliff, and we saw another bald eagle snatch a trout right out of the lake we were canoeing on.   This will be a long post.

The stock pictures you see of Alaska are slightly deceptive.  The weather here is somewhat unpredictable.  Or, predictable in the sense that you never know what you're going to get and just have to plan for it all.  It's often cloudy and wet.  If you were only here for a one week vacation, you might miss seeing Mt. McKinley and all the other peaks, wildlife, and glaciers.  Again, we feel so lucky that we have so much time in Alaska to really be able to see it all and wait out the rainy days.  Because sometimes, even on the coast, you get amazingly beautiful sunny days.  We took advantage of those days.   

Whittier is in the northeast corner of the Kenai Peninsula and the western corner of the Prince William Sound.  The Sound is full of gigantic glaciers and tons of sea life.  We took an afternoon boat tour of the sound on one of those rare sunny days.  We went crazy with our camera.

   A pod of Dall porpoise swam next to the boat.  They have similar coloring to killer whales.

Sea otters were everywhere.  Curious creatures.  They love laying on their backs just watching you.

Also tons of sea lions.

The boat passed by a rookery with thousands of kittiwakes.  This is where we saw the bald eagle snatch a bird from its nest and carry it off in its talons.  A few of the other birds tried to chase down the bald eagle to get it to drop the bird, but to no avail.

The bald eagle is just right of center.

A huge priority on this leg of the journey was to do some salmon fishing.  July and August are great months for fishing as the different types of salmon start running at slightly different times.  Luke caught pink salmon (humpies) and the world's best tasting sockeye (red) salmon.  The running of the salmon is one of the most awe inspiring events in nature, in our humble opinions.  After being born in fresh water, salmon swim to the ocean to grow and live for several years and then they return to the same streams they were born in by smelling their way back from the ocean.  Their bodies immediately start decaying once they return to fresh water and they die after spawning...if they make if that far.  All in the name of love - or at least procreation.   Well that's the basic idea anyway.

Early morning fishing at Bird Creek south of Anchorage right at the headwaters.

Luke's first salmon.  Two pinks, a/k/a "humpies" because the males develop pronounced humps on their backs on their migration.  We ate them within an hour after this picture was taken.  Nothing like fresh salmon for breakfast!

Another great fishing spot was the Russian River right at the confluence with the Kenai River.  It was near the end of the sockeye run and somewhat crowded at times (what's known as "combat" fishing).  But the early bird catches the worm, so they say.

Luke fishing for sockeye with the grizzly bears.  The bear is in the background beneath the tip of Luke's pole...kind of looks like a rock.  It's prime feeding for them and they aren't too interested in people.  Of course, we were cautious, kept our distance and always had the bear spray handy with the revolver backup.

More of the grizzlies fishing.

Luke's sockeye.  He was huge.

Cleaning and filleting the fish.

Preparing the fish to be smoked over charcoal.

The finished product.  Seriously, it was some of the best fish either of us have eaten.

After fishing the Russian and Kenai Rivers, we backpacked to Lower Russian Lake and stayed in a backcountry cabin right on the lake for one night.  The cabin is primitive, but it had a wood stove, a table, wooden bunks, and most importantly, a roof.  There was also a canoe we were allowed to used to paddle around the lake.  

The cabin.

The lake.  The only wildlife we saw on the lake were loons and swans.  The loons make howling noises that sometimes sounds like wolves or coyotes calling.

On the hike down we hiked to the Russian Falls where we sat for ages just watching the salmon launch themselves up and over the falls trying to get upstream to spawn.  It was truly awe inspiring to watch.  They're fast, so it was hard to capture them.  But we managed a few.

The falls.  Incredible that they manage to make it up this.

A few we managed to capture.  

Continuing our exploration of the Kenai Peninsula, we headed to Homer where we spent the night on the beach.  Another amazing coastal town.

Our campsite.

Sunset.

After Homer, we did a 4 day canoe/packing trip through the Swanson River Route in the Kenai Canoe Trail system.  This place was crazy.  Miles of trails through dozens of lakes.  So this was hard.  Luke carried the canoe on his shoulders for miles per day over the portages connecting the lakes and Kristin carried nearly everything else, about 100lbs of gear.  The canoe is not meant for packing.  Of course, we loved it!  We were completely alone, miles from civilization for days.  Somehow we got lucky and we had good weather our entire trip.  The mosquitoes were kind of crazy, but worth it.

Here we go.

Paddling through one of the water portages. 

Sunrise at our first campsite.

Just paddling through the grass.

View from Gene Lake.

Luke carrying the canoe.

Just some rainbow trout caught along the way.

Luke's trophy rainbow.  No great picture.  This guy was a fighter.  And he was at least 24 inches.  Huge.  This was the same lake we witnessed a bald eagle swoop down and snatch a fish out of the water.  So cool.

Next stop - Seward.  We were just in time for the Silver Salmon Derby. 

Watching the cleaning and filleting of the fish.

Some of today's catch.  Lingcod and rockfish.

Hiking the beach just south of downtown to the Caines Head Recreation Area.  The pinks and chums were running and we watched hundreds of them spawning in the creeks. 

Luke shore fishing for silver salmon.  No luck, but that didn't matter.

Kenai Fjords National Park is just outside of Seward.  We hiked the Harding Icefield Trail and camped right next to the icefield.  One of the coolest campsites we've ever had.  Again, we were blessed with good weather. 

Exit Glacier.

Early on in the hike.

Black bear.

Breaking along the way.  It felt like we were on top of the world.

Almost at the top.

Finally we found a good campsite.  The views were amazing and the icefield seemed to go on forever.  We were also visited by dozens of mountain goats.

You can't beat the view from inside the tent.

Hiking out.

So we've timed things well and it's raining and we're back in Anchorage to take care of some things before continuing on.  From here, we're headed to Valdez and then to Wrangell St-Elias National Park for some more backpacking.  That will just about wrap things up for us in Alaska and we'll start making the journey back to the lower 48 and the real world.