Turnagain to Kenai

Journeying on southeast from Anchorage, we found we were confronted again with history, following the “Cook Inlet” on the Gulf of Alaska, named after Captain James Cook about whose incredible explorations of this area back in 1778 we learned so much at the Anchorage Museum.  “Turnagain” Arm is the northernmost water of this inlet, named by Cook himself.   It is a 48 mile long estuary rather than the river into the interior that he thought it was, and he had to turn around again to get back to the ocean and continue his voyage.   What is so interesting about the Turnagain Arm is that it has one of the longest tides in the world—38 feet!  The arm is long enough and shallow enough that when the tides comes in twice daily, it comes rolling in with a 6 foot tall wave carrying a current so strong as to allow people to surf it!  They call it a "bore tide", and we were fortunate to be in the right place at the right time to see it take place!  Turnagain Arm is also noted to have a good population of buluga whales, very special in the whale-world for being white in color, noticeable they say, as you drive along the highway.   We weren't so fortunate to actually see them, but enjoyed knowing they were there....somewhere...

Driving Seward Highway along Turnagain Arm

Postings at rest stops along Turnagain Arm provide schedule of when the bore tide will arrive each day 

Surfers on the bore tide of Turnagain Arm

Beluga whale identification sculptures at rest stop along Turnagain Arm highway

After our time in the interior, and our heads full of fond memories of the coastal mountains and tidal glaciers of Southeast Alaska, we were looking forward to the Kenai peninsula ahead.   We had left the Tongass National Forest behind and as we travelled down the Seward Highway, entered the Chugach National Forest, second to the Tongass in size—read, ENORMOUS—and full of rugged mountains, sea coast, glaciers, and excellent hiking!   A really fun hike we took near Girdwood was on the Winner Creek Trail.   It included a hand-operated tram to carry hikers over a deep gorge with a swiftly flowing river far, far below.   Thanks to clever engineering and “Bernie Power”, we got across and helped other folks do so as well!

Driving through corridors of steep and rugged mountains of the Chugach Range

We encountered hand-operated tram to get hikers over the gorge

Closer...

Coming in for docking

All Bernie-powered!

The gorge below

Along our way through Alaska, we observed the salmon continuing their travels upstream to spawn in quiet creeks, and how the different species dominating the scene changed as the weeks of summer went by.   What a thrill to see the brilliant red sockeyes finally appear on the stage!   All these fish, so much in love!

Pink salmon about to get very "romantic"

Eye-catching red sockeyes couldn't be missed in the rivers and streams

Brilliant red and green color of a male sockeye, just so amazing!

The next major treat of our journey was the Portage Glacier area.   The Portage Glacier was named for the “portaging" (packing) by gold prospectors of their “outfits” (supplies) from an ocean bay at what is now Whittier, Alaska up this glacier to the icefield above, then down to Portage Lake, then on to Portage Creek which leads to Turnagain Arm and thence to the interior in search of unimaginable wealth!   It was, of course, pure hell…but doubtless, a beautiful trek!   We spent a few days in this area and took several wonderful hikes.

Portage Lake

Happy Bernie on the trail to Byron Glacier

The rocky "trail"...

Happy Peggy gets to play with snow...well, ice...in August

Byron Glacier

Bernie high up on the Portage Glacier Trail

Portage Pass, elevation 3500 feet

Portage Glacier seen from the trail with cruise boat in foreground

Cruise boat at terminal end of glacier

A very relaxing place to rest mid-hike on a warm day...

And watch icebergs from Portage Glacier melt away

And then it was time to cross over into the Kenai Peninsula and our first stop, Seward!  This is the birthplace of the Alaskan flag—designed by an elementary school student, and has the honor of having been proclaimed “Mural Capitol of Alaska” by none other than former Alaska governor and vice-presidential candidate, Sara Palin.  Okaaay…

Legend of the Raven mural

Mural of ocean scene
These are just two of many beautiful murals on buildings of Seward

We camped right on Resurrection Bay in Seward and had a gorgeous view of mountains and blue, blue ocean water.   Seward is one of the big fishing destinations of Alaska and it was great fun to watch hundreds of fishing boats, of both commercial and sport-fishing type, parade by at 6:00 a.m and again at 6:00 p.m. en route to and from the sea.  Numerous sea otters swam past our campsite, too, and playful as their river otter brethren back home in Wisconsin, they seemed as curious to see us as we were to see them. 

Lily at camp in Seward, Alaska

Seward Harbor

Sea otters just as we saw them through our binoculars
(I didn't take this particular photo)

The big highlight of our time in Seward, however, was taking a boat trip out to the Kenai Fjords National Park.   This 670,000 acre park is a remnant from the last ice age when ice covered much of North America, the stunning fjords having been carved out of solid bedrock as the ice retreated inland.  This has left an area of over 20 tidewater glaciers and rich, rich marine life owing to the fact that house-sized masses of ice crash into the sea, stirring up plankton which attracts throngs of seabirds and all other manner of living things including humpback whales, orca, sea lions, seals, fish and jellyfish.  We felt privileged to have had perfect weather conditions and be aboard a beautiful boat for a 9 hour journey well out to the Northwestern Glacier.  The captain stopped for us to enjoy sightings of countless marine creatures and up close encounters with the terminal portions of calving glaciers, all the while narrating information about the natural history of the area and its inhabitants.  It was great!

Map of Kenai Fjords seacoast with various tours

The boat that took us out in the fjords

Away we go

We saw scores of humpback whales, alerted to their presence by characteristic blowing of water from their spout, comparable to a skin diver clearing his snorkel.  We were fortunate to see them feeding on great balls of small prey fish which school up underwater and through the middle of which the whales swim rise rapidly to the surface, and strain out the fish through their baleen.   We could watch their heads sticking up above the water and their great throats closing as they did this.   I could not take my eyes off of it to snap a photo...sorry!

Humpback waves good-buy

Heading off to the tidewater glaciers

Northwestern Glacier

What a thrill!

The captain just turned off the engine and we sat in "silence" for 30 minutes, watching ice calf into the sea and listening to the loud cracks, pops and groans of this frozen river advancing to the sea.   

Ice sculpture at the terminus of the glacier

Seals floating on icebergs from the glacier

Beautiful mountains like this rise from the sea...

and provide resting platforms for sea lions...

as well as homes for sea birds such as these common murres which are the closest thing to
penguins in the northern hemisphere

Here's a bunch more of them in a "high rise structure"
(I didn't take this photo)

One of the most interesting things we encountered were "jelly smacks", huge gatherings of jellyfish
we could observe right off the side of the boat!

Another kind of sea habitat...

provides home for nesting puffins.  We saw both horned (like these) and tufted puffins on this trip.
(though I did not take this photo)

Another incredible experience offered by the National Park is access to the Exit Glacier and Harding Icefield.  Of course everyone is aware that as the planet warms, glaciers all over the world are retreating more rapidly than anyone could have predicted.   One of the places one sees and hears stories about this every day is Alaska.   The Exit Glacier, for example, so named because it was found by early explorers to be the easiest “exit” from the enormous Harding Icefield above, is now just 3 miles long.  It had been over 20 miles long, and as one drives the highway and then hikes the trail to the glacier, little signposts identify where the glacier terminus had been in previous years dating all the way back to the 1800s.  It was sobering to see how much retreat had occurred in just the last 5 years—clearly the rate of melt is accelerating! 

Signposts on road and then trail all the way to Exit Glacier told the sad tale of its gradual and accelerating demise

Exit Glacier

To soothe our sad hearts, we also took a (strenuous) hike up to the Harding Icefield itself, which feeds the nearly 40 glaciers of Kenai Fjords National Park.   Here we got to see “white” stretching as far as our eyes could see, broken only by the black “nanataks”,  tippy-tops of the mountain range concealed by the ice, several thousand feet thick.  Oh, nature’s majesty!    There is nothing, nothing, nothing manmade to compare!

View from trail shows braided river runoff below Exit Glacier

We climb higher and higher on Harding Icefields trail

Trail leads to a place well above the Exit Glacier

Looking down now on Exit Glacier from the trail

Nanatuks of the Harding Icefield at the head of the Exit Glacier

High above, all we see now is the white of the Harding Icefield, supplying ice to nearly 40 glaciers in the Kenai Fjords National Park

So, high as two kites after our glacier experiences, we next journeyed from Seward along the Sterling Highway through the interior of the Kenai Peninsula to its west coast, and en route visited the towns of Soldotna, Nininchik, Homer, and Kenai.  The coastal areas here are the traditional homes of Alutiq people about whom we learned in museums.   You may recall from my Sitka blog post that these are the indigenous peoples that the Russians pressed into service to hunt sea otters back in the early 1800s.   They were excellent hunters indeed, owing to their having invented our favorite sea-going vessel—the KAYAK!   There were wonderful exhibits about the Alutiqs in various museums, illustrating their genius at inventing as well, water-proof gut clothing, visors to hide (from prey) and protect their eyes as well as show cultural status, warm homes in a cold land, medicines, and many other things!  We thank them for such a wonderful visit to “their” land! 

Alutiq woman and man in about 1800, beautifully adapted to the harsh environment of the south-central Kenai coast and Kodiak island in which they lived for 8,000 years before "contact" with Russians

We were delighted to be in the homeland of those who invented one of our favorite sports--sea kayaking!
Here Peggy air-paddles through a museum exhibit about the Alutiq and their kayaks.  

Along with the Russian fur trading business came the orthodox church and missionaries to convert the Alutiqs.  The religion has survived in this area to the present day and we were, as in Sitka, charmed by the architecture of these very old historic buildings.   

Orthodox church in Ninilchik, Alaska

Orthodox chapel in Soldotna, Alaska

Orthodox church in Soldotna, Alaska

The city of Homer has quite the fishing reputation and the Homer sand spit is legendary for sport fishing and tourism.   We were aware of that, but not of how beautiful the seacoast surrounding the city was, with glaciers in abundance, nor how fascinating the land formation called the spit is, reaching well out into the sea as it does.   The western coast of the Kenai faces the Aleutian Island chain with numerous volcanos such as the towering Mts. Redoubt and Iliama, both over 10,000 feet, and still steaming.   Unfortunately, our few days in the area were very cloudy and rainy, so we were deprived of a much of a view.   We could contemplate, however, what it must have been like to watch their most recent eruptions in 2009—only six years ago.   We did have the satisfaction, however, of knowing we’d reached the furthest westernmost point on the North American continent to which a person can drive an automobile! 

Beautiful glaciers surround Homer, Alaska.  Note finger of land projecting seaward, the famous Homer Spit

Rather touristy, no, very touristy Homer Spit was interesting to see...briefly

Interesting museum photo shows Homer Spit from the sea.

Several volcanos out there on the Aleutian Islands off the western coast of the Kenai Peninsula.   See them?  No, neither could we on such a cloudy, rainy day as this!

Photo-op at Anchor point, North America's most westerly highway destination

Our last great experience on the Kenai peninsula was a visit to the town of Hope.  It meant retracing some of our route northward along the Seward Highway and then turning off onto the sparsely trafficked Hope Highway back to the shore of Turnagain Arm.   Hope's is another story of gold, and in fact, reaching Hope was the goal of the prospectors who portaged their stuff over the Portage Glacier as described above.   The yellow metal was discovered near here in 1888 and by 1896 there were 3000 people inhabiting the area.  It is almost a ghost town now, with but 135 inhabitants.   But, oh, what a pretty spot and what great hiking and camping we enjoyed here!   Turnagain Arm has a base composed of fine silt, and as the famous tide goes out twice a day, amazing mud “sculptures" are left in its wake.   We enjoyed looking down at nature’s “artwork” as we hiked along the coast to a point at which we could see Mt. McKinley in the distance, believe-it-or-not, and right outside Lily’s window as we camped that night on the shoreline.   

Hope Highway through Cascade Canyon

Beautiful blue Six Mile Creek seen along the way to Hope

Hope, Alaska.  Population 135.

The tide begins to flow out of Turnagain Arm, leaving interesting formations in the mud

Sculptures in the mud of Turnagain arm at low tide

Campsite near Hope on Turnagain Arm.

Mud sculptures just outside Lily's window at evening low tide

Same view, but with tide in, early next morning

We were especially charmed, however, to meet a bonafide gold miner/prospector in Hope!   Bushed and dry after a 12 mile hike, we dropped into the one little bar there for a beer.  We sat down beside a ripe-looking character.  We exchanged names, etc., and I said to him, “So, John, tell me your story”.  And he did!   It was a story of gold fever ongoing for the last 30+ years, prospecting and scratching out a living in the area around Hope.   His current situation is that he holds a commercial gold-mining license and operates a hydraulic suction dredge with which he goes underwater in a drysuit, breathing air which is pumped down to him from a compressor above, and uses the intake hose of his dredge to suck in creek sediment which is then transported up into a sluice box which sorts the gravel to (hopefully) reveal the gold-dust/flakes/nuggets that he is after.  Mid-story, he leaped from his barstool and ran out to his truck to bring back and show us his current stash of gold, held securely in a metal Sucrets box.   He invited us to come up to his place to see his mining operation and pan for gold there, "and I know you’ll find some!”, but it was late and we had a ferry to catch the next day.   What an unforgettable encounter we had with this man!   As I’ve said in this blog before, the history of Alaska, for better or worse, is to a large extent, the history of gold prospecting.   To have met this man and heard his tale was to have put a face and a name, and the breath of a living human spirit into that history for us.   What a treasure!

Seaside tavern in Hope, Alaska

John and his gold