Winding Down

Now that we have reached the last week of August, we are starting to feel our Alaskan adventure winding down. We are back in Fairbanks, one of the places where it all started. We were her two months ago, at the beginning of the Summer, and so much has happened since then. We have been to the southern coast, we have seen salmon running and eagles and bears fishing, glaciers calving and whales fluting. We have enjoyed kayaking on Kodiak Island with puffins and fishing for halibut in Cook Inlet. We have been wowed by high mountains and bear cubs.

Things are not completely over yet in Alaska. We will go from Fairbanks to Tok and then take the Top-Of-The-World Highway out of Alaska to Dawson City, Yukon, one of the icon towns of the Gold Rush. Then really begins the long, long drive back through Canada to the lower 48. Our current plan at that point is to visit Ellyn’s siblings and Father on the West Coast, mainly because we may not be out this way for a long time. After two long trips these past two years, we will be restricting our travels mostly to the East Coast for the next year and a half at least. To get to our Winter home in Sarasota, Florida, we will have to drive nearly as far as we have already traveled in our journey since we left Boston in May, about 7,000 miles.

In Fairbanks, we did a few errands, got some supplies, and rested up for the long journey that remains. We got Jordy groomed, picked up some Alaskan beers for our “beer-snob” sons (their term), and replaced our 20 pound propane tank, which Geoff somehow left at our campground in Palmer. Geoff got to see a little auto racing at the “Northern Most Paved Race Track in North America”. Our friends, Ken and Martha returned from their adventure to the Arctic Ocean and we got to share our experience of seeing Mount Denali in all its glory. We drove around to the Creamer’s Field Waterfowl Refuge and saw Canada Geese and Sandhill Cranes gathering for their migration south. We will be joining them.

Chicken and Eagle

On our way out of Alaska, we visited some of the most remote parts you can get to by road…Chicken and Eagle. Chicken is a tiny gold mining town on the Taylor Highway, also known as the “Top of the World” Highway. This route eventually leads to Dawson City, Yukon, and is mostly graveled. Chicken is very small and quaint, consisting mainly of a gas station, a couple of eating establishments, an RV park, and a tourist attraction in the form of a gold dredge. The dredge was hauled here from a more remote area. The town was supposed to be called “Ptarmigan”, named for the small, Alaskan bird, but the residents could not spell it. The café near the dredge has a wonderful bakery, where they make very good pies, cookies, and pastries. We had dinner there our first night and followed it up with pie ala mode. Yum!

The second day in Chicken, we piled into Ken and Martha’s car and drove to Eagle, an even more remote town in Alaska, on the Yukon River, right on the border of Yukon Territory, Canada. Eagle was once a thriving town, key in river traffic from Dawson City along the Yukon River, and an Army Outpost. Now it is struggling. Tourist traffic does not come here much any more because of problems with the road going there not being able to handle heavy tour buses. We took in the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve Visitor’s Center, and a walking tour through the town and the old Army Fort buildings.

The drive in and out was a grueling, 3 hour each way, ordeal. A lot of twists and turns and switch-backs. Although the terrain was interesting and possibly quite photogenic, the combination of poor weather (cloudy and spritzing rain off and on) and the devastation of fire several years ago, made most pictures drab, at best. Just the same, we were taken by the splash of Autumn colors over the hills. The ever-present fireweed, that we had seen in various stages of bloom over the entire state, were devoid of their flowers here, with their leaves turning bright red, and seed pod fuzz starting to show.

Next, we drive the rigs over most of this same terrain and gravel highway, out of Alaska, into Yukon, and on to Dawson City.

Mount Denali Arrives

Call it what you like. The federal government calls it Mount McKinley. Alaskans call it Mount Denali. Either way, it is one big “WOW” moment when you first see it on a clear day. For us, this moment came when we drove to the overlook south of Talkeetna for the third time late Tuesday afternoon. On Tuesday morning we woke up to our first sunshine since Thursday. We could tell that the horizon was not clear, and the mountain is 60 miles away, so it would have to do a lot more clearing for us to see anything.

Just the same, we got in the car and drove out of town south to see if there was any chance of a sighting. We got out to Alaska 3 with no luck, filled the car with gas, started back, and suddenly we spotted the top of it, above the clouds, right in front of us. Whoopie! It was not the view we wanted in the long run but it was a promise. We continued back into Talkeetna and stopped at the overlook near town. Nothing. So we waited. At lunch time we went into town and went to the Susitna River bank at the edge of town. Still too many clouds. We were hoping for clearing, but it had not happened enough yet.

Around 5:00 PM Geoff too Jordy for a walk and thought things were looking better near the horizon, as much of it as he could see. The area around Talkeetna is heavily wooded. So we got into the car again and headed up to the overlook. As we turned the car into the parking area, we got our first look. The WOW Moment!

Check off another bucket list item. Not perfectly clear, but it is definitely out. The rest of the day was pretty much finding places where we could see it, and also waiting for the other mountains around it to come out. The weather forecast called for the weather on Wednesday in Denali National Park to be “sunny”. Not partly anything, but just “sunny”.

At sunset, Geoff went back to the overlook to take sunset pictures, but the light angle was not so good. The sun is setting behind and way off to the side of the mountains to either light them well or to be a backdrop. However, they had cleared very nicely and there was hope of a clear morning with much better lighting. So, Geoff got up at 6:00 AM, with sunrise at 6:24 AM, and headed back up to the overlook. Nice! Even before sunrise. Nice!

After shooting there for a while, and with the sun beginning to hit the summit of the mountain, he moved to the Talkeetna Lodge, which has an even better view of the whole range. This was well worth the time and effort to get up early and come take pictures. The rest of the day would be driving toward Fairbanks, but we would be going past Denali National Park on the way and even be another 25 miles closer to the mountain before the day was over, so there may be more pictures to be taken.

Waiting…

After the Palmer/Wasilla area, we came to Talkeetna, Alaska, a little community on the edge of Denali National Park. Here is a train station for folks from the cruise ships to go from their inland buses to the Alaska Railroad and ride up to the park entrance, where they can board another bus, and be taken around the park. Denali National Park is the location of Mount McKinley (AKA Mount Denali), the tallest mountain in North America. This mountain is a “must see” for anyone who comes to Alaska, but, ironically, is most often shrouded in clouds, due to the weather patterns in this mountain range.

We arrived on Thursday for a scheduled two day stay, but with a weather forecast which did not look all that good for seeing the big mountain, but out traveling companions were interested in taking a flight over the park and hope to at least see something of it. The weather still did not look all that good, but there were peeks of sun coming out, and the flight service said they were able to go high enough to get above the clouds, and even above the summit of the mountain, so you would at least be able to see the part of it which was above the clouds. It still seemed there would be a risk of not being able to see much but they even said if the view was a bust, we could get our money back. Ellyn is a bit of a white-knuckled flier in small planes and it was a bit expensive, but Geoff decided to go as well.

As it turns out, the flight was great, the pictures were terrific, even though we could not see the base of the mountain and many of the other mountains around it were totally buried in the clouds. But the main peak and several of the surrounding peaks were really great to see up close. We had to wear oxygen masks above 13,000 feet and got as high as 21,000 feet before heading back down.

One of the objectives of coming to Alaska and of trying to have as much flexibility as possible so we could get to see Mount McKinley on a clear day. Well, we tried. Ken and Martha had scheduled a flight to the Arctic Ocean from Fairbanks on Tuesday, but the weather forecast made it look like there may be some clearing around Denali on Tuesday. So we decided to split up for a while. Ken and Martha left Talkeetna on schedule on Friday, but we stayed on for four additional days to try for some better weather.

Talkeetna itself is a cute little town. There are many original log cabins in the town and some other old buildings from the era of the gold rush. The campground is on the out-skirts of the town, but still within easy walking distance. There are several good little restaurants, one with Tai food, and a couple of little booths selling food, almost like a County Fair. It is very much a tourist town, with lots of different tour companies. The tour buses come into town to get the train to Denali and people come into town for food and shopping.

So we waited. Saturday, wet. Sunday, wetter. Monday, not looking good. Tuesday…to be continued.

Backtracking

So since Homer, we have been mostly backtracking out of the Kenai Peninsula. We headed back with a stop to have one last view of the volcanic mountains of Iliamna and Redoubt on Cook Inlet, and past our lovely stop in Ninilchik and the Scenic View RV Park, which is now closed. The owners headed down to the lower 48 for the birth of a Grandchild. On the way, we stopped in at Roscoe’s Pizza to have another one of their delicious pies. Next, we returned to Soldotna, where we watched the dip-net fishing. We had hoped to stay in a park on the beach there but the fishing is now over and the park is closed. Last time we stayed in the Fred Meyers parking lot, but opted for a full service RV Park this time.

After one night there, we head back up to the Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet and stayed for one night again at the Williwaw Campground. There we were able to see salmon going up the creek, which they had not started doing when we were there a month before. We also recorded our third, and last, round table RV Navigator podcast with Ken and Martha. We did it outside at their campsite and followed it up with a campfire and smores. Coming out of Williwaw the next day, we saw the beginnings of a real forest fire. We could see flames under the trees, mostly burning just underbrush, which is something the forest service likes to have happen at times. We called it into the local fire department and they checked it out but let it go as part of the natural process.

Next we stopped off in Anchorage at the “Co”s…Costco and Petco, to replenish some supplies. We picked up some yummy Alaskan treats for Jordy and some yummy Alaskan Salmon for us. We did not otherwise stop there but continued on up to Palmer, where we stopped for two nights at a campground closer to Wasilla than the one we had used before. As luck would have it, we had walked into our third free salmon feed of our trip. The campground was supplying the salmon and we just had to bring a side dish. They also had deserts and it was a great time, and some great food. We saved our salmon from Costco for the second night there, and we cooked it up on the grill, with some of Ken and Martha’s halibut from Homer, and had our second evening meal in a row outdoors. We also visited the Iditarod Trail Headquarters, where we took a sled dog ride through the woods and saw some videos about the 2009 Iditarod Race.

From there, we started covering some new ground towards Denali National Park. Talkeetna is our next stop and we are hoping to be able to see the big mountain of Denali, also known as Mount McKinley. More about that in the next post.

Five Days on Water

So while in Homer, which will likely be our last time close to the ocean while in Alaska, we had five consecutive days which involved travel over water. The first two days were actually on one trip; the ferry ride from Kodiak Island back to Homer, which was an overnight trip. The rest of the day back from Kodiak Island was spent recovering. We had to catch up on a mostly sleepless night on the ferry and our traveling companions were recovering from their grueling bear-watching trip. If you would like to see some of their pictures from that close-encounter, you can see them here on Flickr.

On our second day back, we book a boat tour to see some wildlife in Kachemak Bay and then to the town of Seldovia, which can only be reached by boat. We spent about 2 1/2 hours in Seldovia, had lunch, and walked around this very quaint and photogenic community.

The next day, we booked another boat ride across the Kachemak Bay to the Island Peninsula (island during high tide and peninsula during low tide) and the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies. There we took an island hike and studied a lot of the local flora and topology, and got a look into some of the tide pools on the edge of the bay. The hike was a little grueling, as it had some steep up and down hill climbs and many large roots and logs to avoid. Also, the amount of black bear scat, rife with blueberry husks, we had to step over was a problem.

The third day was our fishing adventure. Ellyn said she wanted to try a fishing trip and Homer describes itself as the Halibut Fishing Capital of the World. So we booked a fishing trip out of the Homer Spit. This was not so much a photo trip as the previous two. We had a two hour boat ride out to the mouth of Cook Inlet, where we set anchor and then started fishing. The hardest thing about it was the heavy sinkers they had on the lines. Also, we were in 200 feet of water, so, once you got a bite, there was a lot of line to reel in. We discovered later in the fishing, that you probably did not have to put the line all the way to the bottom, because a lot of the fish were hanging out right near the surface of the water. Between the four of us we came away with 43 pounds of fish meat.

Kodiak Island by Land

So after Ken and Martha headed to the Katmai for their tour, we settled in at the B&B and started doing some touring around the island by car. The weather was not nice to us the first couple of days, as it was cloudy, drizzly, and cool, but we still headed out to see what there was to see. The owner of the B&B had told us about an eagle nest at the fairgrounds nearby, so we stopped by to check it out. The nest is huge and takes up most of the top half of the tree it is in. We could not see any birds in the nest, we quickly noticed the two adults in the top of a tree nearby. Then we spotted two juveniles on some stumps near the ground. They would fly from one stump to another near the ground but never got too high up. The adults kept calling in their direction, perhaps trying to encourage them to get higher off the ground.

We picked Jordy up from the kennel where he was staying while on Kodiak and took him out for a day of touring. We would have liked to do this more, but he was staying with a family and it was hard to get ahold of them sometime, it wasn’t like he was at a business where there would always be someone there for a drop off or pick up, so this one day was it, until we picked him up on the last day before returning to Homer. There were two days at the B&B when we were the only ones staying there, and we probably could have had him there in the evening, but we didn’t think about doing that until it was too late. As it was, he seemed to do fine where he was, and he was very happy to see us when we picked him  up.

On the third day there, we woke up to sunshine, and we knew would not be able to squander it. Now there are only so many roads to drive on on Kodiak Island, and one of them leads to a bay on the northern side of the island called Anton Larsen Bay, where there are a couple of boat ramps. So we headed up that way thinking it would be nice to put the kayaks in. We packed a lunch, and did just that. The water was nice and calm, the sea birds were active on the water, including Puffins, Kittiwakes, Oyster catchers, Pigeon Guillemots and Arctic Terns. We also saw a couple of otters and even jelly fish. It was one of our most unique kayaking trips so far.

The next day the weather was even better, so we headed to the most remote part of the island you can get to by car. Here is Fossil Beach, where you can walk along the cliffs among the tide pools and look for fossils which have dropped out of the sandstone cliffs. Ellyn actually came away with some nice pieces and we saw a lot of life in the tide pools. The only problem was that it was a bit smelly with all of the rotting kelp on the rocks. Afterwards, we got our beach chairs out of the car and ate or packed lunch while we watched some kids skinny-dipping on the surf. Yow! That water could not have been more than 50 degrees. There is also a rocket launch complex out there, where they launch satellites into polar orbit.

There rest of our days on Kodiak were mostly wet, but we still tried to see what we could. We went to the Fisheries Research Center on Near Island and found a wonderful aquarium and touch-tank there. We also went to the Alutiiq Museum, where they have many displays about the Native Americans in Alaska. One of the most interesting things there was their information on petroglyphs found on a remote part of Kodiak Island.

Even when the weather is cloudy and damp, we were struck with how green Kodiak Island is, likely because of all the rainfall they get there each year. Usually, it comes later in the year, and usually the weather is a bit warmer than it was while we were there, but it was still a really nice place to spend some time, and not many people get a chance to spend any time there. Although our traveling companions got to see many Kodiak Bears on their tour of the Katmai Peninsula, we did get to see one bear while on Kodiak. He was in the road on our way to the B&B and we were able to get some quick pictures before he disappeared into the woods.

Kodiak Island Boat Tour

Our first full day on Kodiak Island had us up early (for us, 6:30 is early) and off on an 8:00 AM boat tour to Whale Passage. The weather did not bode well right out of the box, as it was very cloudy, foggy, and rainy as we headed to the boat harbor from our B&B. Most of the stuff we would be looking at would be down near the water, and we brought our rain gear, so it did not matter that much, but we would like to have some sun shine to help us get great pictures. Well, at least the water was not too rough, as we would be going mostly through sheltered areas, and the rain let up shortly after we got out onto the Gulf of Alaska.

Soon we were seeing sea birds, kittiwakes, puffins, and pigeon guillemots and were snapping up a storm. I thought that Ken, one of our traveling companions, had super photographic equipment, but two of the guys who came with us on the boat had Nikon D3s and two huge 200-400mm zoom lenses. They spent most of the trip sitting on the bow of the boat and, from the sounds of the shutters, probably took more than 2000 photos each. I thought I came back with a lot at 640. The boat’s captain was pretty good at being able to stealth up on the sea birds, so we were able to get closer than we had on other sight seeing trips. Also, this trip was just for this purpose, where as the others we had taken were mostly to see glaciers, so ocean life photos were just lucky.

As we got out into Whale Passage, the sky actually started to lighten up and we even got to see some blue sky off in the distance and the sun peeked through at us briefly. Strangely enough, although we were in Whale Passage, there were no whales sighted until we started out. Then we did spot one Humpback making its way slowly along the mouth of the passage and feeding lazily. It would float on the surface for a bit and then flute gently for a deeper dive. It did make some rolling motions later on and show its pectoral fins and slap its tail once.

We also saw some Dall’s Porpoises. We had seen them briefly on other tours but this group followed the boat longer than any of the other times. They are very difficult to catch on films as much more than a brief flash of black and white and a splash. Geoff took some video of them and then just pointed the camera over the side and took dozens of pictures as fast as the camera would take them. These are the best.

The stars of the show were the Sea Otters. We caught up with a large raft of them around a small rock island in the middle of Whale Passage and stayed with them for some time. They mostly seemed to be just relaxing and floating. We did not see much eating going on and we did not see any pups.

Finally, when we got back to the harbor, we visited with the Sea Lions who have taken over one of the docks there. They were a little vocal as we cruised around the dock but for the most part, they did not mind our passage. As we exited the boat and walked down the dock, the rain started coming down again. We went to dinner with Ken and Martha and then bid them a fun journey on their next adventure. They are off to the Katmai Peninsula for an expensive tour to see the Kodiak Bears feeding on salmon. We are staying in our B&B, relaxing, and we will go around the island to see whatever there is to see. If anything exciting happens, you will be able to read it here in a later post.