MH Alaska 2008: June 2008

Cooper Landing

Thursday morning found us heading east to Cooper Landing and a little combat fishing for Red Salmon. We got the Winnebago settled in at the Kenai Princess RV Park, donned our fishing togs and headed for the Russian River Ferry. This ferry charges $9.00 per person ($4.50 for us Golden Age Passport holders) plus a parking fee of $10.25 for the privilege of riding the ferry which is powered by the current of the Kenai River.

Russian River Ferry

Once across the river it was necessary to find a slot among the fisherman lining the bank and start hurling your lure into the river.

Combat Fishing

The hours of effort are worth the minutes of excitement when you hook a fish and definitely worth it when you taste the delicious barbecued fillets. We have more than enough fish to sustain us for the rest of our adventure.

Don with our Dinner Salmon

Brother Don with a Limit of Salmon

The signs all around the area don't let you forget that you are in Grizzly Bear country. They have very strict rules about where you leave your stuff and where you clean your salmon. In fact they have a number of cleaning stations sitting right in the river and the salmon remains are thrown into the river to keep them away from the bear.

Don at Fish Cleaning Station

We hit a speed bump on our adventure highway Friday evening when I begin feeling faint before dinner. I decided to lay down for a bit and when I got up I only made it a few steps before fainting. This qualified me for an interesting ride in the Landing Volunteer Ambulance to the Central Peninsula Hospital in Soldotna. After a series of tests it was determined that I had a bleeding peptic ulcer. This qualified me to spend two nights in the hospital. I wanted to experience Alaska to the fullest but his was a bit too much.

I was dismissed from the hospital at 10:30 Sunday morning, with some meds a few prescriptions, and we went back to Cooper Landing, packed up the motorhome and headed for Anchorage.

My Digs at the Hospital

The beauty of the scenery on the drive to Anchorage made us forget all about the "speed bump" and we just enjoyed it.

View Over Kenai Lake

Tern Lake

Tomorrow morning we will take care of some chores here in Anchorage and then head for Denali.

Homer to Kenai

Homer bills itself as a "Quaint Little Drinking Town with a Fishing Problem." The description is pretty appropriate. There is a protected harbor and a lot of opportunities to spend your money on souvenirs.

Homer Harbor

Waterfront Shops

Salty Dawg Saloon

We bid farewell to Homer on Wednesday morning and drove to Kenai where we spent another night at a campsite overlooking the ocean. Not much to see here so we paid a visit to the Fred Meyers Store in Soldotna. There is a fair Russian presence here and we did visit the Russian Orthodox Church in Kenai. Some of the villages in the area still maintain a Russian Orthodox life style.

Russian Orthodox Church

We had a dinner of fresh halibut on our last night in Homer and enjoyed halibut as a first course in Kenai. How can you beat fresh halibut.

Guess what? Today was Halibut fishing day. We departed from Homer Harbor at 6:30 AM for a day on the water. We sailed about 2 hours from Homer before putting our hooks in the water but when we did the action started immediately. Mary and Bobbi both enjoyed battling the 20 pound Halibut and we all filled our limits.

Sean (Boat Captain) and Mary

Bobbi hooked a big one but it broke the leader before we could get it into the boat. She insists that it must have been the 400 pound one she was hoping to catch. Ya sure!

Our Catch (the whole boat)

After returning to Homer and taking care of our catch (arranging for shipment home after the guys filleted them) we headed for the Salty Dog Saloon for a celebratory ale.

Mary, Jack and Bobbi at the Salty Dog

The weather was great (no rain, no wind), the fishing was great, another great day in Alaska.

Kenai Fjords

Our Kenai Fjords cruise was on the Aialik Voyager a beautiful one year old twin hulled boat that road smoothly through the waves.

Aialik Voyager

On the way out of the harbor we got a good look at the town of Seward with the mountains in the background and all the RVs parked on the waterfront.

Seward

On the way to the glaciers we viewed the wildlife of the area. Specifically, birds and more birds. The most interesting to me were the Puffins. They are cliff dwelling birds with little wings which they use to propel themselves under water. They also have some difficulty taking flight after a good meal.

Tufted Puffin

Tufted Puffin Close Up

The other scenery along the way was also very interesting especially features such as Window Rock.

Window Rock

On our way to the Aialik Glacier we passed Pederson Glacier which along with the Aialik Glacer is part of the Harding Ice Field.

Pederson Glacier

We finished our Salmon dinner whilst watching Aialik Glacier calve and a Orca Whale searching for his/her supper. I got a shot of the glacier calving but missed getting a good shot of the Orca.

Aialik Glacier

Glacier Calving

We also saw a number of Bald Eagles who are quite common in the area.

Bald Eagle

We were back in Seward shortly after nine PM and after a dessert ice cream cone we headed back to the Winnebago eager to hit the sack after another great Alaska day.

Seward

Friday in Anchorage was dedicated to housekeeping and provisioning chores. We did manage a dinner at the Glacier Brew House to celebrate my birthday.

On Saturday morning we packed up and headed for the cell phone lot at the Anchorage airport to wait for my Brother Don and his wife Bobbi to arrive. They got in on time and after a lunch we pointed the Winnebago south towards Seward.

Don & Bobbi

The views along the Turnagain Arm were beautiful and we found ourselves stopping frequently to take photos.

Turnagain Arm

At the bottom of the arm we we began to see closer views of the Chugach Mountains. The roadsides were lined with a profusion of Lupins and other wild flowers.

Chugach Mountains

We arrived in Seward about 4:00 PM and got settled in to our sea front spot at Millers Landing south of town. We decided to take advantage of the free, if you bring a dish to share, halibut dinner offered by the campground. Mary's lentil soup was a big hit.

View from Millers Landing

On Sunday morning we visited the Sealife Center in Seward and learned a lot about the sea life in the area. Then we made our way to view Exit Glacier about 10 miles out of town. I visited this glacier almost 20 years ago and was surprised to see how much it had receded.

Exit Glacier

We just had time for a quick lunch before heading back into town to start our dinner cruise of the Kenai Fjords. After resolving some confusion about our tickets we explored the Seward Harbor.

Seward Harbor

On to Anchorage

On Thursday morning we said goodbye to our beautiful campsite on the Tolsona River and pointed the Winnebago toward Anchorage. The Glenn highway offers some great views of the Chugach Mountains and its glaciers. The Talzina glacier is first but difficult to photograph as there were no pull offs that offered good views of the glacier. The Nelchina Glacier is another story as there were several good photo opportunities.

Nelchina Glacier

Chugach Mountains

Lunch time found us at the Matanuska Glacier. It has receded quite a bit since I was here in 1989 but still amazing.

Matanuska Glacier

Anchorage came into view at 3:00 PM and we were settled in to our campsite at the Ships Creek Landing a metropolitan RV park, which means that it is crowded and a bit noisy. Both Mary and I suffered from big city (Anchorage has a population of 278,000) anxiety after so much time in the country.

Tolsona Wilderness Campground

On the morning of my birthday, June 18th, we left Tonsina River Lodge and headed back to Glennellen with great views of the Wrangell Mountains to the east. We saw our sixth bear this morning, a young black bear that crossed the road in front of us. We stopped in Glennellen and filled to fill our tank and buy a one day fishing license then headed for the Tolsona Wilderness Campground for a day of relaxing.

Wrangell Mountains

Our campsite at Tolsona Wilderness Campground was right on the river (as were all of the campsites at this RV park).

Our Water Front Campsite

After lunch I broke out my new fly rod and did a little fishing for the Grayling that inhabit the creek. I didn't have much luck in the afternoon but caught a nice Grayling early the next morning.

Jack Fishing for Grayling

All in all it was a great way to spend my birthday.

McCarthy

Our adventure today took us 90 miles east into the heart of the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. The first 30 miles is good paved road and the last 60 miles is gravel that was in pretty good condition when we drove it. The views are magnificent with the Wrangell Mountains to the north and east and the Chugach Mountains to the south. Then right in the middle of that God plunked the Copper River for us to enjoy.

Copper River

McCarthy Road

The McCarthy road follows the bed of an old railroad and used to offer up railroad spikes from time to time to destroy the tires of vehicles passing by. Two years ago they hauled in $2 million of gravel and today the road is very passable. They do still utilize one of the railroad trestles as a one lane road bridge.

Trestle Bridge

At the end of the road we parked the Jeep ($5.00 for the day), walked across the foot bridge (only locals get to drive in) and caught the shuttle bus to McCarthy and then to Kennecott (4.5 miles further up the road. McCarthy is still pretty much the way it was in the early 1900s with a bent toward capturing the interest and money of the tourists. They have an interesting little museum with displays of live in the days when copper mining was king.

Ma Johnson's Hotel in McCarthy

The place of real interest is Kennecott which was a major copper mine from 1910 to 1938. Most of the existing buildings have been purchased by the National Park Service and are being restored. The company name and town is spelled Kennecott yet the river and glacier are named Kennicott. Apparently they spelled the name wrong on the first order of business cards and stationary and decided to leave it that way rather than reorder everything. This was a major copper mining operation with the concentrated copper shipped by rail to Cordova and then by boat to Tacoma, Washington for smelting.

Copper Concentrating Plant

Of as much interest to me where the Kennicott and Root glaciers which used to come together at Kennecott. I walked the two miles to the base of Root glacier but the walk to Kennicott glacier is much farther today. The views of the glacier and the surrounding mountains are stunning.

Root Glacier

Root Glacier Close Up

Our return trip presented us with excellent views of the Chugach Mountains to the south. Again we were hoping to see some wildlife on the journey and ended up seeing a plethora of Snowshoe ares and one black bear.

Chugach Mountains

We stopped at the Copper River on our way back to observe the process used by locals to catch the delicious Copper River Salmon. They either use a dip net or use a fish wheel. With the fish wheel, once set up, the fisherman just sits back and watches the wheel scoop salmon from the river and deposit them in a mesh container. This is subsistence fishing, relaxing but not too sporting.

Copper River Salmon Fishermen

Fish Wheel

We arrived back at the Winnebago at 6:30 PM, unloaded our gear and headed to the Mangy Moose Saloon to enjoy a cold beer and Taco Night. We dined and visited with Betty and Roy Ruff from American Falls, Idaho. Coincidentally Roy was celebrating his 69th birthday on the 17th and I am celebrating mine today the 18th. Happy Birthday to us! We ended the evening with a slice of delicious chocolate pie in their motorhome.

Another great day!

Stop & Smell the Roses

Today we made a whopping 79 miles from Valdez to the Tonsina River Lodge where we decided to stop and smell the roses - well the flowers at least. Our plan is to relax here tonight and then drive the Edgerton Highway to McCarthy tomorrow.

So today's blog is about the flowers we are smelling.