Valdez

It took us two days to drive the 500 miles from Ninilchik to Valdez.  The first 200 miles to Palmer was backtracking on the same road we took to get to the Kenai because it is the only road.  That is often the case in Alaska.  There are so few roads that on some days the only direction on the GPS was arrive at destination in 250 miles.  Most of the first day the road was fine with only one section of very narrow mountain driving on the Glenn Highway.  On day two there were long stretches of road with frost heaves on both the Glenn and Richardson.  This was the worst road we have encountered since the Alaska Highway in Yukon.  Our plan for our three day stay in Valdez was to take a glacier cruise and I hoped to get one more shot at the salmon.

The highway around Turnagain Arm was very busy. It seemed like every person in Anchorage was going to or coming from the Kenai.  The Alaska Railroad track runs parallel to the highway.

We stayed in the parking lot at the Matanuska Glacier State Recreation Site.  There was a beautiful view of the glacier.  This was the first of many glaciers we would see in the next couple of days. 

There is a great view of the Wrangell St. Elias mountains even though the tall peaks were covered by clouds.

The Worthington Glacier almost comes down to the road..

Bridal Veil Falls in Keystone Canyon.  The canyon was named by Captain William Abercrombie in honor of his home state, Pennsylvania.

Our view from Opus in Valdez.

Within an hour one afternoon a black bear ran across the field and an eagle landed where we could see them from our living room.

We did a tour with Stan Stephens Cruises to the Columbia Glacier.  The Northwestern, from Deadliest Catch, was anchored in the Port Valdez inlet.  It was waiting to off load salmon from the smaller fishing boats so the small boats did not have to return to Valdez.   At this time there was no fishing because fish and game had a temporary moratorium on catching salmon until the numbers increased. 

We saw a lot of wildlife including several bald eagles high in the trees looking for fish.

Check out the orange feet on these pigeon guillemots.  They are birds that dive for fish.

As we turned into Columbia Bay we began to see a lot of icebergs and growlers floating in the water.  Some of them were this beautiful blue.

Because of the way the wind was blowing the water was clear enough of ice that we could get a close look at the glacier.  You could hear the small growlers against the side of the boat.

The glacier is now divided into three different flows where it enters the water.  At that point the water in the bay is 1000 feet deep.  But huge icebergs like this one are too deep to get into Prince William Sound because the depth at the moraine where the glacier ended before starting to recede is only 40 feet.

Another berg from a different part of the glacier.  Before it receded the glacier was ten miles across at the water.  At present the glacier is from 50 to 250 feet high.

The two rocks on each side of the pictures is where the glaciers ended as recently as 2005.  It sure is receding quickly. You can see the three parts of the glacier coming off the mountain.

A bunch of sea otters sunning on a small ice flow.  You don't usually see them out of the water.

These two otters seemed to be checking us out.

There were hundreds of  steller sea lions on Glacier Island.  They are mostly immature males and females.  At high tide there is not enough room for all of them so many were in the water.

This one came right up to the boat and gave us a smile.

We saw many puffins but only got a couple of pictures of these fast moving birds.

The Trans-Alaskan Pipeline ends in Valdez so there are oil tankers coming in and out of the port.  It only takes about 20 hours to fill a tanker.  Since the Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef in 1989, all tankers must be accompanied by two tugs.  The tugs are powerful enough to stop a tanker within its length if it would lose power.  This ship is a medium size tanker.

On the way back to Valdez we spotted a humpback whale.  The captained turned the boat and  extended the tour so we could watch it.  We saw the hump and then the fluke when it came up for air.  Very neat!!!!

Valdez is not just a tourist stop but also a big fishing port.  In addition to the boats in the harbor, many were anchored in the inlet waiting for the word that salmon fishing was allowed.  

Every evening when the salmon are running the many birds, sea lions and bears gather around the hatchery to gorge themselves.  These sea lions looked like rocks in the water when we first walked up.  When they get a fish the gulls moved in for the scraps.  Unfortunately, the evening we went the bear did not show up while we were there.

There were at least 12 eagles that arrived as the tide went out.

This big one came in and picked up a fish right in front of us.  With the sea lions bellowing and the eagles soaring it was like a National Geographic movie even with out the bears.  Don't miss this if you come to Valdez.

I was told that the best time and place to fish was a couple hours before low tide near the hatchery.  So at 9:30 AM Nanc and I headed to Allison Point on the other side of the port.  After watching to see what other fishermen were using I tried my luck.  Here you are allowed to use a treble hook and snag the fish anywhere, not just in the mouth like on the Kenai River.   After a few misses I caught my first salmon (top left).  In no time at all I had it mastered and...........

within an hour I had my limit if six pinks.  There were so many fish I think it would have been impossible to not catch a limit.  Unlike other salmon, if you want to keep pinks for a long time you have to can them.  We don't have a pressure cooker to do that but when I was cleaning the fish Paul, a local who is a professional fish cleaner, told me it was OK to freeze them if you use them within three or four weeks.  So it looks like we will be eating a lot of salmon for the next month.

Homer -- Kenai -- Soldotna

Since we decided to stay at Country Boy RV Park in Ninilchik we did a couple of day trips to nearby Homer, Sodotna and Kenai.   The weather for the most part has been typical of an Alaskan summer, cool, highs in the high 50's low 60's, with clouds, sun and some rain, often all in one day.  Low temps are usually in the low 50's or high 40's so it is very good for sleeping.  We have noticed that it now "almost" gets dark in the middle of the night.  

Mount Augustine Volcano is an island 70 miles form Homer.  It was last active in 2006 with 13 explosions in twenty days.  Even though it is the smallest of the five Cook Inlet volcanoes, at 4,025 feet it is the most likely to cause a tsunami.

Homer is famous for the spit that jets out into Kachemak Bay.  It is a beautiful setting with the Kenai Mountains and glaciers across the bay.  The glaciers flow off the huge of the Harding Icefield, the same one that feeds the glaciers near Seward on the other side of the Kenai Peninsula. 

 Mount Iliamna is the least active of the volcanoes, but has been the site of several small earthquakes.  It is strange living in the shadows of five volcanoes that could erupt or cause an earthquake at any time.

Homer harbor is the home of the Time Bandit from the show Deadliest Catch.  It was out at sea when we were there.

The Salty Dawg Saloon, the famous Homer landmark, is a must do for most visitors.  We stopped in for a drink and found it to be typical of other such places we have visited while on the road. Been there done that.

Since we had planned to spend a few days in Homer we had our mail sent there.  When we decided to stay in Ninilchik we had to drive down to get the mail.  As you can see it was overcast and rainy.  Sure happy we were not dry camping on the spit in this weather.  We did check out the Homer Brewing Company and gave it a thumbs up even though they did not have an IPA. 

Another day we drove to the town of Kenai.  The old Russian Orthodox church, Holy Assumption of the Virgin Mary, has been restored. 

With all the summer sun the flowers in Alaska are unbelievable.  We did another brewery tasting at the Kenai River Brewing Company and were impressed enough that I bought a small growler.  Like the Homer Brewing Company, this one was just a tasting room and served no food.  In Alaska breweries that are not brewpubs are only allowed to serve three beers on site, not a bad idea.  

Chuck told us not to miss this real diamond in the rough near Anchor Point, The Norman Lowell Gallery of Alaska.  We even got to meet the artist.  Norman moved to Alaska 50 years ago and began painting the local scenery.  His gallery has a huge selection of his paintings and other works.  

A few of the neat exhibits of other artists.  I loved the carvings in the antler and horn.  On the right is a clock that is completely constructed of wood, including the chain.

There are several rooms featuring his artwork through the years.  Recently Norman has begun to lose his sight and has to paint on an easel with extra lighting.  He completed many paintings in 2013 that may be his last.

This large (7 x 14 feet) picture of the aurora really captures the winter sky.  If you visit the Kenai Peninsula don't miss seeing this great gallery.  His art really captures the wildness of Alaska.  

One of my goals was to go salmon fishing.  Here are Larry, me, Don and Roger from Country Boy.  Roger has been coming to Alaska for fourteen years and was very helpful in showing us all the technique needed to fish for salmon.  It is like no other fishing I have ever done.  You fish with a bare hook and have to snag the fish because they are only interested in getting up river to spawn and are not eating.  They must be snagged in the month and must be let go if they are hooked anywhere else.

Another day Nanc and I went to an area on the Kenai River in Soldotna where I did not have to stand in the water. Again, no luck. On Wednesday Don, Larry and I got up early and were on the water by 5AM.  They had a couple of illegal snags that they had to return, but I'm still waiting for my first hit.  The number of fish in the river is growing with the daily count increasing from 9,000 to almost 30,000 this week.  They expect it to hit 200,000 next week but we will be gone by then.  I even tried another river, the Kasilof, and had no luck.  I'm sad to report that as we leave the Kenai I did not get a salmon.  Hopefully, I will have better luck in Valdez.  

On Friday we had a going away fish fry at Up Chuck's, the restaurant that is part of the campground, but not open this year.  Everyone contributed some fish and a covered dish and Chuck showed us all how to cook the halibut.  He had a line of workers dipping and breading and someone manning the fryer.  Molly did homemade hush puppies and as you can see it was a wonderful meal.  We had a great time at Country Boy and will plan on returning as long as Chuck is here.  If you are headed this way make sure you stop.  It is a great deal and a great time.

We made a couple of trips to Soldotna, the largest town on the peninsula, to shop and fish.  I needed to buy some fishing equipment including hip waders.  The waders were cheaper here than the same ones I looked at in Las Vegas at Bass Pro, very surprising.  Soldotna has all the big stores so we refilled our larder before leaving.  Other than the Anchorage area, that we will just be passing through, Soldotna is the last place with any big stores until we get to Edmonton, almost 2000 miles away.  We checked out St. Elias Brewing in Soldotna and were happy with the brews and the stone fired pizza.

After three weeks on the Kenai Peninsula we have made reservations for much of the remainder of our stay.  We made campground reservations in Valdez where we have scheduled a glacier cruise.  Then we will drive back through the Yukon and have reservations in Haines where we plan to take a day trip to the Alaska capital in Juneau.  From Haines we will put Opus on the ferry for a one hour trip to Skagway where we have park reservations and have scheduled a trip on the White Pass & Yukon Route railway.  After that we will head back though Yukon and BC and reenter Alaska in Hyder where we hope to get a close up look at the grizzles feeding on the salmon.  This will take until the end of the month and then we plan to sprint over 3,200 miles to WashPA for a couple of months.  Still lots to do as our time winds down in the great state of Alaska.

Ninilchik

We left Seward with the plan to stay on the west side of the Kenai Peninsula to do some exploring and a bit of fishing.  We intended to stay near Ninilchik for a few days then dry camp on the spit in Homer before ending up at a free dry camp spot in Soldotna.  All that changed when we found Country Boy RV Park in Ninilchik.  At $15.00 a night for full hook ups, the park is the best deal in Alaska.  When you add Chuck, the wonderful owner, we decided we would spend all our time here and drive to the other places.  I met several people here who were able to give me all the insider's info I needed to do some fishing.  I went on a halibut fishing charter and also learned how to fish for salmon.

One morning these Sandhill cranes showed up in the park.  You never know where you will find wildlife in Alaska.

They did squawk and fly away as I approached but not without a couple of pictures.

We found this unusual set up on our morning walks near the park.  It is an Alaska fish and game weir where they trap king salmon to milk them for sperm and collect the eggs to be used at the hatchery to get the fish into more streams. 

A few kings that were caught on there way up stream.

Ninilckik is an old Russian town dating back to the 1800's before the US bought the territory.  The old Orthodox church and cemetery overlook Cook Inlet.

At twenty feet the tides here are second only to the Bay of Fundy in height.  In the small Ninilchik harbor the commercial fishing boats are all tied together and most are sitting on the bottom at low tide.

Because of all the fishing Ninilchik attracts a lot of bald eagles.  This old guy had a fish carcass that he was eating while keeping all the gulls away from his supper.

Mount Redoubt, one of five volcanic peaks along the west coast of Cook Inlet.  They are all active with Redoubt last erupting in 2009.  It sent ash plumes from 30,000 to 60,000 feet into the air.

We saw Wanda and Wallace the first day we were in Alaska and crossed paths again.  They have been fishing in the Kenai and are now heading to other areas.  They plan to be at Betty's in the fall so we will see them again.

On the Fourth of July Chuck cooked some barbecue and we had a big pot luck to celebrate the holiday.  Chuck built the park twenty years ago and now has it up for sale.  He has not done any advertising in the last couple of years and his business has been down.  This summer he became a Passport America half price park and the crowds have returned.  If you are looking for a great place with great people at a very reasonable price put Country Boy on your list.  Chuck and his wife Gerry are great hosts. 

Ninilchik is a big charter fishing area.  Since the harbor is only usable during high tide they have a unique way of launching and landing the charter boats.  The boaters pull up and disconnect their trailers, load everyone on board and then the skidder hooks up to the trailer and backs it into the inlet.  When the boats are returning the captain radios ahead and they pick up his trailer and back it into the water for the boat to drive onto.  It is a very different, but effective system. 

Four of us from the park went on a charter with Hog Slayers Guide Service.  Here Larry and Don are getting instructions from deck hand Andy on the finer points of halibut fishing.  It is nothing like I have ever done before, we fished on the bottom in 180 feet of water with three pounds of lead.  The rule this year is that each paying customer must have a fish under 29 inches before they can keep a big one.  We all caught several fish that were to big to be small, just over 29, or to small to be big, in the 30 to 35 inch range.  Captain Joe had those ones thrown back so we would have the chance to hook a BIG one..........

 ......and I want to thank him for that because it gave me a chance to hook this 71 pounder, by far the largest fish I have ever caught.  There is no way I could have landed this guy without the crews help and I thank Joe for holding it up for me for this photo.  I can't even imagine what it would take to try and land a 200 pounder.  

It was a beautiful day on the Cook Inlet and not just for fishing but also for catching:-)

Andy, Larry, Don, me and Joe with our catch.  Everyone got their two fish limit and we had a wonderful time.  I would recommend Hog Slayers.  I have heard that many charters will keep those too small to be big fish and once everyone on board has two their day is done.  Joe made sure we all had a chance at a bigger fish. 

Our share of the catch.  We split the fish equally and we each had nearly 25 pounds of fish that they cleaned and vacuum packed.  I am happy to successfully cross halibut fishing off my bucket list. Now on to the salmon fishing!

Seward - Part II -- Kenai Fjords National Park

It seems that every town in Alaska has a brewing company and we have made it a priority to visit as many as we can.  Seward Brewing has a nice selection of brews and Nanc said the halibut salad was the best she has had in Alaska.  Like everything else in town we could walk to it from the campground. The only time we moved the car during our five day stay was to go to Kenai Fjords National Park. The area around Exit Glacier ten miles out of town is the only place in the 669,983 acre park that is accessible by vehicle.

Exit Glacier, like all the glaciers in the park, flows off the Harding Icefield.  They have signs driving into the park to show where the end of the glacier was over the years.  One sign about a mile from the present end was 1951 when Nanc was a year old.  That really puts global warming on a scale that is easy to understand when you see how far it has retreated in her lifetime.  We hiked about half way up the side of the glacier through the woods.

Nanc is ready with the bear spray after we were warned by hikers coming down that there was a black bear in a meadow near the trail.  I let her go first because she is faster than me.

Sure enough, when we crested the hill we saw him.  This is as close to a bear as we want to be when we are hiking.  While attacks are rare they do happen.  It was neat seeing him in a more natural setting than the ones we see along the road.

Looking down on the glacier and all the way to the Resurrection mountains that we can see out of the window of Opus.  The snow capped peaks are beautiful. 

A group of ice climbers testing their skills on the glacier.  When you visit Seward don't miss Exit Glacier.  Even if you are not a hiker you can get a good look at it with just a short one mile walk from the visitor center. 

Seward is a big halibut fishing area and they were having a tournament while we were there.  We saw a lot of fish, but this one was the biggest.  At 250 pounds it was in second place for the week.  The all time record is almost 500 pounds.

You never know what kind of pets you will see on the road.  This is a pet caribou.  If you have been reading the blog you know what a tame caribou is called.  Guess what you call one on a leash.  Answer at the bottom of the page.

A few of the town's murals that celebrate its history.  The sea, the Iditarod Trail, the Mount Marathon Race, native people's creation story and the great flowers, 

I said in the last post that we tried to hike the race path up Mount Marathon.  This is why we turned around and used the easy trail.  It is more of a climb than a hike.

When we got above the tree line we were rewarded with a great view of Resurrection Bay and Mountains with the fog starting to roll in.

Another neat look at the bay and mountains.  We sure were happy the clouds we had the first couple of days cleared out.

We visited the Alaska Sealife Center for an up close look at some of the animals we have seen at a distance in the wild and some we have never seen.  This puffin posed for several pictures.

A male king eider.  We have never seen one of these beautiful birds in the wild.  He was in courting mode following a female and puffing up his chest and feathers.

Something you will never see in the wild that you may see here, a puffin swimming under water.  They are so fast they leave a trail of bubbles behind.

A king crab, squid and starfish in some of the tank displays.

In addition to its resident harbor seals, the center has a rescue and rehab program to save seals and release them back into the wild.

The ocean tank has a big variety of fish.  They have a nice section on the life cycle of salmon, but my pictures were not very good.  If you want an up close look at local sea life, a visit to the center is a must.

Answer:  A pet caribou on a leash is a rein(ed)deer:-)