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Visiting Denali, Day One

We are visiting here for the weekend, which requires a drive about four hours north of Anchorage.

That means that just over … there … somewhere … is Mt. McKinley, the highest point in the country. Jessica drove us to Denali because Adam is on his way to France for work. Some kind of life, no?

The drive was, of course, beautiful. Lots of verdant scenes dotted by small towns and pure-Alaskan wide spots in the road. We saw some wildlife, but not the bigger animals we were seeking:

Also, there are mountains.

I’m taking a lot of pictures of mountains. I’ve noticed. But I’m not the only one:

Today we took a hike alongside the Savage River, which we saw at an elevation of 2,780 feet. Here’s The Yankee:

Perhaps she was taking pictures of a small thing:

Here’s what the hike looked like:

The water, snow melt that was probably 15 minutes old, was perfectly clear.

The rock formations through this little valley are some of the oldest on the continent. The Outer Range of the Alaskan Range are thought to be somewhere between 600 million to more than a billion years old. That little river is believed to be even older than the mountains.

The rocks feature schists, blended ribbons, of quartzite, mica, slate, marble, greenstone and phyllite.

OK, fine, one more mountain shot.

Oh, last thing. We had an Auburn family reunion today. I put the picture on my War Eagle Moments blog. I also met a nice lady from Birmingham as well. She goes to church, she said, with some of my Samford colleagues.

It is a small world, even in big Alaska.

adventures / Alaska / friends / photo / Thursday — Comments Off
29
May 14

People shots – Alaska

We’re getting ready for another big trip tomorrow, so today we ran errands in Anchorage, ate at an incredibly healthy restaurant, wanted more food and doing laundry. Even the laundry in Alaska is an adventure. I suppose it could be, if you were living off the grid or in some place where you have to get water hauled to you — such places exist.

We used a brand new, modern washer and dryer that communicates with the Mars Rover. If you leave your clothes in the dryer for too long it automatically re-starts them, so they don’t get wrinkled. Even the laundry in Alaska is an adventure.

So, instead of scenic shots, today’s pictures will be of people.

Adam, when he isn’t doing his normal 14-hour work day, has been driving us around:

You can see why he’d want to:

The Yankee at Chair 5 Restaurant in Girdwood:

And here she is in Seward:

Right outside our lodge, just outside of Seward:

They’re all checking out this glacier, which is calving right in front of us:

Did you see the video of that I made?

Our wonderful friends and hosts and tour guides — Jessica and Adam:

We’re having breakfast. I should take more shots like this, I think:

The cat. He is heavy, but cuddly:

Tomorrow, we head to Denali.

adventures / Alaska / friends / history / Monday / photo — Comments Off
26
May 14

Glacier Lake Trail in Homer, wildfire in Soldotna

The Homer Spit is a natural gravel and sand feature, constantly changing with the littoral drift from the tides and erosion and earthquakes and winds.

We stayed in a hotel on the very end of that peculiar geographic feature.

One side is relatively stable, but the inlet side is exposed to the Cook Inlet, with the berms having once been much higher. As recently as the 1930s drivers couldn’t see the water. But what destroys also builds. Sandstone bluffs exposed by the harvest of building materials, have eroded and the drift increases the spit’s size. They function like snow fences, creating eddies where migrating material collects and builds. This is actually making the spit longer – the beach berm at the end was five feet wide before the earthquake of 1964. A year later it was 85 feet wide. Waves at high tide once washed the walls of the hotel where we stayed. Now, the locals say, only the biggest surges can get to it.

Eight months after the earthquake the small boat harbor was rebuilt. The nine-acre installation could more 200 boats. It cost $964,000. The gravel they scooped out from the sea was reused as fill for areas damaged in the temblor.

Today we hiked the Glacier Lake Trail, to see the Grewingk Glacier. It was named in 1880 by William H. Dall, a name we’ve heard a lot in this area, for named by the Constantin Grewingk, a German geologist and archeologist, who was a key member of the Estonian archeology, meteorite collections and some early explorations of Alaska, among other things. He wrote about his works on Alaska and the Pacific Northwest for Russia. He also has this nice little glacier.

Seeing it involved an alarm clock, a walk, booking a water taxi and being piloted by Shiloh:

He was an excellent captain. He gave us views like this:

That’s where Shiloh left us.

We had to work our way over the Saddle Trail. The terrain offered spruce and cottonwood trees. It is built up nicely for day hikers.

The views on the way up to the top of the climb are breathtaking:

As you work your way back down the other side the trail leads you into the outwash plain of the Grewingk Glacier and the broad, gravel beach of Glacier Lake.

We didn’t give ourselves enough time here, unfortunately. We should have planned for more. Off to the right there was birdsong. Everything else was perfectly quiet. I walked maybe half of the beach and there was no obvious pollution. Aside from one outbuilding — perhaps an outhouse — there was no obvious sign a human had ever been there. Of course they have, but it was clean.

Also, I found this:

Google tells me there is one Beth Nugget in the United States. Anyone know her?

I have a few other pictures I’ll put up from the of this hike tomorrow. Already this has gotten long and we’re just now getting back on the water on the return trip to Homer:

My new house!

And one more of our new pal Shiloh.

Adam found the Time Bandit, from The Deadliest Catch. We leaned over the rail and discovered that vessel is a lot smaller in person than it appears on television.

I found the Horizon, formerly the U.S. Navy YO-43. You can just see the old name under the paint. I discovered that the Horizon, originally a fuel tanker, was at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

The Horizon’s stern:

We’ve been told the skies haven’t been nearly as clear as they usually are in Alaska. Sometimes you see it in these shots, sometimes you wonder what people are complaining about. Or, if not complaining, they’re just disappointed: the tourists can’t see everything. That’s considerate.

The reason is this fire just outside of Soldotna, about 70 miles north of Homer and 64 miles south of (or 148 meandering miles by road to) Anchorage:

We never saw the actual flames, but this weekend it became a megafire, engulfing more than 100,000 acres. As much to the location as the firefighters, only one structure has been destroyed in the blaze so far. They were evacuating people, though. Five of the eleven signs I saw in Soldotna had a similar message:

That sky isn’t a camera trick, but it is spooky if you’ve never been beside a substantial wildfire before. It is just five miles east of the town of Soldotna, we’re told.

But then, you drive out from under it and get another view like this:

And then you can just pull off on the side of the road and see sites like this on the Kenai River:

How could you ever get bored with that?

And, then, a bit later, another turn in the road and you look to the left over the Turnagain Arm and see those clouds again:

Tomorrow will be an easy day. I’ll just catch up on a few photographs here, just in case you haven’t gotten enough yet.

adventures / Alaska / friends / photo / weekend — Comments Off
25
May 14

From Seward to Homer, Alaska

On our way out of Seward we stopped by the Exit Glacier. This required a walk up a paved path and hiking up a few rocky passages. Black and brown bears are frequently seen in the area, but not by us.

There go Ren, Jessica and Adam now:

One of our views along the way to the glacier:

Our second glacier in two days. Ho-hum.

Did you see that carve out? Ren has a great shot from there that will figure into our Christmas card plans.

The glacier was, get this, cold. I chipped away a few handfuls of clean ice. It tasted like 100,000 year-old water.

Here’s a view from the receding glacier, looking back across the valley. She’s posing:

After the glacier, we backtracked up the peninsula and then turned toward Homer. We stayed on the spit itself, a little strip of land surrounded by water that could be swallowed up by an imaginative breeze. Our rooms are at the very edge of the land, having nicked a part of the town and then driven through this funky little stretch of tourists, hippies and campers. Homer was originally a coal town. Now you can put a tent up on the beach, or stagger around buying local crafts as you wander away from your RV.

We were hungry, and stumbled around looking for food at the wrong time of day in a village where no one wants to make money after 8 p.m. So we had a midday snack of fish and chips. We enjoyed the view, and tried to figure out why this guy carried two pairs of shoes down to the shoreline for no reason.

We were sitting in this little restaurant plotting our next move when we noticed a bald eagle flying by:

And then she came back. And again and again. We realized she was on a hunting pattern, pulling fish from the sea for her eaglets tucked away in a nearby cellphone tower. We stayed and took pictures.

Now, I know a bald eagle personally, but it isn’t every day that I get to see one fly in the wild, so I’m sharing almost every decent shot I have. After another lap or two I resolved to get in the flight path. There is one in here where the eagle is looking right at me.

No doubt she’s thinking “If I were big enough, I’d eat you.”

adventures / Alaska / friends / photo / video / weekend — Comments Off
24
May 14

Seward, Alaska wildlife cruise

Seward is a town of about 3,000 people. It was once a vital shipping town, as the port sent a variety of goods into interior Alaska. A massive earthquake and subsequent fires and a tsunami in 1964 all but wiped the place out. As we were told today, the industry has never completely recovered. Now, alongside fisheries, tourism is one of the big industries. You’re about to see why in the photographs and video below.

We got right up to the seagulls, thousands of whom lived in this one rock protruding from the bay. Later in the season, we learned, bigger waves will come through and clean the rock. This is probably important, but tourists wonder why they’re learning about it.

And now, three shots of harbor seals:

These next six will need no introduction. Our cruise captain says he’s been doing this for 15 years. Even he was oohing and aahing about some of the things we saw today, including two separate pods swimming right to us.

Mountains over the water are also impressive, just so you know:

We saw a glacier.

Up close.

We got right next to it. The cracking ice sounded like a rifle’s report. And, from far away, you could hear the glacier-quake, a rumbling thunder, heavy industry sound.

And the Aialik Glacier is the subject of today’s video. Watch until the end:

You want to see the orcas again? Fine. We went back for another quick visit to watch them eat and play.

Another mountain shot.

Our captain steered us — hey, what’s that?

That is a humpback whale.

I said a humpback whale.

We only got to see him for a few minutes because some people on our cruise had to catch a train. Some people have misplaced priorities. Here are a few more mountain shots as we cruised back into port at Seward:

We got off the boat, looked up into the sky and saw this:

The sun stays up — or, rather, it doesn’t get dark — here until midnight or later this time of year. But at dinnertime, that’s what you see.

We stopped by one of the few promising restaurants we could find in the mid-century, blue collar downtown. I had a pork sandwich at the Seward Brewing Company. Walked away with a recipe, too.

We got back to our lodge and walked across the street to the mountain stream. Jessica, Adam, Lauren and I tossed stones into it for an hour or so. It seemed like it would be twilight for forever.