Mahay's Jet Boat ride, Talkeetna, Alaska

When I made a reservation for our big adventure next week, I also looked at several other things to do in Talkeetna during our seven day stay. Friday was bright and sunny, and Saturday promised to be the same.  After so many rainy, overcast days, the blue sky was a beautiful sight.

Saturday morning we took the Devil's Canyon trip in a Mahay's jet boat. Click here to see a commercial YouTube video of our ride.

After only a few minutes on the water, we went around a bend in the river, and got a dramatic, clear view of Mount Foraker, Mount Hunter, and Mount Denali. 

We were told that only 5% of tourists who come here actually get this clear a view. 

From the stories I have heard about the mountain peak just showing of a few minutes at a time, I believe we were very lucky.

  Denali sure is big, given that she is almost 60 miles away.

The jet boat ride was fun. The boat was completely enclosed, but we could open the windows.  When the captain stopped for a picture-op, two front doors were opened and we could use them for a window-free direct shot.

The trip was a 130 mile round trip, and went up into the white water of Devil's Canyon of the Susitna River.

We only went in part way up the canyon because it is too rough to go all the way.

We were told that only two people have made it through in boats. In fact the canyon itself is a demarcation line between dialects of the indigenous people of the area.

We saw a few eagles and this bear along the river banks. He didn't stick around for long, and our pilot said that was good because they do allow hunting from boats along here.

One thing I found interesting was the color change of the waters coming into the river from the sides. The main channel is clouded with glacial silt. The side creeks are fresh and clear. We stopped to see the salmon who were starting to gather at this creek mouth. Only those who were born there will go up to spawn. Each salmon seeks the creek in which it was born.

After a light box lunch, we stopped at a dock and disembarked for a short nature walk.

Perhaps in was just for "show" but our guide carried a shot gun in case of a bear encounter. 















We visited a demonstration Native fish camp and a replica trapper's cabin.

If nothing else, it was a chance to stretch our legs before the last half hour of the boat ride.

Coming back, we once again stopped to get a good view of Denali!

I know this same image is shown above, and is being used as the header as I write this post, 
but when the header is changed it is lost from the blog, and I want to keep it in view.

As nice as that trip was, our day was not yet over

To be continued...

Another week of small adventures in Alaska

It is time for a catch-up post. We have stayed at four different RV parks, each for a few days, and did a few "tourist" things. But we mostly just relaxed and enjoyed our life in the Alfa.

After leaving Cooper's Landing we drove about 50 miles to the Portage Valley RV Park, which is a few miles north of Whittier. While there we drove over to the Visitor Center, which is on the edge of the Portage Glacier Lake. We spoke with one older woman  who remembered the glacier coming all the way to where the shore is now, rather than the lake. 

This zoomed-in image shows the glacier on the far mountainside.

Whittier is now a ferry port and a commercial cargo port. In  gold rush days, prospectors would pack over the glacier and mountain. In 1941 a two-and-a-half mile tunnel was blasted through the mountain for the railroad. This was to provide a main supply route for the WWII war effort.  In 1998, the tracks in the tunnel were converted to accommodate both train and vehicle traffic. It is one lane wide, and trains and vehicles take turns going through in alternating directions. The toll for a car is $13.  

The day we went to Whittier was rainy and overcast. As we drove into town, we couldn't help noticing this depressing building and wondered what it was. 







At the small but interesting Whittier Museum, we learned it was an abandoned military housing building from the Cold War era. 

Speaking of that museum, which was just a few rooms on the lower level of the Whittier Hotel, it taught me a great deal about the Japanese occupation of the Aleutian Islands of Attu and Kiska. Being there, and reading the stories of individual soldiers, was quite thought provoking to say the least. The Japanese did indeed invade America. 

Our next stop, 56 miles north, was back in Anchorage. 

When we were there in June, we missed going to the Alaska Native Heritage Center.

The Center did not disappoint us. We were able to meet members of Alaska's eleven different native cultural groups, and learned about their geographic and language diversity.

Inside the center we watched a demonstration of "Eskimo Games" given by three teenagers. The games are physical challenges that were done by the hunters to stay in shape. Quite different from anything we had seen before.

One of the games is to balance on one hand and kick a ball hung overhead. The winner being the one who could kick the highest ball.

We also listened to a native speaker who gave a presentation about the eleven cultures, and watched a couple of short movies.

Outside there is a lovely pond, and around it there are examples of homes and community buildings from different cultures.

There was a young native person inside each structure who showed us some of the artifacts, described their use and answered any questions we had.

Above is an entry door, and two supporting pillars that were carved with clan symbols. The center one illustrated communication between the eagle clan and the raven clan.

On Tuesday we challenged ourselves with a drive of 38 miles to Wasilla.  Does "Wasilla" sound familiar?  It's the home of Sarah Palin. 

There were two things I wanted to see in Wasilla. The first was the Iditarod Trail Race Headquarters.

Inside the log building they had a nice gift shop, and a "museum" room. We watched a good movie about the sled dogs and the race.

Outside they had puppies.

We were able to pet them. This guy had had so much attention he just fell asleep in this lady's arms. He had an unusual ridge of white hairs on his back. It looked somewhat like a mane or a mohawk haircut.

We also took a short ride in a wheeled cart pulled by a team of eight dogs. As you can see from the pictures above, each dog is different. These are not Siberian Huskies. Alaskan sled dogs are an unrecognized breed that has combined many different breeds. They were all about the same size, with very long legs and a built-in desire to RUN. 

Our second Wasilla excursion was up to the Independence Mine State Historic Park. 

Have I mentioned the beautiful scenery we see everywhere? On this day the clouds were below the mountain tops and above the valley.

When we think of the Gold Rush, we think of panning for gold in rivers and creeks.

Beyond the first strikes in which large nuggets are picked up easily from the gravel, the real riches were to be made in "hard rock" mining, done by mining companies employing hundreds of men.

The Independence was one of these. It opened in 1906 and operated until 1943, when it was shut down as a nonessential business by the War Production Board. It was reopened in 1946,  but closed again in 1951. It was used as a ski resort for a while, and finally was donated to the State Park system.

Some of the buildings have been maintained and partially restored.

Some have not!

Some of the structures are unrecognizable piles of collapsed wood and metal.

The small stream that did much of the mining work is still coming down the same course, ready to do more if the price of gold should rise high enough.

The above image is of piles of 70-year-old burlap, plus an odd assortment of rusted machine parts. I wonder how many more years they will remain recognizable.

A job at the Independence Mine was a good job. The pay was good for the time, and the men were well treated. Good food and good housing conditions resulted in a less than 5% turnover.  Among their luxuries were hot water, indoor plumbing and electricity.

We enjoyed a walking tour given by one of the Park Rangers. We were able to go inside some of the buildings and from her descriptions learned more than we could have on our own.

This was the main room of the manager's home and office. 








The day was not warm, but we still stopped on our way back to Wasilla to take a look at the raging Little Susitna River. Pretty cool!

We are now in Talkeetna, 76 miles further along our route. We plan to be here for a week and have a couple of BIG adventures scheduled! 

Next Wednesday will be the high point of our Alaskan trip, and it won't be in a museum! Check back for the story!

Why we came to Alaska

We came to Alaska for the cooler weather, to see the wildlife and the scenery…

We took our time coming up through British Columbia, because we heard that June was a very wet month in Alaska, and the weather would be better in July and August.

It feels like it rained most of July.

We spent four days at small park called “Scenic View”, high above Cook’s Inlet. We know there is a good view. 

We got a short glimpse of it the day we arrived.

The top of one of the volcanos peaked out above the fog bank over the water for a few hours

This is the cliff at the back edge of Scenic View RV park. There was no beach access from the park, but we could have gone down another way. The curved beach is Clam Gulch. 

On Thursday we continued our journey by driving about 25 miles north to Soldotna. As I checked into the Best Western King Salmon Motel and RV Park, I mentioned how we had spent several days overlooking the Inlet, without seeing it.  The clerk said “Well, you won’t have that problem here.  We don’t have a view.”

Which was true. The RV spots in Soldotna were, like  many Alaskan RV parks, in a large parking lot, with gravel spots and just a bit of grass here and there between the rigs.

But, the sun did finally come out for a few days. We took advantage of the nicer weather by packing some lunch sandwiches and driving out to Captain Cook State Recreation Area,  the northern-most accessible park on the Kenai Peninsula. 

Can you have a Mackerel sky in Salmon country?

I had considered spending a few nights at the Discovery Campground in the Captain Cook SRA, but didn't trust the sunny weather to hold for the rest of the week. So we drove the Jeep up, and  enjoyed the fresh air and sunshine as we picnicked on a bluff overlooking the water that wasn't there. 

It reminded us of our time at the Bay of Fundy last year. The tide was out. Way out! We could not see any open water beyond the mud flats. Across the inlet we could see the snow capped mountain range that we had missed seeing at Scenic View.

While in Soldotna, Craig had time to replace the broken latch on our big bay door.

Days later, as we both looked at this picture, we did not know what Craig was doing. I think he dropped a screw or something in the grass! 

As you can see it is a full pass-through bay, that has doors on either side. Ever since the accident, if we needed something from this side, Craig would have to unpack it and crawl through from the other side. Needless to say, this was no fun. We had ordered a new latch by mail, a few weeks ago, but we waited for the weather to clear before doing the job. 

Our next stop was in Coopers Landing, just 45 miles up the road.
With the nicer weather, we were looking for some outdoor fun.  

The Kenai River rafting trips offered by Alaska Wildland Adventures sounded good. Unfortunately we were not able to get seats on their seven hour River Canyon trip, but were able to get onto the shorter "casual 2-hour Scenic Float".

I wasn't sure what we were getting into when we donned the rain gear they provided.

It did turn out to be a bit of "overkill" for the gentle ride we took down the Kenai River.

Each raft carried twelve passengers and one guide. He controlled the oars and told us about the river and the wildlife in the area.

Rivers and lakes that are fed by melting glaciers have an opaque blue to jade coloring. This is caused by the light refraction on the suspension of fine rock dust in the water. Near the source glacier the water is cloudy.

The river was running quite quickly. Not exactly white water, but a bit bouncy at times. Our sister raft was way ahead of us here.

This rock cliff was colored by patches of orange lichen. It grows where there is a lot of nitrogen. Eagles like to sit on the top of it, and nitrogen from their droppings seeps through the cracks of the rock. 

Speaking of eagles, they, along with a few ducks, were the only wildlife we saw. But we enjoyed every one.

The adult eagle had part of a salmon. The juvenile behind her was also tearing into the red flesh of the fish. The magpie was waiting for leftovers.

Eagles do not get their characteristic white head and white tail until they reach maturity at age four or five. This guy seemed to be working on his grooming. If you look carefully, you can see one of his feathers floating down below him.

And, of course, we saw many of them flying above the river looking for fish.  Based on the number we saw in the trees, they were having a good day of it.

All in all, it was a very pleasant day. I have never rafted before, and maybe next time we will be able to ride some rapids.

We came to Alaska for the cooler weather, to see the wildlife and the scenery…  We are not disappointed.

At Home in Homer

[From Craig] Well, I guess we have come as far west as we can in Alaska,  based on this sign at our current campground:

Most of our fellow campers here are fisher-people, and some just drop in to use the fish-cleaning facilities.  But they have to take their byproducts down to the beach for natural recycling:

We spent most of a week at Kyllonen's RV Park in Anchor Point, about 17 miles north of Homer. I tried to get reservations in Homer at one of the few places that had full hookups, but had no luck. One told me they had a caravan coming in, another was just full, and the last was closed. We could have gotten a dry camp spot, but Craig would rather have hookups.

Kyllonen's is small, and typical of the independent places we have seen in Alaskan Kenai peninsula. Nice owner-operators and good for fishermen. It is after all, all about the fish! 

There is a boat launch at the beach at the end of the road.  

One of the afternoons we were there, we took a short walk on the beach. The tide was out, and the water was quite far away.

Tractors are used to haul the fishing boats to the water. None were being launched when we were there, but there were dozens of empty boat trailers lined up above the high water mark, and tractor prints in the sand.

These tracks were fun to see.

Were they coming or going?

There must be a kelp forest out there somewhere.

The beach is on the eastern side of Cooks Inlet. When it was clear, we could see a mountain range across the water that includes a couple of volcanoes.

Giant Hogweed with Mount Iliamna in the distance

When I took this picture, I hoped to capture both the flowering weed and the volcano. It worked, and I got a bit of the water as well.

We drove down to Homer several times. One of those days the fog was heavy over the water, with the mountains in the distance above.

It was so beautiful.

We did not find Homer interesting nor attractive. We did go out on the "Spit", a small gravely island connected by a causeway to the mainland. It is a major RV parking area. Hundreds of RVs, big and small crowd into the parking lots. Only a small number of the spots have any hook-ups. Most are dry and squashed together. 

There are several clumps of tourist shops, restaurants, and fishing charter offices. We went for a fish dinner on Saturday. I must say the halibut we ate was v ery good, but it was very expensive and the portions were small.

We also went to the Homer Farmer's Market. It featured the usual cast of handicrafts, jams, and flowers, with a few farmers thrown in. Large leafy things were plentiful. The kale, chard, lettuce, and spinach were wonderful. Several kinds of spring onions and garlic were also available. 

We bought some of the largest oyster mushrooms we had ever seen and used them to make one of our favorite dishes, Rigatoni Casanova the next night.   

Something fun happened on the first day we were here. Craig was outside and I was putting things in order in the Alfa, the he called to me "One of your blog followers is out here, come and meet her."

Cynthia of Ease On Down the Road was also at Kyllonen's. We have never met before. She said she has followed my blog for a long time, and recognized the duct taped front end!  We chatted for a while, and now I will be following her down the road as well.

I love it when we meet friends we have never met before! 

We left Kyllonen's on Sunday and went north about 30 miles to Scenic View RV. It is another small, peaceful place. It is not listed in the 2017 Mile Post because there was a change of ownership. I found it in "Alaskan Camping" which I have found to be an excellent resource.

We will be slowly migrating north through the Kenai Peninsula for a while.  Suggestions for things to see and do are welcome!