Visiting Sheep Mountain

Sheep Mountain - contains minerals that sheep enjoy

      After enjoying our time at Hatcher Pass Road area we resupplied in Palmer and headed east on the Glenn Hwy. It was our 41st wedding anniversary and we found a nice quiet campground to enjoy the night at. 

Our quiet campsite that we spent our 41st Wedding Anniversary at

     I had made reservations to camp at Sheep Mountain Lodge further east in the Matanuska Valley for the next night. They have a small restaurant at the lodge that we enjoyed a nice meal at to celebrate our 41st. The lodge had beautiful scenery all around it, as well as several hiking trails adjacent to them. The place had just been sold to a new family. The previous family had been involved in racing in the Iditarod sled dog race to Nome. While enjoying our anniversary meal we met another couple who had flown over to Anchorage from Bethel (where they live) to drive out to stay at the lodge a couple of days to celebrate their anniversary too. It was fun to learn about life in the Bethel area which is accessible only by plane or boat for the most part. (maybe snow-machines in the winter) 

While hiking the trails we noted that there were an abundance of wild blueberries.

                           

This 13 year old former sled dog had been in 5 or 6 Iditarods...she was blind in missing an ear

A few of the cabins behind our campsites

Joyce enjoying one of the trails

Enjoying Hatcher Pass Road

Enjoying the Fireweed along the Gold Mint trail

     We enjoyed our trip across Hatcher Pass the first time we did it that we decided we would do it again from the opposite direction. We also wanted to spend a couple of nights camping out there. We enjoyed beautiful weather along with outstanding scenery. We found a nice stealth campsite next to a pretty stream just west of the final climb up to Hatchers Pass.

Pretty stream next to our stealth campsite

Our campsite 

     The next day we drove over the pass and set up at a campsite at Gold Mint SRA. There were scenic mountain views all around us.

We decided to pack a lunch and head out on the Gold Mint trail for a hike. The hike turned out to be very beautiful. We passed a nice beaver pond and the Fireweed was everywhere. We ended up hiking around 8 miles round trip on one of the most beautiful trails we hiked in Alaska.

Gold Mint Trail

Looking back at where we started hiking the Gold Mint Trail

      The next morning we drove back up the pass to visit the Independence Mine. It was open this time and we were able to tour inside some of the buildings. After this we went across the road and did some hiking for a couple of hours. We truly enjoyed our revisit of Hatcher Pass Road.

South Rolly Lake SRA

Pretty Flowers Bird Creek SRA

Campsite @ Bird Creek SRA

     We camped along the Turnagain Arm at Bird Creek SRA after we finished the Upper Winner Creek trail hike. It is nicely located along the Seward Hwy. They had a nice trail along the Turnagain Arm that we walked that evening. The next day we drove thru Anchorage, stopping to resupply, and headed to the Nancy Lakes area west of Wasilla. We camped there 2 or 3 nights and actually experienced an earthquake while eating supper in our camper one night. The truck shook violently for 5 to 10 seconds...amazing.

We hiked a 7 mile RT trail to another nearby lake. We saw a moose off the side of the trail on our way to the lake. We were amazed at no mosquitos bothering us even though the last mile or so was through low wetland type forest. 

South Rolly Lake with storms moving in

 Mr Loon

The lake we hiked to

Hiking Byron Glacier, Girdwood, Upper Winner Creek Gorge

Byron Glacier

     The next morning we headed back to Portage Lake and hiked the Byron Glacier trail which was a nice 4 mile RT trail to an area below the glacier. It was beautiful all around and we nearly had the trail to ourselves until we started back out.

                                  

     We the drove back out to the Seward Hwy. heading north to Girdwood. The Aleaska Ski Resort has a tram that will take you to the top of the ski mountain to enjoy the views. When we arrived we saw the upper half of the mountain was fogged in and decided not to waste the money on the tram. We decided to drive out of town to the Crow Creek Mine. 

Some pretty flowers near the ski resort...notice the fog above

View of the ski lodge with pretty mountain behind it

     We got up to the mine and after looking things over decided it was a tourist trap and chose to skip it. A mile or so down the road was a parking lot for hiking trail into the National Forest that involved a taking a hand operated tram across Upper Winner Creek.

It was a beautiful hike, around 6 or 7 miles round trip, that included a hand tram ride of 80 to 100' across a gorge. It was a popular trail and everyone helped each other with the tram. When we got to the main overlook of the narrow gorge area we met a man who works for Delta Airlines on the ground in Phoenix. He gets to transfer to Anchorage for a couple months during the busy summer season.

His wife flew up to enjoy a few days sightseeing with him.

All in all a very worthwhile hike.

 Everyone helps out with the tram

 Upper Winner Creek Gorge

Whittier Area

 Portage Lake with glacier in background

    We headed to the Whittier road after rafting and found a nice NF campground to stay at right below a glacier. The weather was quite cloudy and threatened rain so our views were limited. With the rain we decided to drive down the road to Portage Lake, just a couple of miles away, to check it out. There was a really nice visitor center/museum right on the lake to tour. It was well worth our time. They even had a nice movie to see for free if you had your senior pass for national parks. After that we decided to drive thru the tunnel to Whittier just to say we did. It is a long tunnel that is one way at a time every half hour I think unless a train is using it. You straddle the train tracks as you spen

d around 8 minutes driving thru. Whittier is a town with a nice port that was developed by the military shortly after WWII due to wanting a military port there during the cold war. Now that the military is gone some cruise ships drop passengers off at the end of their cruise and bus them to Anchorage to fly home. There also some day tours and fishing trips by local boat captains available. 

The tunnel entry from Whittier...single file

 Read this sign that describes the building in the following 2 pics.

This building looks like something you'd see in some of the old Soviet block countries...very dreary looking in such a scenic place

     After we drove around a bit we stopped at a place to buy ice cream treats and the power to the whole town went down. It took an hour plus before we were able to go back thru the tunnel again.

Raft Trip on the Kenai!

      We decided to take a raft trip up the Kenai. The weather was near perfect for our 2 hour relaxing trip down the Kenai. Our river guide did a wonderful job steering us down the river. We saw many fishermen along the way that were catching salmon. 

 Our guide getting the raft ready for us

 We saw dozens of fisherman as we went along

 Before we knew it the trip was over...time well spent

We stopped here for a picnic lunch after our raft trip

      We headed to the Portage Lake area on the Whittier road. I will cover this area next entry.

We Head Back to the West Side of the Kenai

Sunseting across Cook's Inlet near Mt. Redoubt

     After we finished hiking the trail to the Ice Fields we drove north aways and found a nice campsite in a National forest cg. The next day we took the Sterling road across to Soldotna and resupplied at Fred Myers store. We then drove south to Ninilchik View Campground a little over a half an hour north of Homer. It is a small campground with a nice bluff view overlooking Cook Inlet. 

Mount Redoubt is an active volcano and you can see steam plumes rising from the mountain

View of Kachemack Bay on the road that goes east of Homer on the crest of  the mountains

      The next morning we drove on down to Homer. We wanted to drive the east road out of Homer. It runs along the top of the mountain range where the Kilcher family homestead is located. (Alaska the Last Frontier show on Discovery channel) We drove out 20 miles or so on a newly blacktopped road. There area was actually quite populated with many nice newer homes. The weather was becoming rainy so we headed back north. We found a nice campsite up about 36 miles north of Kenai at Captain Cook SRA. We ended up spending 3 nights there and enjoyed some nice hikes on the beach. It offered nice views across Cook Inlet. We were surprised by number of off oil platforms we could see out in the inlet.

 Exploring the beach\

Fishermen setting their nets

One of many oil platforms in Cook Inlet

White capped mountains in Lake Clark NP that is across the inlet 

Saw this moose on our way back to Kenai