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

Hike up to the Harding Ice Fields

     We wanted to hike up to the Harding Ice Fields. It is a 4.3 mile trail that climbs to over 3500'. It is mostly flat for the first mile before you start climbing. Our friend Toni had told us this trail was a must do with unsurpassed beauty. So Monday morning we got up early and were on the trail shortly after daybreak. The sign at the beginning of the trail said to expect it to take a minimum of 6 to 8 hours to hike it round trip. We had another beautiful sunny day to enjoy some of the most outstanding scenery God ever created. We saw a lot of wildlife on our hike this day: Marmots, Dahl sheep, Mountain Goats, Brown bear, Black bear, etc.

 Joyce looking over the side of Exit Glacier

 Lupines with the ice fields in the background

We saw this mom and kid Mountain Goat above us

At about 3 1/2 miles the trail started to go through snow fields

You can see where we are headed towards the saddle at the left

Emergency shed

     After hiking off and on thru the snow fields we came to an emergency shed. A man standing on the porch asked if we had seen the Grizzly bear near the trail. He said it must have just crossed right behind us. We remembered stopping at a ravine and thought we had heard a grunt but looking around never saw anything. We looked back and down the trail and saw the bear he was talking about. Upon our return trip we saw his tracks in the snow right near the ravine that we had heard the grunt noise. Pretty cool!

Looking back from the Emergency shed to see the Brown bear...man he could move fast.

 A family of Dahl sheep below us

Joyce enjoying the views of the ice fields

Rewarding views all around us

 Black bear near the trail

     After reaching the end of the trail we enjoyed the views and ate our lunch that we packed. After and hour or so started back down. The trip down went well until the last 2 miles when my knee started to hurt. I think the long day and steep declines had caused the pain. After we leveled out the pain decreased a great deal. We had been gone about 8 and half hours when we returned to the parking lot. It was a beautiful hike that we would love to do again someday.

Back to Seward Again

Exit Glacier

      We drove on down the Seward Hwy until we came to the road that lead to Exit Glacier, which is about 3 miles out of Seward. It was a pleasant sunny day and we decided to take a hike on the Resurrection River Trail. We enjoyed a hike along the river for 2 or 3 miles before turning back. We decided to stay overnight in a pull-off along the entrance road next to the roaring river.

Resurrection Trail

Exit Glacier in the background viewed from the trail

     We got up in the morning and headed to Seward. Again it was a nice sunny day. We found a campsite at one of the city campgrounds. We went to church at the United Methodist Church in town. It was a nice service and we had an amazing view of the bay out the windows on our side. After service we went back to camp for lunch and sat out in our lawn chairs enjoying the beauty that surrounded us. One of our neighbors next to us had flown in to San Francisco from New Zealand. They bought an older motor home and drove it to Alaska for the summer. 

Mount Marathon - each summer they have a race to the top and back which is about 3000', I think the record time is a bit less than 42 minutes 

 

Downtown Seward

View from our campsite

Resurrection Bay

     The next morning we planned to head out to Exit Glacier early and hike the trail up to the Harding Ice Field.

Anchorage to Hope

      We left Denali and headed to Anchorage. It was a good chance to resupply at Fred Myers and to get the oil changed in the truck. We then went to the Alaska Aviation Heritage Museum over on Lake Hood. Lake Hood is the home to Alaska's largest seaplane base. They are busy enough to require air traffic control service. The museum was nicely done and I enjoyed my time there.

 I liked the name on the tail of this plane "Skeeter Air"

     We headed south out of Anchorage on the Seward Hwy. Along the way we saw a nice bull moose. We found a nice campsite on a lake. We decided to drive over to the town of Hope, which is on the opposite side of the Turnagin Arm. Not much town but it had a rustic quaintness to it. There was a nice campground just beyond the town. We had hoped to come back and stay there but never made it. It was a nice drive though with good views of the Arm at times.

A nice view across the Arm at low tide

Backpacking in Denali NP

     Sunday, July 12th, we drove to Denali NP to take our backcountry orientation from rangers at the BAC center. We spent an hour or so watching a movie and listening to a ranger discuss backcountry safety and rules for Denali NP. This is required for anyone who is planning to go backpacking overnight in the park. Afterwards we drove to Savage River, about 15 miles into the park, which is as far as you can drive into the park without a special permit. The parking around the Savage River trail was overflowing so we went back to a picnic area and did a little day hike there. 
     That night we went back to the Denali Hwy and stealth camped along the road about 4 miles in. We got up the next morning to a nice sunny day and were scheduled to meet our friend Toni (Pigeon from the AT) in Denali for a backpacking trip on her days off. As I stepped out of the camper I was amazed to see "The Mountain" showing off for us.

View of Denali from our stealth campsite

     We met Toni at the BAC (backcountry access center) around 9 am and signed up to hike in section 3. (each section is limited to only a few overnight hikers per day)

We took the bus out to our spot and got off. There are not trails in Denali NP so you have to bushwhack across the tundra, willows, beaver ponds, mountains, etc. We did all of the above. This was by far the most difficult hiking I have ever done. The tundra, which covers most of the area we hiked, is like walking on a 6" mattress. In addition there are areas of willows that are so thick you can barely make headway that you need to go thru. It seemed to take 3 times as long to go somewhere as it would on a normal hike on the AT. The views were beautiful and the weather on the first day was near perfect. We saw a bull moose in the distance that had the largest rack we had ever seen. When he had his head down it looked like it appeared there were calfs on each side of him. We were viewing him with our binoculars. He disappeared into the willows before we got up to where he was an hour or more later. Around 5:30 or so we set up our tents and had supper. We then just relaxed and enjoyed to magnificent view around us before heading to bed.

Joyce and Toni getting ready to head into the willows

A nice view to enjoy while taking a break

Watching moose in the distance

Our campsite in Denali

     

     Overnight it stayed fairly warm and the winds really picked up. In the morning after breakfast the weather looked like rain. Joyce and Toni wanted to take a hike further up the mountain so they headed out in spite of the misty skies. I was still exhausted so I stayed behind and rested. I had hoped to climb on up the mountain to take some pictures but the rain started falling and got harder as the time went on. The visibility became worse as the morning went along. Around 11:30 or so I could see Joyce and Toni coming down the mountain about a half mile away. We had a few quick bites of food, broke camp and decided to head on back down to the road to catch a ride back to our cars. We kept trying to find the shortest route and made pretty good time going downhill until we came to a beaver flooding area less than a mile from the road. Toni did a good job of navigating and lead us around and thru. We never had to swim, even though at times looked like it might be our only choice. We waited at the road, in the steady rain, for around an hour and 20 minutes for a bus to pick us up. We were wet and cold for sure. We took hot showers as soon as we got back and headed out to have pizza. Thanks for the great hike TonI!

 Views that Joyce and Toni saw while on their morning hike in the rain

Talkeetna - Finally we see the Big Mountain!!

The Denali glacier landing on my flight

Denali almost shows itself from an overlook just outside Talkeetna

      Friday morning we decided to drive to Talkeetna because the weather looked to be pretty nice. I was scheduled to take a flight seeing tour of Denali on Saturday but with the good weather I thought I'd stop by Talkeetna Air Taxi to see if they had any openings for this day instead. Sure enough they said to come back around 3:30 that afternoon and I could go. On the way back later on we saw Denali partly open from an overlook just outside of town. We got back to the airport and watched planes come and go for awhile before checking in again. TAT offered to let me go on a flight that was about 30 minutes longer than I had paid for plus this one would to my surprise include a glacier landing. (an $85 extra at no charge to me) Wow what a great company. I highly recommend them to anyone wanting to fly around Denali.

     As it turns out I was allowed to fly up front with the pilot in our Turbine Otter. The weather was nice and the views of the mountain were great. Landing on the glacier was a real nice bonus too. Our pilot got us in close to the mountain...so close I never used the telephoto lens with the camera just the wide angle. Joyce ran into our friend Toni at the airport just as I was about to leave and they ended up hiking around a lake near Talkeetna while I flew. Thanks Toni! I hope you enjoy a few of the 200 pictures I took while on my flight.