Reflections of My Travel

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We woke up this morning and packed the car back up and prepared to go sea kayaking. We got to the shop and our found out that it was just going to be us and a guide, a nice personalized tour. Our guide, Jared, supplied us with some wet bags for our cameras and lunch and such. As we were changing into our boots and splash-skirts, a car pulled up and out popped our stalkers. They were going on a different kayak trip but we laughed and talked a bit and agreed that we might as well have dinner together. We made plans to meet at Mike’s Palace at 19:00 and then went on about our sea kayaking way. It was beautiful out there, but it turns out kayaking is hard work. I was very glad that we were in a two-seater. Not that I just didn’t try, I paddled as much as I possibly could, perhaps 85-90%. It was hard work. And it was a five-mile paddle one way. On the way out to Gold Creek, we paddled by several harbor seals, sea otters, and a very large stellar sea lion as well as several bald eagles. It was very neat. When we paddled to our take-out place, we got out and pulled the kayaks all the way up onto the beach and hiked through some very high vegetation to get to Gold Creek. We then crossed a footbridge and started a vertical (and I do mean vertical) hike up to the waterfall that feeds Gold Creek. We stopped at a semi-mosquito-less area and sat down to eat some lunch. Jarrod even had some hot cocoa for us, which I thought was very nice. I, of course, took no more than a sip before promptly dropping my whole cup down the cliff. I have a special talent for stuff like that. Randal and Jarrod had to do some pseudo-rappelling in order to retrieve it. Unfortunately, the bears got to enjoy that cocoa more than I did. After our mini picnic, we continued our uphill trek. It got steeper and steeper as we went along, which my oversized rubber boots did not seem to think was their appropriate use. I felt bad because I slowed the guys down a lot, but I was proud to have made it to the top. And it really was a very difficult hike. It was beautiful though. And if you moved just fast enough, the mosquitoes barely bothered you. It was a very sizeable waterfall. Going down was slower than going up. I’m much better at upward hiking than I am at downward hiking. When we got back down to the bottom and crossed the bridge again, we went down the creek and observed some of the old, abandoned gold mining equipment. We waded through the cold creek a bit (now there’s a good use for those rubber boots) and looked for some gold-inhabited quartz. We didn’t find any but it was a nice cool down between hiking and paddling. We soon made our way back to where we had pulled our kayaks ashore and launched them to head back. Not long after we got started paddling again, I got up the nerve to bust out the cameras for a little bit of mid-water kayaking photography. Jarrod was kind enough to take the camera, paddle away a little, and take a couple of pictures of Randal and I in our kayak. On the way back, we were followed for quite some time by a curious harbor seal. He never got closer than about 30 feet but it was fun to watch him watching us. All in all it was a great experience, even if a little tiring. When we got back to town, we passed a bit of time exploring the old Valdez town site and such and then headed to Mike’s Palace to meet Ken and Alice for dinner. It was a very nice dinner with pleasant conversation. In all of our travels, we’ve never actually met up with people we’ve spoken with for the purpose of joining in a social activity of some sort, but this was a really enjoyable experience. At the end of the evening, we parted ways and Randal and I headed north. We camped out in Glennallen.

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This morning we woke up and decided to attempt to make our way up to Tok and then head south for Haines. By this time, I was getting a pretty good cold from all of the smoke that we had encountered up in the Fairbanks area so I think I actually slept most of the way. When we got to Tok, it was just as smoky, if not smokier, as Fairbanks. This was disheartening. We stopped at the visitor’s center to try to find out whether there was any chance that it cleared up south of town. Turned out that it just continued since there were several fires burning in Canada along the way. While we really did want to journey down to Haines and Juneau, we decided that it was not worth it if we couldn’t see or breath. It would have been 450+ miles of only being able to see a quarter of a mile or so. We turned straight around and headed back toward Glennallen again, this time turning there to head back toward Anchorage. We stopped in Anchorage in order to fortify our supplies and then started our trip down the Kenai Peninsula. We turned off toward Portage and were pleased to find that we had stumbled onto a field of large glaciers. They were beautiful. So blue and big. We stopped at three or four glaciers before we got to Portage Lake and discovered that you could not see Portage Glacier from this side of the lake. We enjoyed looking at the icebergs that it had created for a while and then headed back to another lake we had seen back up the road just a bit – it had appeared to be a wonderful camping place. We pulled up alongside the lake and went to bed.

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When we woke up this morning and got out of the car to brush our teeth, there was a large cow moose just on the other side of the small lake staring at us. Now that’s the way to wake up – surrounded by beautiful mountains and crystal blue glaciers right alongside a perfectly clear blue-green lake with a moose staring at you. It was such an exhilarating way to start the day. After sitting for a while to reflect on the beauty of the morning, we headed back to the Portage Glacier visitor center. There were some new icebergs in Portage Lake that must have calved overnight. They were just spectacular ice sculptures floating out in the clear water. The visitor’s center was really a very nice facility. They had several interactive displays, including some live ice worms that Randal tried to murder (clearly, the sign said “do not touch, your body heat will kill”) and an informational movie that we watched. Turns out that about 50 years ago, the face of Portage Glacier was directly in front of the visitor’s center. They have a huge window behind the movie screen and at the end of the movie, the screen slowly ascends to reveal this once-majestic up-close view of a glacier. Now when it lifts, there is a beautiful iceberg-filled lake and they tell you that if you look real hard, you can see the top corner of Portage Glacier above the mountain at the other side of the lake. I just find it amazing how quickly they recede. It’s truly a spectacular feat of nature to create all of that massive moving ice. We were told that there was a trail over on the Whittier side that you can hike and get a pretty close view of the glacier, but it was a 45 minute hike (which means an hour for me) and I was already feeling so crummy and weak from being sick that I asked if we could hold off and do that on the way back out of the peninsula. So instead, we started south toward Seward. When we got there, we secured a campground and bought a couple of showers to get us feeling better. Then we went out for a drive to explore the town. Driving along the edge of the bay, we spotted two orcas swimming together. We pulled over and watched them until they were out of site. It was pretty neat. We relaxed most of the day trying to get me feeling better. We made reservations with Kenai Fjords Tours for a dinner cruise tomorrow afternoon before heading back to our campground for the night.