Bears Bears and more Bears!!! Katmai National Park

Day 19… Katmai National Park bear viewing trip J

Today we took a puddle jumper, and this was a serious puddle jumper to Katmai National Park.  It took very little water to take off and land.  After our orientation to where we were going in Katmai NP; the far northern region of the park/preserve, we geared up in hip boots and rain pants as well as layers of clothing for a day on the tundra.

Our flight over lasted about an hour and a half with Bald Mountain Air and was totally smooth sailing across Cook Inlet, past St Augustine Volcano and over Katmai.  We could see Kodiak Island off in the distance.  Very cool flight!  The area in the park where we were headed was primarily tundra and permafrost.  If you’ve never walked on permafrost, it’s like walking on spongy peat moss with a thick layer of moss on top.  It is very springy but also very uneven.  From a distance it is very bland looking but when looked at up close it is actually very pretty. 

We hiked a bit to get down to Moraine Creek and once there we hiked around a bit more but for the most part we sat on the riverbank and just watched the bears.  We stayed as a group and the bears pretty much ignored us and went about their business of getting fattened up for winter.  Once in awhile when one of them was bringing a salmon out of the stream, they would look at us and think… no way this is my fish and I’m going back in the bush to eat it, but others would walk right in front of us and eat it. When a bear would walk within 10-20 feet of us, Gary our guide called them Alaskan drive-bys. The bears pretty much only eat the eyeballs, the brain, and a fat pad near the tail, then they would strip the skin and eat the fat under the skin and leave the meat of the fish for the sea gulls.  The bears were predictable just like our guide said they would be.  We were in a remote area, unlike Brooks River Falls that has viewing platforms, etc.  We hiked and just parked ourselves on the riverbank and waited for the bears to come to us.  They walk and swim up and down the river all day looking for salmon.  It’s interesting that all of the bear have different techniques for catching fish, some swim under water and come up with one, others jump at them and still others paw at them.

We got to watch the bears for almost 5 hours then hiked back to the plane for the flight back to Homer.  I’m exhausted, very wind-burned but what an adventure!!!

The photos are all taken with my little instamatic camera since my good camera bit the dust last week.

 Our plane

 Big boy eating his salmon

 OK, so I always thought a bear $h!t in the woods!!!

 Sow and her cubbies

 I call these guys Cinnamon and Sugar

 Mt St Augustine

The Homer Spit snaking out into Cook Inlet

Day 18 - Homer & Hiking in Kachemak Bay State Park (July 29)

Hiking in Kachemak Bay State Park 

Today I wasn’t sure what I was going to do…  Tom was going Halibut fishing since Homer is the Halibut capital of the world.  I thought he could definitely catch enough for both of us (2 is the daily limit, usually at least 30 lbs of fish) and I wasn’t sure what we would do with an extra 30 lbs of it if I also went fishing.  It was a gorgeous morning so I tried to book a kayak trip but just couldn’t get anything that fit, so I ended up going hiking.  Kachemak State Park is stunning; there are many glaciers and many peaks above the tree line.  It backs up to Lake Clark National Park but is only accessible by air or water.

The lady that helped me book my water taxi and suggested the hike said that the trails were used by a lot of people.  Well, I did meet a lot of people on the water taxi that were with a hiking group called counrtywalkers.com.  I need to look it up, but they were all very nice, mostly women and several were from Michigan.  I really couldn’t tag along with them since they were paying for a guide, but I figured if I got eaten by a bear they would find me along the trail.  I’ve never felt comfortable hiking alone and have only done it once before in Northern California in the Redwood National Park last summer but there were no bears there.  I started hiking and was doing ok until I entered a densely forested area and had to walk over a couple of huge piles of bear scat, definitely bear scat – it was totally full of half digested berries!  I figured if I started to sing I would probably attract the bears, they would want to attack to get me to stop, so I started hitting my hiking poles together.  I felt like Christopher Robin in the hundred acre wood with his marching sticks.  I counted 30 some piles of bear scat, mostly black bear judging by the size of it, but there was this one pizza sized pile that I’m guessing must have been from a grizzly, a big grizzly!  I never thought in a million years that I’d become a bear scat aficionado!

The hike led to a glacial lake that was beautiful, the temperature dropped like 30 degrees once I approached it.  There were ice floes all over the lake and I could hear the glacier calving.  Some of the ice floes came near shore and I was able to grab them.  The glacial ice was the most pure thing I have ever witnessed, well except for a newborn baby.  It was the clearest, hardest ice… and it tasted so good!!  It was absolutely crystal clear, and who knows when it was frozen???

The rest of my hike was unremarkable.  I ended up on a beach and had to wait for nearly 2 hours for my water taxi back to Homer.  It was too long, but not long enough to hike an additional trail so I hung out on this beautiful beach.  A group of guys that had been backpacking were also waiting and one of them found out that I was a nurse.  One of the guys in their group had sat on a thorn so guess what I was asked to do???  The question is, did I remove the thorn or didn’t I??

The water taxi was 35 minutes late and I was beginning to think that I was going to be forgotten on the beach but there was actually a park ranger also waiting for a ride back. so i figured I 'd be ok.  It was a long day for both Tom and me.  He caught his halibut so now half our freezer is full of fish :-)

Stay tuned for my next blog all about watching bears in Katmai National Park tomorrow!!

Kate

 Hiking to Grewingk Glacier in Kachemak Bay State Park

 The Grewingk Glacier and ice floes

 Ice floes

 Glacial ice, it tastes amazing

 More glacial ice, how pretty and crystal clear

 More ice floes

 The hike out to the beach on the other side of the inlet

 The beach where the water taxi picks up

Beautiful beach... called Hawaii Beach and there were 2 people that actually went swimming!!

Homer, Ak (Day 17)

Day 17 (July 28) Seward to Homer, Ak

This morning we woke up to a bright sun shining day, I’ve learned quickly that these days don’t happen all that frequently on the Kenai Peninsula.  I had a hearty breakfast (thank you Tom) while watching the mountains and glaciers from my breakfast table.  We packed up to head off to Homer.  The trailer was parked up on a little hill so it was really tough to get it re-hitched to the truck.  The same guy that helped us get it parked in the spot in the beginning helped us get it re-hitched.  It worked well for him since his battery died and he needed a charge.

It was a gorgeous day so we stopped at Exit Glacier in the Kenai Fjords National Park.  It is the only access road into the park.  We kayaked in the park a couple of days ago but had to get there via water taxi.  It was a short hike to the glacier, it’s a relatively small glacier in comparison to Root Glacier that we hiked to in Wrangell-St Elias NP earlier but there are many other glaciers that we could see, all beginning in the Harding Ice Field. 

The drive to Homer was pretty mediocre in comparison to most of our other drives since we’ve been in Alaska.  But today, there was not a single incident where I had to keep my eyes closed and use my imaginary brake while going down 9% grades with multiple S curves.  We are at another campground overlooking the water; this time it is overlooking Kachemak Bay.  The mountains across the bay are larger than those in Kenai Fjords across the water from our site in Seward, but there we were totally surrounded by mountains.  Homer is built on the side of a hill, but the Homer Spit is where everyone hangs out, well the tourists that is…  It is a tourist trap just like any other touristy area like Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg TN, Mackinaw Island, etc.  There are all of the tee shirt shops, fudge stores, etc.  But this is where all of the fishing charters, kayak charters, water taxis, etc are located. 

Tomorrow, Tom is going out halibut fishing since Homer IS the halibut capital of the world.  The limit is 2, but halibut can get as big as a barn door, seriously!!  I hope he gets 2 but certainly not as big as a barn door.  I cleared out the top shelf of the freezer that would be plenty!

I’m not certain what I’m going to do tomorrow, perhaps another kayak trip or I may take the water taxi over to Kachemak State Park and do some hiking.  I can use all of the training I can get before we backpack Chilkoot (we start 2 weeks from today).

Saturday, we are flying over to Katmai NP to do bear viewing.  I am so excited about this trip.  It should be amazing!!!!

Kate

 Ah... my view while eating breakfast this morning

 At the toe of Exit Glacier in Kenai Fjords National Park (50 degrees)

 Kenai Lake, note the color - it's due to "glacial milk" a silt that runs off with the glacial melt

Kenai River, silver salmon run

 Russian Orthodox Church and cemetery from the late 1800s, still in use today

Lake Clark National Park across Cook Inlet

Salmon!!!!

Day 16 – Seward…

We woke up to a rainy day, no surprise on the Kenai Peninsula.  We were thinking about going kayaking again today but it was kind of dreary out and we decided to take a rest day.  We went into Seward and walked around town and checked out the boat harbor and the Kenai Fjords National Park office.  Also did laundry, by the time we hit the laundry mat, the skies had cleared… but how often does a person do laundry where they can sit out on a deck while their clothes are being washed and dried and look at glaciers, awesome mountains and a beautiful bay?  So even laundry in Alaska is pretty amazing!!

There is a custom among salmon fisherman in Alaska.  They always give away some salmon before they eat any that they have caught.  It’s a good luck thing.  The people in the campsite next to ours went out fishing this morning and brought back 35 lbs of fresh silver salmon.  Much to our surprise, they came over with a huge salmon filet.  OMG!!!!! I have never in my life had such good salmon!!!  If you know me well, you will know that I’m not much of a cook and definitely not a gourmet cook.  So how to cook the salmon?  We could broil it but then the camper would probably smell for the next couple of days.  I met a couple of people a few campsites away that had also been out fishing and were grilling salmon and asked them a few questions, and they offered us their grill J not only that but they gave us a lesson in grilling salmon. WOW!!  It was just totally amazing… They happen to be from Wasilla, AK and guess who their babysitter was some 30 years ago?

Tomorrow we head to Homer on the western tip of the Kenai for 3 nights.  While we’re there we have a trip booked to Katmai National Park.  This is a park on the eastern Aleutian Islands that is only accessible by air or boat.  We’ll be doing some hiking to a river with a salmon run to hopefully see brown (Alaskan grizzly) feeding on salmon. It’s a 1.5-hour flight each way on a 10-person plane and will be a 12-hour day.  Oh how I wish my good camera hadn’t died!   Tom may go out on a salmon charter while we’re in Homer and we may also do another kayak trip.  On our way to Homer tomorrow we’re planning to stop at Exit Glacier in Kenai Fjords NP for a short hike to the glacier.

kate

Small boat harbor in Seward 

Day 14 and 15, Copper Center to Seward and kayaking Resurrection Bay

Day 14 – Copper Center to Seward… A very long day!

We slept in a bit this morning; Tom realized at about 2AM that he left his new trekking poles on the McCarthy Shuttle.  We waited around a bit this morning to see if the shuttle folks were able to locate them so we could pick them up before heading down to Seward.  Well no such luck, at least at this point L.

We headed out at about 9:30 and planned to stop in Eagle River to pick up groceries for the week, then to Anchorage to REI where I needed to pick up some warmer clothes.  During our drive this morning that was very wet, dreary and cold, the temperature dropped as low as 42 degrees.  The Anchorage REI was the best, but then I haven’t been to their store in Seattle (thanks HeeSun for reminding me that their flagship store probably is their best).

We also stopped at a musk ox farm near Palmer.  The musk ox is an Artic animal that survived the ice age, their body is compact to conserve heat and their long guard hair protects them from the weather, wind and mosquitoes.  In order to survive the long artic winter temperatures, they grow a thick layer of Qiviut (pronounced KI-VEE-UTE) over their entire body.  This fine hair is shed every spring naturally when it’s no longer needed.  The farm in Palmer combs off the fiber and has it spun into yarn.  Qiviut is very rare and one of the finest fibers in the world, it compares with Cashmere and Vicuna but it has no barbs so doesn’t scratch like wool.  It has good tensile strength but doesn’t hold up well under friction so does not make socks, mittens or gloves.  The yarn is sent to Native Alaskan women who live in remote villages in Alaska who hand knit the Qiviut into lovely garments.  They formed a co-op and are paid by the piece that they produce with no quotas.  They also get profit sharing.  So what is so cool about Qiviut?  It is 8x warmer than wool by weight, it is a natural ash brown color, is one of the rarest fibers on earth, it won’t shrink in any temperature of water, it is incredibly soft and does not contain any lanolin or natural oils and they are hand knitted.  But unfortunately they are expensive.  Since I am a knitter, I can totally appreciate everything that goes into producing something from Qiviut.  I have been looking forward to actually touching it, so I couldn’t help but buy an earflap hat.  I only wish I could have afforded to also buy one for both Hanna and Pete. 

The drive from Anchorage to Seward was breathtaking!!  The weather cleared and the drive along Cook Inlet was beautiful as well as the going through the mountains and in view of several glaciers.  We didn’t arrive at the camp ground until after 10PM and it was quite muddy but right on the shores of Resurrection Bay with an incredible view of the mountains and glaciers across the bay.  Tomorrow we will change campsites and will have a water front site J.  We hope to do some hiking and kayaking while we’re here for 3 nights so I am hoping for great weather.

My Canon digital SLR camera bit the dust while we were at Wrangell-St Elias NP, Canon was unable to help me with it and said that it would need to be sent in for servicing L so now I am down to my point and shoot.  I like it and it is easy to carry around but it just isn’t the same.

Day 15 – Seward and kayaking at Humpy Cove on Resurrection Bay

This morning we moved our campsite to a waterfront site that is awesome beyond belief.  We overlook Resurrection Bay and are surrounded by mountains and glaciers.  We are in both an avalanche zone (which we obviously don’t have to worry about) and in a tsunami zone.  So if there is an earthquake we will be heading for the hills.  Last night our campsite was in a muddy, wooded area that was on a hill and we practically had to go 4 wheeling to get over the large tree roots that covered much of the site.  This is a much-improved location!! 

This afternoon we went kayaking on Resurrection Bay at Humpy Cove.  We took a water taxi up the bay and landed on a beach in Humpy Cove.  As we were kayaking, the sun came out and the sky cleared for a while.  We did a short hike to a waterfall that was stunning and saw a salmon run up the small stream.  Tonight we are going to head into Seward and check out the town a bit.  We still have to figure out what we are going to do tomorrow and need to schedule a trip to Kat-Mai NP and a trip into Denali.

Kate

 Drive between Copper Landing and Anchorage

 Cook Inlet south of Anchorage

 Drive between Anchorage and Seward

 View of Resurrection Bay during kayak trip

 This is the view from our campsite :-)

 View that I will be waking up to for the next couple of days

 Waterfall in Humpy Cove during kayak trip today

Kayak group

McCarthy/Kennecott - Wrangle-St Elias National Park

Day 11–13, McCarthy-Kennecott, Alaska, Wrangell-St Elias National Park

Friday morning we were picked up at our campground at 7:45 AM for the drive into McCarthy.  The 1^st 30 miles to Chitina were on the same paved road that we drove the day before.  The road had originally been the railroad bed for the train into the Kennecott Copper mines.  Once we got past Chitina, things became a little more interesting!  We traveled 60 more miles on a dirt road.  The 1^st 10 miles or so hadn’t been graded for quite some time and there has been a lot of rain recently so it was like driving on a washboard, and in a 15-passenger van no less.  The remaining 50 miles were tough, but not as bone jarring and kidney damaging…  We were in the van for about 3.5 hours, it turns out that the driver (bless her heart) was a new hire and this was her 1^st trip into McCarthy with a vanload of people.   The van goes as far as a footbridge over the Copper River where once across another van picks you up and will take you either into McCarthy or up to Kennecott.  We were able to stash our stuff at the Ma Johnson hotel and head on up to Kennecott and hike out to the toe of the Root Glacier.  It was an absolutely beautiful day with not a cloud in the sky J All of the peaks were exposed, several with a new coat of fresh white snow.  It was very cool to be able to hike right out to the glacier. Don’t believe the beer ads that say their been is brewed from a glacial stream!!  The glacial melt has a tremendous amount of silt in it, whereas I’ll take my beer brewed from a snowmelt stream anytime.

When we got back off the trail, we headed to the Lancaster Backpacker Hotel, a kind of backpacker hostel, with a price tag of $98/night for 2 people; much unlike the $6/night I spent for a hostel in Mexico.  But it was quite nice, very comfortable with very clean bathrooms.  Our other choices were the Ma Johnson Hotel at $200/night or the Kennecott Lodge at 300+/night.  We had dinner at the Golden Saloon, I had the BBQ Pork, anyone that know me well knows that I don’t eat BBQ, but this was a mustard BBQ and it was totally amazing, so amazing that I also had the 2^nd night.

Saturday morning we took the shuttle back up to Kennecott and began the hike up to the Bonanza Mine.  It is a 4.5 mile hike in one direction but with a 3800 ft elevation gain, in other words it was a very steep climb the entire way up, but it was a beautiful day and once we got above the tree line the view was spectacular.  Since I haven’t exactly been in training since I was finishing up my grad program, then was working in Berkeley, then sitting in a truck driving here, it was kind of a killer but I trudged through it.  We were using this hike as a training hike for the Chilkoot Trail that we will be doing near the end of our trip.  We got to about 600 feet short of the mine at the summit of  Bonanza Peak and the trail turned to all scree and it just wasn’t worth killing ourselves or getting injured so we stayed there and enjoyed the view for awhile before heading back down the mountain.  I’ve got to say that I would much rather climb up than go down.  Thank you Dr Chrisos and Med Sport for my reconstructed ACL that worked perfectly!!  But going down is definitely hard on my aging knees.  We got back down safely, grabbed a shower and headed off to the Golden Saloon for an icy cold Alaskan beer and dinner.  We asked an elderly single woman to join us, it turns out that her son pretty much owns all of the businesses in McCarthy.  She was a very interesting woman.   I think I was in bed by 8:00 even though it stayed light up on the mountain until about 1:15 AM.

I woke up on Sunday morning sore as all get out but feeling good.  Problem was it was raining and very cold and I had gotten my hiking pant very sweaty and gross from the 10 hours of hiking on Saturday and all I had left was shorts.  We went on a very interesting tour of the copper mill but it was definitely more of a guy thing with all of the machinery and stuff like that.  Just wasn’t all that interesting to me, I was more interested in the lives of the miners than in how all of the machinery and shaker tables, etc worked.  After the tour, it was really too cold to do much of anything else since I wasn’t properly prepared (shame on me) so I hung out in the lobby of the Ma Johnson Hotel until we could catch our shuttle back out at 4:30.

McCarthy and Kennecott are about 5 miles apart, deep in the national park area.  Kennecott is now part of the national park but when it was being developed as a mining town, it was a dry town and there were only 5 single women in the town of 500.  They were the schoolteacher, a secretary and several nurses.  The miners and mill employees had to go to McCarthy if they wanted to drink or pick up women in a brothel.

We met people from all over the US, Europe, Australia and New Zealand while in McCarthy and Kennecott.  Everyone was very friendly, none of the hotels have locks on their doors, its just part of the whole ambience of the community.  If you make it to Alaska, I highly recommend this trip.  It is incredibly beautiful country and the largest national park in the US.

Tomorrow we’re headed off to Steward for 3 days but will hit Anchorage first for some grocery shopping.

Root Glacier in foreground, Wrangell Mountains in background 

 Old general store in McCarthy, AK

Steep climb up to the Bonanza Mine, this building is part of the tram system to haul the copper ore down from the mine. 

Remains from one of the trams high up on the mountain 

The Bonanza Mine remains, one of the most prolific copper mines in US History. 

The summit near the Bonanza Mine 

Above the tree line, the trail through the scree in the background. 

Ma Johnson's Hotel, quite lovely actually.

Day 11 on the road...

Tok, Alaska -> Tosina, Alaska via Chitina and Wrangell-St Elias National Park (somewhere around 3800 miles)

This morning we ate breakfast at our campground, the Sourdough Lodge in Tok, Ak.  The story behind sourdough is this... during the gold rush, the prospectors had to be very creative to keep their sourdough starters warm so they could make bread.  Bread yeast was unavailable so all of the bread was made from sourdough starter.  It was generally thought of as women's work, but not so in the gold rush days.  Back to breakfast... we had sourdough pancakes and reindeer sausage.  Sorry to all of you Rudolph fans, but the sausage was really, really good!!  I'm going to try to find some to bring back with me.

We drove a couple of hundred miles and skirted the Alaska Range and Wrangell-St Elias National Parks as well as visiting 2 of the visitor centers.  This is not a park that one can drive through.  There is one road in from Chitina a 33 mile drive from the highway then a 60 mile dirt road that is built over an old railroad bed.  We have opted to take a shuttle in and leave the truck and trailer parked at the campground.  We will be staying for 2 nights at the backpacker hotel and doing a three days of day hiking.  Tomorrow we will hike to the Root Glacier, Saturday we will tour the Kennicott mine and hike up to one of the abandoned copper mines up above the tree line, then on Sunday we will hike to another glacier then will take the shuttle back out to our campground.

Pulling into the campground today we got our 1st flat on one of the trailer tires.  We got it changed pretty quickly and the folks at the campground are going to get the flat tire fixed while we are in Wrangell-St Elias.  We had Russian food for dinner tonight, wow it was really, really good!

More on Sunday night after we come out of the park.  Monday we will head to Steward for a couple of days of kayaking and hiking.

kate

Alaska range and a quiet lake with fire weed in bloom 

Moose feeding in a small lake in Chitina, Ak 

Alaska Range in the Wrangell-St Elias National Park