Kenai Peninsula

Stellar Sea Lion Prince William Sound

Sea Otter Prince William Sound

Iceberg Prince William sound

Orca Whales Prince William Sound

Horned Puffins

Gulls in for a feast of dead salmon

Black Bear Getting dinner

Red Salmon Jumping up fish ladder

Black Bear eating dinner

The ride to Valdez

Ride to Valdez

Kenai fjord National Park

Kenai Fjord National Park

Scorpio - humpback whale

Sea Otter with baby

Black Legged Kittywake

Black Legged Kittywake

Harbor Seals sunning on Ice float

Bald Eagle

Sea Otter Resting On Kelp

Spruce Grouse

Sunset Kenai

First season Eagle

Tufted Puffin

Dogs Ready for a Job

Alaskan Husky Pup

Two happy dogs after a run

Horned Puffin

Our first stop on the peninsula is the town of Soldotna/ Kenai. This is the Salmon fishing capital of Alaska. That has no appeal to me, because of my fish allergies, but the wildlife opportunities abound. The town has established a great walkway along the river with ample places to fish. They have put in the walkways with stairs down to the river to protect the banks. In some places it is 30 feet down. Once the fish coming up river to spawn, the young fish need the protection of the river banks and fallen trees to travel in back out to the ocean. There were so many salmon going up stream that all you had to do was cast a line and you could hook a fish, even on a fin, and haul to out for dinner.  We walked the path and found multiple small song bird. That had more appeal to us. The area is home to the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge that had some hiking opportunities. We walked for almost 2 miles without seeing much more than several piles of Bear scat then we hit a pocket with lots of song birds and several spruce grouses. The next day were off to an early start to look for shore birds. Getting there was a bit of an adventure. The GPS took us down a road that would be suitable for an ATV at best. We soon recognized that we would be in trouble if we continued down that path. After turning around we found a more suitable route to our destination. Here we found a multitude of shore birds some of which were new to us. How exciting! After this spot we headed to a beach. Next to the Bay of Funday, this area is home to some of the greatest tides in the Northern Hemisphere. After heading down to the beach I realized that I needed a different lens. By the time I got back the tide had receded by at least 200 yards. Mind you it only took a few minutes to retrieve the lens I needed. 

Next stop Ninilchick a small fishing village by Cook Inlet. This village was founded by Russian fisherman prior to the sale of Alaska by the Russians in 1867. There is still  a Russian Orthodox Church overlooking the ocean. This stop offered a great place for some of our caravan friends to go fishing for Halibut. They were very successful and provided lots of fish for a fish fry the next night. Diana loved having fresh halibut cooked 3 different way. She of course cooked shrimp and rice for me. Ninilchick is about 30 miles from Homer. Last winter we booked two trips. One was a boat trip and the other a Bear watching flight out of Homer. The Bear Viewing trip was to be a flight into Lake Clark National Park in a small Cessna airplane that lands on the beach and affords a very close up view of Grizzly Bears in their summer feeding frenzy. We took off at 8 AM as planned but 15 minuets into the flight the pilot had to turn around due to poor visibility. We rescheduled for two days later but that flight was scrubbed because of weather. The good news is we were not some casualty on the mountain side, like the plane that  crash in Denali when we were there. It was disappointing to not see the Bears, but better safe than sorry. On the one nice day, we had our scheduled boat trip out of Homer to the small village of Soldenia. It was wonderful. The all female crew did a great job sharing all of there knowledge about the rocks, birds, sea life and history of the area. We cruised around rocks to view puffins, different from the Atlantic ones. Saw rafts of otters that wrapped themselves in the kelp so they could rest, Diana stoped counting at 20. In the village of Soldenia where we disembarked we had lunch. It is only accessible by water or air. It was across the bay from Homer. On the way back to Homer we had a humpback whale make an appearance. David got a picture of its fluke. We went on line to find out its name but the picture of this fluke wasn’t listed so we emailed the organization with his picture. They let us know our whales name , Scorpio, and thanked us for sending in the sighting. 

From here we traveled on to the town of Seward, this is where Mitch Seavey has some of his sled dogs. He holds the record for the fastest time on the Alaska Iditarod. We toured and had a team of 14 dogs hitched up to a modified golf cart that held 7-8 persons, along with a musher. Mind you this is summer for the dogs. They prefer -20 to 20 degrees. They are like your Marathon runner, when you look at them you think how can this skinny little dog pull us. Well as soon as they started putting dogs into their harness you wouldn’t believe the commotion from all of the other dogs because they all wanted in on the action. They were all  excited and ready to run. After our mush we were asked to tell the dogs “good job”and pet them to thank them. These dogs are not your huskies you see in the Disney movies, although we were introduced to a dog that was in one such movie and he was a topical husky type. We also got to hold 3 week old puppies. We learned all about the race. The musher has to go through check points to make sure he/she is stable enough to continue. You see they are the ones that don’t sleep because they have to cook a hot soup for the dogs and take care of the dogs feet. So when they stop the dogs rest but the musher works. It was amazing.  

Here we also did a 9 hour boat trip. The Kenai Fjords boat cruse was great, first off because it was a beautifully clear day and we were able to see lots of wildlife. Birding was wonderful, seeing 2 kinds of Puffins, murres, bald eagles, cormorants, murrelet, guillemots along with stellar sea lions, humpback whales, sea otters and harbor seals. We were able to get within a 1/4 mile from the glacier. We only had small calving. the sounds were incredible. 

Now it’s on to Palmer. Our first night here we had a gentleman from the Mat-Su Valley chamber of commerce come and tell us all about the borough he lives in, which is the size of West Virginia. The next day we decided to drive the Hatcher Pass. Before going over the pass was Independence Mine Historical Park. We were able to walk around and learn all about the workings and life in the mining camp. It was finally shut down because of WW ll. After going over the pass we stopped in Wasilla for lunch at a brewery. From here it was back to Palmer to go for a tour of the Tsunami national warning center. This is one of 2 centers. The other is in Hawaii. It was amazing that this center is run by 12 scientists 2 of which are on at all times and if there is a major event they are all called in. This center covers all of the US east and west coasts. They also are in contact with Canada and Iceland. Hawai covers all of the Pacific. While we were there an earthquake in Alaska set the alarms off but it wasn’t anything big so “ no big deal”. They chose this place to put the center because in 1964 Alaska recorded the strongest quake ever in the US. There are at least 2 earthquakes a day in Alaska, although most aren’t felt.  

We are now in Valdez. After several days of rainy weather we were lucky to have a clear sunny day to travel. It was the greatest drive here yet. Absolutely beautiful.  We were so grateful for the wonderful day. When we arrived we found out we could wash the truck and trailer at our campsite so laundry, truck and trailer were all cleaned. 

Here in Valdez the silver salmon are trying to get up river. When the tide goes out there are thousand upon thousands of dead fish. The Gulls are also here by the thousands. We went for a drive after dinner to see the Black Bears come out for the fish. One was only interested in the roe. It would use a paw to squeeze the dead fish to squirt out the eggs then feast upon them. The gulls were also having fun. They would land in the water by the fish ladder and ride the current in the water back out to the sea then fly back to take a ride on the river again and again. There were hundreds doing this. 

The next day we had the Columbia Glacier Cruise. It was a 7 hour trip down through Prince Willams Sound then to the Columbia Glacier. We debated going because of the rain and fog. We were glad we did. Even though we have done other cruises to glaciers this was different because the boat had to slow down to just a head way speed because of the ice field we had to navigate through. We have never seen anything like it. We were fortunate to get close enough to see the glacier. To hear the ice grading down the metal hull was spooky. We also were treated to a display of orca whales swimming and surfacing around us. The Captian told us the dorsal fin on one of the large males was at least 6 feet high. They identify the individual orca’s by the dorsal fin and light patch right behind it. We also saw stellar sea lions, seals and sea otters along with several different birds.