Seward, Alaska - Kenai Peninsula

Since leaving Anchorage, our time has been spent along the wild and scenic Kenai Peninsula. First we spent a week in Homer, and then we headed over to Seward, for another week-long visit. The Kenai Peninsula’s diverse natural landscape represents Alaska in miniature. The ecosystems on the Peninsula include world-renowned salmon streams, vast wetlands and salt marshes, coastal rainforests, alpine tundra, and productive estuaries, bays and coves. The peninsula extends approximately 150 miles southwest from the Chugach Mountains, south of Anchorage. It is separated from the mainland on the west by the Cook Inlet and on the east by the Prince William Sound. That is just the text-book geographical explanation, but there really aren’t words to describe the stunning landscape this time of year. Towering mountains, still capped with snow; fields of fireweed in full bloom; glaciers you can hike right up to and touch; blue skies dotted with puffy clouds floating above hanging shrouds of mist; glacial creeks running fast, furious, and endlessly. Kenai Peninsula is made for picture postcards, and even the most novice photographer would find in hard to take a bad picture here.

When we arrived in Seward, it was (surprise, surprise) raining – or, heavily misting, not sure which. For the next several days the weather remained overcast, cold, misty, and raining. But finally after four days, the skies cleared and we were treated to beautiful blue sky, puffy white clouds, cool breezes and 60-degree plus days. Down right warm for a change! Exit Glacier (so named because it is the easiest exit off the Harding Ice Field which spawns over 40 glaciers in all) is a destination for anyone visiting the area. An easy one-mile hike takes you to the edge of the glacier, or in another direction to the “toe” or base of the ice where you can touch it if you want. This is a very popular destination for tourists, and for the hardier, there is a 7.8 mile round-trip hike (with a 3000 foot elevation gain) to the base of the Harding Ice Field at the top of the glacier. This forested area is heavily populated by bears, and one sign warns how to handle an attack from a brown bear as follows: “Play dead unless it starts to eat you, then fight back”. Well, that’s pretty straight forward… However, you are also reassured that most charges end without injury. Well, I feel better now!

Hopefully the pictures I’ve included can give you a small glimpse into the Kenai Peninsula.

Next stop: Valdez, Alaska

Glaciers

High on the list of things to do in Alaska is glacier viewing, and there are many opportunities to do so within close range of Anchorage. We took two glacier cruises during our stay.

Our first excursion was a one-hour boat cruise to the Portage Glacier, located on the Kenai Peninsula in the Chugach National Forest. The 50 mile drive from Anchorage to the town of Portage on the Seward Highway was spectacular, one of the most scenic highways I’ve ever traveled on. We took our time getting there, stopping often to take in the view, or drive through small towns located off the highway. We boarded the boat on Portage Lake, and during our 60-minute ride, we were taken to within 300 feet of the glacier amidst iceberg-dotted waters. It was remarkable listening to the unmistakable rumbling of a calving glacier as huge blocks of ice crashed into the lake.

Our second excursion was more involved; first we took a 2.5 hour train ride to Whittier (a slow ride to enjoy the scenery covering only 60 miles – again, along the Seward Highway). From Whittier we boarded a small boat that took us out for five hours in Blackstone Bay (a fjord that is part of Prince William Sound) where we viewed many glaciers of different sizes and shapes. The most stunning was the Blackstone Glacier, and we spent a significant amount of time bobbing around the ice-chunk filled water surrounding this glacier. The deep aqua color of the ice, the waterfalls tumbling off the glaciers, the sea otters playing nearby, all helped to create memorable experience.

Again, pictures can never quite capture everything, but I’ve attached a few shots that come as close as possible!

Juneau, Alaska

As you probably all know, one of our goals is to visit every state capital. Visiting Juneau, Alaska, has to qualify as the hardest and most expensive capital visit yet! Since you can’t drive to Juneau, your options are flying or taking the ferry (in our case, from Haines, following the route we were on moving towards Fairbanks). Since we wanted our truck with us in Juneau, we opted for the ferry. The ferry cost $290 round trip, and since the schedule is such that the soonest we could come back was two days after arriving, we had to spend two nights in Juneau. After doing the research, Dan found the best deal possible at The Alaskan Hotel in the heart of downtown Juneau - and that was $90 a night. We didn't think that was much of a deal to begin with, but we were even more convinced after getting there. Downtown consists of only about three blocks, but it is just like any typical downtown anywhere - just smaller! The Alaskan Hotel is the oldest operating hotel in Juneau, established in 1913, and is on the National Register of Historic Places. I honestly don't think they've done much to improve the place since then, either.

The problem with The Alaskan Hotel was, well, just about everything!! We didn't get the room we reserved, and had to lug our bags from one floor to another getting that straightened out. No place to park, so we ended up six blocks away with hills like San Francisco to deal with. The room was really hot, with no apparent way to cool it down, other than opening the windows. The TV didn't work, we didn't have enough towels, and everything reeked of cigarette smoke. I could go on, but you probably get the picture. The clientele was…different. We were on the third floor, and our windows opened out into the street. We didn't think that would be so bad once the businesses closed down. Well, we were wrong... things just got started at about 10:00 p.m. and went on until at least 4:00 a.m. - we lost track after a while. Right underneath us was a big street party going on, and on, and on…(police, ambulance, and fire truck came at one point and hauled one woman to the hospital and another to jail after they had it out). Needless to say, we didn't get much sleep that night. We checked out the next morning and checked in to the Super 8, nine miles from downtown. A lot less history, but a lot more comfort.

But back to the beginning. We arrived in Juneau on Friday afternoon and drove straight to the Mendenhall Glacier and spent a couple of hours walking around. It was a beautiful day and I was very excited to be seeing a real glacier. In the park, in addition to the glacier, we saw a trumpet swan, mountain goats way up the side of a mountain, and a porcupine. I hope to see more glaciers before leaving Alaska, but this was the first, and will always have special meaning. We figured we would tour the capital on Saturday, but we were foiled again! The capital building is only open Monday through Friday, so we missed our opportunity to see the inside, but got some shots of the exterior. We spent the day walking and driving in and around Juneau and the surrounding areas. We saw several cruise ships arrive and depart while we were there, and Juneau seems to cater to the tourists, and is in fact a big part of their economy.

I’ve included pictures from the glacier and some of downtown Juneau.