The Mount Marathon Race is a crazy race where folks run up a very steep 3,022 foot mountain and then run DOWN again. It's muddy and slippery and every year folks get gashes and bruises at a minimum and many years there are broken bones. This year one man went missing (and was never found though they searched for days) and another took a header down the mountain and ended up with a brain injury. He almost took out another woman but a firefighter basically tackled her to keep her from going off the cliff--she ended up with broken ribs and a lacerated liver.
Folks come from all around to stand at the bottom of the mountain and watch this crazy race. As a result our campground and most of the other campgrounds in town were full for the 3rd and the 4th. We got a dry campsite in a makeshift parking lot for the night of the 3rd so we could see Seward before we got out of town on the morning of the 4th.
We had showers, moved the trailer and had lunch before setting out for the Alaska SeaLife Center which was built with part of the settlement from the Exxon Valdez oil spill. It's a great aquarium and they do lots of sea life rehabilitation and research too.
There were lovely Welsh poppies (Meconopsis cambrica) in bloom in the parking lot. You know me, I couldn't resist taking pictures.
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Those are common murres with the puffins in that last photo on the right.
I also got a few shots of Tufted puffins.
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They were mixed in with King Eiders, a very fancy kind of duck.
And Rhinoceros Auklets.
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Walter got cold (this place was roofless) and went inside to find a wonderful glass window that allowed him to watch the birds dive down 2 stories. The glass on the window made pictures problematic though.
There was an enclosure with Stellar Sea Lions so I got a close-up shot of one of them. They were actually swimming as opposed to napping like they were yesterday on the cruise.
We made our way through the rest of the displays and sat and watched an interesting video on whales preying on catches of fishing boats in Sitka. But sitting in the warm dark was too much for us and we both nodded off. So it was time to move on.
We drove through downtown Seward which was set up with a street fair for the 4th of July festivities. As the day went on there were more and more cars. Being as how we are not much for towns or crowds we made our way out of town and out to Exit Glacier, the only part of Kenai Fjords National Park that you can drive to.
As you approach the park, there are signs showing you where the toe of the glacier was over time. It's retreated miles over the last several centuries.
There are several nice hikes out to the glacier. It was cloudy and damp (though not raining) and we were tired from yesterday's cruise so we took the shorter of the hikes out to a viewpoint which gave us a really nice look at the glacier.
It feeds it's own river rather than a lake or the ocean.
Here's a panorama shot to give you a view of the entire area.
There were lots of folks hiking on the trails that go all the way out to the glacier but we were happy with what we saw.
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These sweet little flowers which remind me of Queen's Cup are Arctic Starflower (Trientalis arctica) in bloom.
The Western Columbine (Aquilegia formosa) that were in full bloom in Sitka in mid-June were just coming into bloom here in July.
And the Pink-flowered Wintergreen (Pyrola asarifolia) that I'd been seeing for weeks everywhere was still in bud.
We finished our hike and headed back to town. Our shuttle bus driver the day before had said we should look for the big eagle's nest on the edge of town and it turned out to be right where the road out to Exit Glacier joined the highway. There was even an eagle sitting on a branch nearby. That's one BIG nest.
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We set off to go north into the Kenai Peninsula at about 10 am the next morning. The traffic was heavy going into Seward--clearly there were more folks from Anchorage who were coming down for the race.
Here's a map of our route for the next 2 days. We'll stop at Morgan's Landing outside of Sterling (Point B) for the night and then go on to Homer (Point C) the next day.
View Larger Map
Not far out of town Walter spotted a moose in a small lake next to the road. There was a place to park so he pulled over and I hot-footed it back down the road to take some photos. He was a young male since he's got a nice dewlap but his horns aren't very big.
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We switched drivers at Kenai Lake and there were a few folks out in boats and a few of the mountains were more visible than they had been.
We decided we deserved a low key day so we opted to only drive about 90 miles and camp at Morgan's Landing State Recreation Site. The campground was basically empty so we had our choice of campsites. In another week, it would be full of fisherman fishing for salmon on the Kenai River (the campground is up on a bluff above the river). But the run was only just starting and everyone was down in Seward instead!
It was still cloudy but the ceiling was higher so you could see the mountains to the south. These mountains are down in Kenai Fjords National Park.
We talked to the campground host and she said that the red salmon (sockeyes) were just starting to run. In fact, her husband had just caught one when we took the hike down to the river. He showed it to us and said it weighed about 12 pounds.
On our way back to the trailer from exploring the river I spotted some wild geranium (Geranium erianthum).
And these cool little flowers that turned out to be called twin-flowers (Linnaea borealis).
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The next morning we were moving slow but we did finally hit the road west to Homer, otherwise known as 'the end of the road.' The only highway in this part of Alaska ends in Homer and you can't go any further west by road. There are places you can take the ferry to or you can fly to but this is far west as you can drive in Alaska.
We stopped at an overlook on the edge of town to take photos of Kachemak Bay. Those are the Kenai Mountains across the way and the Homer spit in the foreground.
Walter posed in front of the Welcome to Homer sign.
He had me pose next to some nice big Arctic Lupine.
We motored on down the hill and got a campsite at the Oceanview RV Park on the bluff overlooking the bay. It was kind of expensive but all the other places to camp are down on the spit and very dense and crowded.
Here's the view from the campground.
After getting settled in we set out to explore Homer. First, we drove out the Spit to the end where the ferry dock is. There were lots of folks out there fishing.
And someone had actually caught a fish.
The spit itself reminded us both a great deal of Glitter Gulch, outside of Denali. There were lots of tourist trap stores, a few bars and tons of cheek by jowl RV parking. And of course there were tons of tourists walking up and down looking at it all.
There must be something inherently wrong with us because neither of us ever want to find a place to park and get out and walk around places like this. We both just want to get out of Dodge as quickly as possible. So that's what we did. We drove back out the road into town and went east on East End Road, the only road that goes out of town (beside of course the way we came in).
From East End Road you can get a view of Grewingle Glacier, which is over in Kachemak Bay State Park and Wilderness (which connects up to Kenai Fjords National Park to the east).
There were lupine and cow parsnip in bloom in the meadows along the road and they made for a wonderful picture with the mountains in the distance.
We drove on out the road and got views of the PorHock Glacier too.
The road got narrower and narrower until we decided we'd seen enough. When we turned around I got out and took one more photo of PorHock Glacier.
There were wildflowers growing along the verge here too.
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| Pale Paintbrush (Castilleja caudata) |
Wild Geranium (Geranium eriantum) |
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| Cotton Grass (Eriophorum scheuchzeri) |
Cotton Grass (Eriophorum scheuchzeri) |
After we got back to the trailer, the sun came out! Here's a shot from the trailer looking out from Oceanview RV Park.
Then I took a walk down to the beach at the foot of the cliff. There were crazy folks driving their vehicles on the gravel beach--and getting stuck. I hid behind a large piece of driftwood as they drove by spraying the beach with gravel. Then one of them got stuck and had to dig out.
Here's the view out across Kamichak Bay from the beach.
The ferry was just coming in (or maybe going out) and I caught it out in the bay.
In Part XXII we'll drive back towards Anchorage and we make our way in the direction of Valdez and eventually home!