Kenai - Alaska 2014

Our first night in Anchorage was in a RV park to complete the final internal cleaning of Homer before she was returned, and then we had one night in a very comfortable B&B Inn called the Arctic Fox, which we’re now enjoying a second night in after completing a circuit through ‘The Kenai’, known also Alaska’s playground, as can be seen in the map below.

Apart from a walk through the centre of the city, we didn’t spend much time in Anchorage during our first stay, preferring to do more of the touristy things when we returned, so we picked up the rental car and headed out again.

You may notice that many of the photos may appear a little darker or gloomier.  This is because it is summer in Alaska and it rains more and we experienced more cloudy skies and wetter weather than the rest of the trip thus far.  Oh well!

It was an all day drive via Palmer as we made our way towards Valdez, a town made famous unfortunately by a large oil spill back in 1989.  The drive itself was very scenic and it seemed like much of our time was spent making our way across a long high plateau.  

Nearing Valdez we spotted numerous RVs and other cars parked near a bridge, something must be going on, so we stopped to see.

Fishing!  Standing along the river bank were many people constantly throwing either a fly or lure into the fast flowing water trying to catch salmon and whilst watching, one person did with great excitement.

The drive into Valdez was one where every corner we turned… BANG… standing there yet again were more stunning and jaggered snow capped mountains laid out into the distance, but there was more.  

Our road was accompanied by a beautiful river also winding its way down the same valley the road used.  This went on and on and on as we slowly descended and a few times when the road narrowed through a gorge, we had waterfalls right next to the road.

River next to road into Valdez

waterfall next to road

When the distance signs indicated we were quite near Valdez, yet another surprise, Thompson Pass, which according to the tourism blurb is a 855 m high gap in the Chugach Mountains northeast of Valdez. 

It is also regarded as the snowiest place in Alaska, recording about 14m of snow per year on average and the drive down through the pass was truly spectacular.

Valdez itself is small and a little eccentric in many ways, a place where people get on with mainly fishing and whilst people are very welcoming of tourists, there is no real sense at all that they feel tourism is important to their economy.  

Valdez is also where the Alaska Oil Pipeline ends and the oil is shipped down south, which means there is a lot of oil based revenue produced that the town benefits from.

So it really didn’t take much time at all to see what there was to see on our first full day, which was also very wet, but there was a real treat to come.  During our pre-trip internet research, we had spotted a small daily boat tour of 5+ hours which received good reviews and the ‘5+’ description was important as we soon found out.  

When I say a small daily boat tour, when we boarded Lu Lu Belle at 10:45am on our second day, there were only 28 others with us, so nice and intimate.

Lu Lu Belle is the boat on left

Our Captain, Fred Rodoff took us through a general and safety briefing which was one of the funniest any of us had heard I’m sure, and then we headed out into Prince William Sound past the huge Valdez oil storage tanks and loading port.  Now Captain Fred talks with a very distinctive drawl where words seem to take forever to end and has a wickedly dry and politically incorrect sense of humour to go with it.

Well the tour was just great with numerous wildlife encounters like the sea otters bobbing around in the ocean, bald eagles, stellar sea lions, puffins, humpback whales and one so close we could smell how bad each blow was.  

Bald Eagle

Steller Sea Lions

Every now and again we were joined by Dall porpoises who charged around in the bow wake and there were numerous seals to be seen.

Dall Porpoises the pocket rockets

But then there was the Columbia Glacier!  One of Captain Fred’s claims is that he would get us closer to the glacier than anyone else, which is what he did by picking his way through the sea ice, sometimes with a bit of a crunch or bang, until we were sitting, engines off, around 800 m from the towering face.  Here we sat for an hour listening to all the creaking and cracking sounds until every now and again it would suddenly calve.

Columbia Glacier

We arrived back into port nearing 8:30pm, a good 9.5 hrs after we had departed and during this whole time, Captain Fred had kept everyone informed and amused with his non stop commentary.  He made every effort constantly to find wildlife and teach us about the Valdez area and its history including the impact of the 9.2 earthquake that destroyed the original Valdez in 1964.

We departed Valdez using the Alaska Marine Highway ferry for a 2.5 hr trip to Wittier, an even smaller town, sitting between the ocean and mountains, with only one road out of it.  The road out is unique because it requires driving through a 4 km tunnel, originally built for just the railway and now shared with the trains.  To make it a little more interesting, it's only one way at a time, so that means they have a timetable for using the tunnel.

Glacier after glacier after glacier is what we saw as we drove to our next accommodation in a little, and I do mean little, town called Hope.  Hope is located literally at the end of a road next to the the Turnagain Arm, a stretch of water named after Captain Cook who got lost in it in 1778 and had to ‘turnagain’.

Seaview Cafe - Hope, Alaska

Our accommodation in Hope was comfortable, but best described as rustic, as was most of Hope itself, with most of the original buildings still being used including the Seaside Cafe we had dinner in which still sports its original sign.  

Hope started life also due to gold in 1896, found a few years before the Klondike gold rush in the Yukon, and the town got its name when the prospectors in the area thought it was time to build a town and name it after the next person to arrive by boat.  Well a 17 year old by the name of Percy Hope was the next person to step off the boat so Hope was founded.

other people rafting like we did

We had booked a 3 hr rafting drift down the Kenai River, so found the operator in Cooper Landing, got kitted out with rubber boots, pants and coat, joined the other 4 tourists and off we bobbed peacefully down this very beautiful river.  

With salmon fishing also well underway on this river, as part of our 20 km journey included drifting past a 3 km line of people standing on both sides of the river trying to get salmon in what the locals call ‘combat fishing’.  

'combat' salmon fishing on Kenai River, Alaska

Whilst that was interesting enough, the thunderstorm looming up behind us and the occasional bolt of lightning nearby had everyone very focussed, even some bald eagles left the area.  

Down came the rain as we drifted further down the river and our guide even started rowing to get us all off the river.

From Hope we made our way to Seward, located on the coast and one of the towns the cruise ships visit.  Seward is a very pleasant town, well geared up for tourism and where most people take one of the numerous Kenai Fjord boat tours.   

Before we took ours, we also drove to and then took a short hike up to the side of Exit Glacier located only a few kms out of Seward.  We were back trudging around in bear country but at least we had plenty of other people around us.

Northwestern Glacier - Kenai Fjords, Alaska

Our boat cruise was 9 hrs long and again we saw Dall porpoises, humpbacks including one who decided to breech a few times close by which was a first for us, lots of birds including some rare ones which got 4 twitchers on board very excited, seal, otters and yet another glacier, the Northwestern Glacier.  

You would think by now we would be glaciered out but they are all different and this one was actually the prettiest glacier we have been to, almost intimate for something so big.  

Tufted Puffins

As we departed the glacier, at a specific spot, a visiting glacioligist had asked the skipper to perform a 360 degree manoeuvre so that all 5-6 glaciers and accompanying mountains in the area could be viewed.  

It was quite something as we did this twice because the skipper likes it so much and took video of one of the 360’s

With our Kenai circuit almost complete, we drove back into Anchorage to enjoy some time looking around and exploring this city and to achieve this, we hired some pushbikes and rode around for 3 hours.  

Bloody sore legs at the end of it though.  Tomorrow we catch a plane to our next destination and change of pace but that will have to wait until the next post.

There are more photos so just click on the link below:

CLICK HERE for more photos - The Kenai