Alaska

After finishing my work in Anchorage I picked up Zane (15) at the airport and took off for a three-day multi-sport adventure. We were bound for Seward, which is about two hours to the southeast, and though we didn’t get on the road until about 9 there was still enough light left to enjoy the scenery as we drove along the shore of the Turnagain Arm for the first hour. In Seward we stayed in a B&B built in a refurbished Odd Fellows Hall. Our room had a log bed and a loft with a futon. The next morning we went down to the harbor and had breakfast in a funky café in an old train car. We felt we needed more than the continental breakfast at the B&B to get us through our day of hiking on the Exit glacier. This picture shows a shot from the road as we approached the parking lot near the foot of the glacier, which is about ten minutes from Seward.

We spent the first hour hiking up about a thousand feet to where we could strap on our crampons and head out onto the ice.

What a blast – just dig in your toes and you can climb like Spiderman! We spent a couple hours exploring different aspects of the glacier, including roaring streams of water running down the middle of the ice field, deep holes where waterfalls dropped into darkness, and endless little ice formations carved by the sun and flowing water, such as the pools in this picture.


The glacier was definitely the highlight of the trip for Zane, shown here as ‘King of the Hill’.















Day two we hopped on one of the many glacier tour boats heading for Kenai Fjords National Park, which dropped us off about 20 miles out of Seward on Fox Island, where we were starting our sea kayaking trip. Zane and I shared a two-person kayak, and had a great time just hugging the rocks along the shore watching the Puffins and other birds hanging out on the cliffs. We stopped for lunch in the little cove in this picture.




We had heard there were Chum salmon running in a creek in a nearby cove, and people had reported seeing bears snacking away, so after lunch we went bear hunting – cameras only. It was hard to get a good picture – too busy watching the bears – but this is a pretty good look at one of the two black bears that were sitting at the mouth of the creek munching salmon. The end of the cove where the creek entered was thick with fish, if you slapped the water with your paddle they would all boil like a school of bait fish, awesome! (Bear in ferns at the right)


After our day of kayaking we caught a boat back to Seward, and then drove about an hour over to Cooper Landing on the Kenai River, in the heart of one of the most amazing fishing regions I have ever seen. After getting some dinner we decided to do some exploring and took a drive along a creek feeding into the Kenai. The Reds (Sockeye) were stacked up like cord wood, bright red and pairing up over anything that resembled gravel. A few places had so many dead (i.e. rotting) fish on the shore that the smell was overwhelming, so we had to keep moving. The next morning we met our guide for our drift trip through the canyon, which included an 8-mile stretch of the river that runs through a road-less area with restricted drift access. We were paired up with two more fishermen, another dad and his high school son from San Diego. We had barely left the launch site when the first fish hit. It was a nice Dolly Varden, about 15 inches or so.




We were using a single pink glass bead with a hook hanging about an inch below on a piece of heavy tippet. I quickly learned that the technique was essentially the same as that used for nymphing on the Deschutes, including the use of a substantial strike indicator. I was using my 9.5 ft., 6 wt. Sage XP, it was the perfect rod. The Kenai flows into Skilak lake, which is about 16 miles long, on its way to the coast, and during the salmon runs the big trout move out of the lake and into the river to snack on salmon flesh and roe. The scenery was amazing, and once we got into the road-less stretch there were few other fishermen. The only crowd was all of the spawners we were wading through to get to the good fishing spots.




The closer we got to the lake the bigger the fish were. It was unbelievable fishing, I think my best stretch was a hatrick: three casts, three fish, all over 20 inches. After a while I started to be able to get the feel of the different fish, the Dolly’s would grab the fly and bulldog down into the deep current. The Redsides would grab it and run, and you could feel them shaking their heads as they fought to get off.




By the time we got to Skilak Lake it was getting late, but Zane hooked one last fish so we had to wait. Of course this would prove to be the big one, taking most of the backing off his reel before he started to gain line back. We finally boated Zane’s fish and got one last fish photo.




All of the trout fishing in this stretch of the river is catch and release, so they will all be there to fight another day. We then sat back and motored for about 45 minutes to the boat ramp. Although it’s a huge lake there are only a couple of dirt roads for access, making for a pretty pristine environment.



Next day we headed back for Anchorage to catch our flight back home. Driving back in the daylight allowed us to enjoy the scenery, and a special treat was watching the Belugas frolic in the water as we drove along the coast heading into town.