This map below shows the Kenai Peninsula, which is a large area to the south of Anchorage. It's bounded on the south by the open Pacific Ocean, Prince William Sound to the east, the Cook Inlet to the west, and almost completely on the north by a deep bay off of the Cook Inlet to the south of Anchorage called Turnagain Arm.
Only a small bit of land connects the Kenai (pronounced like the words "keen-eye") Peninsula with the rest of Alaska. There is one highway from Anchorage to the peninsula, called the Seward Highway. This runs along the northern shore of Turnagain Arm (which I will describe in another blog entry) and down into the Kenai Mountains which, in turn, run down the eastern half of the peninsula. From there, the highway splits into the Sterling Highway which heads west to the Cook Inlet shore and down through several towns to the city of Homer and the other extension (which is still called the Seward Highway) that goes to the city of Seward on Prince William Sound to the east. Homer is some 220 miles from Anchorage by road and it takes 4.5-5 hours to drive there. This meant going there and back would be an all-day trip.South of Turnagain Arm, the road enters the Kenai Mountains. These are more or less a subrange of the Chugach Mountains, except for the fact that the Kenais are lower and run north-south to the Chugachs' east-west.
Though they're not a very "spectacular" mountain range, the Kenai Mountains do provide a few sweeping vistas. I'm surprised that the road, which crosses the entire range, has very little in the way of hills or elevation gain--it stays relatively level. The mountains give way to dense forests in the foothills as you head further west. Two rivers in this area--the Kenai River and the Russian River--are very, very popular fishing locations. In fact, fly fishing on the Kenai and Russian Rivers is one of the biggest tourist attractions in Alaska. Several local companies along this road advertise fishing tours and outfitting. There are several lakes on the peninsula, too, including Kenai Lake (everything is named Kenai...) and Skilak Lake. The Sterling Highway actually crosses Kenai Lake at a place called Coopers Landing.
I was surprised how busy traffic was on the road, particularly around the Coopers Landing area. Then again, what better way to spend the 4th of July than going camping and fishing. We soon exited the mountains and went across the large, tree-covered plain that is the western Kenai Peninsula. We passed through the small town of Sterling, for which the highway is named. The highway, though, goes right on through Sterling to the city of Soldotna. Soldotna is the seat of the Kenai Peninsula Borough and has around 7,000 residents, making it a fairly large city by Alaskan standards. I seemed a lot like any other town you'd find anywhere else in the US, complete with fast food and chain stores. Of course, being way out on that plain and the Cook Inlet shore and far from the mountains made the backdrop very different from what we're used to in Alaskan cities. This made it all the more normal-looking...
We detoured north to the neighboring (and almost as large) city of Kenai (yes, everything is still named Kenai) since that's where the "Anchorage" weather radar is located, and I wanted a photo of it for my presentation. Though it had taken us almost two hours from Anchorage to get this far, most of that drive was to head far east and then far back west again to get around Turnagain Arm. As such, the Soldotna-Kenai area isn't really that far from Anchorage as the crow flies. We managed to find the radar and also spent half an hour bypassing downtown Kenai where they had their Fourth of July parade going on. We stopped for lunch at an Arby's and then continued south along the coast.We started being able to see mountains across the Cook Inlet. These mountains were some of the great volcanoes of Alaska that make up the Aleutian Range. Whenever you hear about volcanoes erupting and causing problems in Alaska, it's usually one of these ones. As many of you know, for the last few months, concern has centered around a volcano called Mount Redoubt that briefly erupted in March and has been steaming ever since. Since this is such a well-known volcano (and because it was actually steaming and semi-active) we wanted to get a photo of it. I had heard that the Clam Gulch State Recreation Area offered good views of the mountain across the inlet, so when we came to that area on the highway I turned in and we walked down to the beach. There, across the bay, was the Mount Redoubt Volcano. To us it was as plain as ever and rather vivid. However, it was a somewhat hazy day and, to the camera, it didn't look like anything much. There is a massive, steaming volcano in the center of this photo:
Can you see it? Don't worry if you can't--I really can't either. So I fiddled around with my limited photo editing tools and adjusted the contrast and the color levels and whatnot and this was the best I could do:
I'm sure it could be made better, but that's the best I'm going to be able to give you. At least you can somewhat make out the volcano and the steam plume rising up. To us standing on the beach, it was as clear as day. I don't know what my camera was picking up, but it did not like the haze. The beach itself was made up of a very fine particulate sand that was actually mostly volcanic ash.
There were many small stones mixed in, but for the most part it was all volcanic ash. Volcanic ash isn't really like "ash" as we normally think about it--it's small pieces of rock that make a very, very fine and soft sand. Imagine getting tons of sand dumped on your house or car and you'll get an idea of what a volcanic ash fall is like. It's a very common thing to find in Alaska, and you can see evidence of recent volcanic activity everywhere. Tons of ash were released into the air during the March eruption of Mount Redoubt and you can see what likes like dirty patches on the ice and snow near the tops of many mountains in the Kenai Range and beyond. These patches are from the ashfall that spread out over the area from that eruption. There are entire seas of sand dunes in parts of Alaska that are all volcanic ash. Quite the sight. To see what an ashfall looks like, I can direct you to http://pafc.arh.noaa.gov/stories/2009/webcam-homer-Apr04-1.html. This is an animation of webcam images taken from near Homer on the day of the eruption and compiled into a Flash animation by someone at the Anchorage forecast office. The full write up (with more webcam images and some other satellite and radar views of the eruption) can be found at http://pafc.arh.noaa.gov/stories/viewer.php?pId=Redoubt&year=2009. In the first video that I linked to, the sun comes up at the beginning and there's snow already on the ground. The day continues normally until around the time 1530Z when the volcano erupts. This sent an ash cloud tens of thousands of feet into the air which then moved over Homer. If you go frame by frame you can see the pitch black and completely opaque ash cloud move over the city, totally blocking out the sun. Then, all the ash just falls out at once in a big "whoosh" almost. It almost looks like a very brief, heavy snowfall--you can see on the roofs how before they were mostly clear, but after they are covered with white poweder. Then the cloud moves on or dissipates and the city is left with what looks like a fresh dusting of snow--but it's that sand-like volcanic ash. Pretty amazing.
The volcano didn't re-erupt while were there, and no one was that concerned about it. A lot of people had driven their trucks out onto the beach and were spending the 4th of July there. It was a very pleasant beach--the volcanic ash sand was very fine and soft and the water wasn't that cold either. I wouldn't have minded spending more time there. But, it was already nearly 3 in the afternoon and we still weren't at Homer. So we moved on.
The road continued south, weaving close to and away from the coast. I haven't done much coastal driving in my many driving adventures, so I rather enjoyed this. We passed through the small town of Ninilchik. Despite having a weather station that I've been using in some of my studies, Ninilchik is home to the Kenai Peninsula Regional Fairgrounds and Rodeo, as well as an old Russian Orthadox Church that has been around since the time when Alaska was Russian territory. We didn't see the church, but many people take a small trip to stop and see it. An hour south of Clam Gulch we got to the top of the bluffs overlooking Kachemak Bay and the city of Homer. This was the view.
Once again, the haziness contributes to the washed-out look of the background. The Kenai Mountains, which had been running along the eastern, opposite coast of the peninsula from us, swing across the southern end of the Kenai Peninsula just south of Homer. The body of water between the bluffs we were on top of and the Kenai Mountains out there is called Kachemak Bay. To the right of this photo is the end of the Cook Inlet and the open waters of the Pacific Ocean. On a clear day, looking in that direction usually gives good views of the Iliamna and Mount Augustine volcanoes. We could actually see them through the haze and I took picures, but try as I might I can't cut through the haze on the photos. So we're left with the city of Homer and its "spit" which is a large sandbar 5 miles long sticking out into Kachemak Bay. You can just see it out in the water in the center of this photo. That's where we were headed.
The city of Homer has a reputation as one of the quaintest, most "Alaskan" cities you will find. It is known as a haven for "hippies" and supposedly supports many arts colony sorts of establishments. It also bills itself as the "Halibut Fishing Capital of the World." The father of one of my roommates, who had been to Alaska before, said that Homer was "better than Denali (Mount McKinley)" as an attraction. A lot of people speak highly of the town. I'll give it a lot for its scenic beauty and overall pleasantness. It didn't seem very eccentric to me. But we headed into town. Downtown Homer is actually on the mainland and it's much like the downtown of any resort town with its shops and local groceries and restaurants. If we had had more time, I would have liked to explore that area more. However, we drove straight through to the start of the Spit.
Starting down the Spit, we drove two miles on what amounts to a causeway with water on both sides. The tide was low when we were there so it looked very muddy and the smell of dead fish was quite prominent. After those two miles, we got into the buildings, stores and docks at the end of the spit. These demand some detail, so there will be several pictures. First we drove all the way to the end of the Spit, which is, by most accounts the "end" of the paved highway system in North America. You can go no further south in Alaska and no further west on (paved) roads. There is a resort at the end of the road fittingly called "Lands End".
We parked near there and started walking back down the Spit. First thing we came across was the massive Homer harbour with all of its boats. I seem to remember putting together many jigsaw puzzles that looked like this...
While many of these boats are the property of people who have vacation homes in Homer, a lot are commercial fishing boats and many belong to fishing charter companies, of which there are many located right on the Spit. You can call ahead or come out early in the day and get on an all-day halibut fishing trip with one of the groups there. They'll provide all the equipment and explain to you what to do. Most will also offer to clean any fish you catch as well, so at the end of the day you can walk away with fresh packages of halibut fillets from what you caught that day. In fact, by the time we got there late in the afternoon, many of the charters were beginning to come in and the fish cleaning process had begun. Here you can see the workers outside one of these charter places preparing to clean the day's catch of halibut.
Halibut are large fish--most people catch ones around 30-50 pounds, but they can get up to over 200 pounds and be up to 7 feet long. Homer has an ongoing competition every year to see who can catch the largest halibut that year. The winner gets something like $30,000 dollars. Everyone is eligible, so any time any of the charters come back with an extremely large catch, they immediately bring it in to weigh it before it starts drying out. Because Alaskan law defines the "catcher" of a fish to be the person who is operating the pole that first hooks the fish and not the person who actually brings it in, there can be interesting circumstances--like how recently a 200+ pound halibut was "caught" by a 6 year old girl. All she had to do was hook it and it was hers--before three or four other adults took over trying to haul the thing in. Lots of fishing stories are made here, I'm sure...Also, in case you were wondering, all of these buildings on such a narrow strip of sand are a risk from tsunamis or large waves, which can occur from the earthquakes up here. Thus, in case people were unsure where to go with only one road on the spit, that road is indeed a "Tsunami Evacuation Route." I enjoy the stylized monstrous wave on the sign...
As I said, the one street is lined with lots of charter fishing "huts," but also several restaurants and gift stores. Here we are looking down the spit towards the mainland. It's rather narrow and most of these buildings are supported by stilts on the water side.
I draw your attention to the lighthouse building further down the spit. This place is called the Salty Dawg Saloon and is the "most famous" or "most photographed" building in Homer. So they say.
The saloon is a bar, of course, but it is made up of a mishmash of old buildings from Homer's history. The lighthouse, with its new shingles on the outside, used to be a water tower for the city way back when. The smaller building to the front apparently was once the post office, and later a school, mining outfitter, fishing cabin, and a bunch of other things before it was moved and attached to the saloon. There are two other small buildings attached on the back side as well with their own history. The ceilings are very low inside and it was completely full when we got there. The inside is covered with a lot of one-dollar bills that are all signed by various people and pinned to the walls. As the story goes, once several years ago a fisherman who was having a drink at the bar took out a dollar bill, signed it, and pinned it to the wall saying that a friend of his was coming in later and he wanted to buy this friend a drink but he had to go, so this was for his friend's drink. Since then it has been tradition for all visitors to go to the saloon, sign a dollar bill and pin it to the wall. Unfortunately, there were those in our group who didn't want to go in and get a drink and do all of this, so we moved along.
There are lots of little shops like that one that are really no more than small shacks. That one happened to have a group of musicians out front playing sea shanties. This was, I think, the closest we came to radical, hippy sort of people we are told are in the city. We're convinced that, based on all of the stories we've heard about there being all of these quaint locals, that they were just all in hiding for the fourth of July or something. Anyhow, there are scattered collections of these buildings all up and down the end of the Spit. Like I said, most are on stilts on the ocean side.
In between the collections of buildings are rows and rows and rows of RVs and tents on the side of the road. Apparently it's a really big thing for people to "camp out" on the Homer Spit. I suppose there is a certain novelty to that.
We got ice cream at this one shop and I bought post cards in another. Only one person in our group was really hungry, and she half-heartedly suggested stopping at this restaurant. I was very, very pleased that no one else was in the mood to stop and eat there.
However, we had two people who had come off of working midnight shifts at the forecast office the night before and people also wanted to get back that night to see the Anchorage fireworks. So, we didn't stick around much longer. We headed back off the spit into downtown Homer, which looks like this as you come in from the spit. Like I said, a very scenic, pleasant little town on the bluffs. I would have liked to explore more and see what that whole area of town outside the Spit was like, but we needed to be heading back.
The drive back went a lot faster than the drive going out, mostly because we only stopped once for food and gas and everyone seemed more talkative on the way back. I rather enjoyed the trip, even if it was rather whirlwind. I also enjoyed being out of sight of the mountains for a while. I hadn't realized how accustomed I had become to them and how consciously different the landscape seems without them. I have lived pretty much all of my life out of sight of mountains and it just feels slightly more right to me. So, heading back we went though all of the towns we went through going out, only in reverse (there's only one road, after all). We entered the Kenai Mountains again and returned to Anchorage by 11 PM. The fireworks were supposed to be at midnight, but everyone fell asleep anyhow, so all I did was do some reading in my room and listen to the booms that were pleasantly far away.
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