Glaciers and orcas and sea otters, oh my!

We've spent the last 10 days on the Kenai peninsula - an easy drive south of Anchorage (its about 5 hours from Anchorage to to Homer, less to Seward). We read somewhere that it is one of the most visited areas in Alaska by both Alaskans and tourists. Justifiably so. The mountains climb straight out of the sea and though they aren't that tall (the highest is 4,990 feet), glaciers are around every corner. On the map to the left, the huge white area is the Harding Icefiled (30 miles wide by 50 miles long), from which several glaciers descend towards the sea.

First we drove to Seward (on the eastern side of the peninsula). We set up camp for several nights near there at Primrose Campground and made daily trips into Seward for a variety of adventures. We visited the Alaska Sealife Center - awesome exhibits and a sea lion named Woody who we could've watched swim around for hours. Another day we took a hike to Exit Glacier where we got to walk within feet of the glacier (and hike through areas that the glacier covered as recently as 1998). Global warming anyone? On the 12th we splurged on a 6-hour glacier and wildlife cruise to Aialik, Pederson, and Holgate Glaciers.

Carissa and Rich in front of (part of) Aialik Glacier.

We saw lots of wildlife:

sea otter chillin'

Orca whales froliking

We also got to watch an massive piece of Aialik Glacier, which is about 1-mile wide where it meets the sea, calve into the ice-filled bay. We attempted to take some videos, here's our best one (unfortunately this was taken about 30 seconds before the really big piece broke off - about 10 times the size of the piece in this video).

Homer, on the south-western tip of the peninsula, was our next destination - a 6 hour drive from Seward. After many drizzly days enjoyed the beautiful sunny driving day which afforded us views of the volcanoes Mt. Redoubt and Mt. Iliamna across Cook Inlet as we drove down the coast, and of Grewingk Glacier and the mountains surrounding Kachemak Bay and Homer.

Homer had a great vibe, though we admit the increase in sunshine we found here compared with Seward probably swayed our view of the city. Some of our favorite things: yummy snacks and beverages at the Two Sisters Bakery; wine tasting at Bear Creek Winery; hiking to Grewingk Lake in Kachemak Bay State Park. Bear Creek Winery does an amazing job of making wines using local ingredients such as the berries and vegetables that grow in Alaska - such as rasperberries, blueberries, and rhubarb. Some of their wines are blended using grape concentrate from other regions of the world. One example is their yummy Alaskan Chardonnay, a mix of rhubarb wine and Australian Chardonnay that even Carissa (who doesn't like the dry bite of Chardonnay) thought was delish. Our favorite of their wines was called Lo Lo Berry, a combination of Italian Barolo and local cranberries. Yum.

On our last day in the area we hired a water taxi to drop us off across Kachemak Bay at the Grewingk Glacier trailhead. The weather was perfect and the hike was awesome - it meandered through dense temperate rainforest covered in thick green mosses and along rocky moraine (the rocky remains left when a glacier recedes) to the lake. Here are some of our favorite pictures:

View across Kachemak Bay from the end of the Homer spit.

Beautiful skies in the small-boat harbor in Homer before our taxi ride across Kachemak Bay.

Rich on the hand tram over the Grewingk river.

Carissa on the same hand tram (and the view back to the launching pad).

Grewingk Glacier and Grewingk Lake.

Zombie salmon iceberg in Grewingk Lake.

Carissa and Rich at Grewingk Lake (Grewingk Glacier in the background).

We're back in Anchorage this evening - we have begun working our way back through the Yukon to catch our ferry from Haines, AK to Vancouver Island next Sunday Sept. 27th.

Musk Ox Farm

Many apologies for the long time since our last post. Our time has been unglamorously filled with the trials of travel--where to eat, where to sleep, etc...

The rest is butter and in that category falls visiting a Musk Ox farm. Musk Ox are more closely related to sheep and goats than cattle or buffalo, but they have a very rugged look. Outside of Palmer, Alaska (near Anchorage) there is a farm where these creatures are raised for their wool, named qiviut (pronounced ki-vee-yute), which is 8-times warmer than sheep's wool and softer than cashmere (and pricier, too!).

Little Man the Musk Ox (not our name for him)

The male pictured above, Little Man, is twelve years old, about 4-feet tall at the shoulder, and weighs ~500 pounds. The little guy pictured next to Rich is a year old.

Musk Ox have been raised in captivity/domesticated for qiviut production only since the 1960s, so the level of tameness between individuals. Being well behaved is an important trait for these captive Musk Ox because these animals are not sheared for their qiviut; instead it is combed out manually by a human while the animal (hopefully) stands quietly in a chute. This can take many hours depending on the animal or region from which the qiviut is being combed.

Once collected a Native Alaskan cooperative, Oomingmak, knits the qiviut into hats, scarves and other garments, so they can augment their livelihoods in some very remote parts of Alaska.

Denali National Park

We got the heck out of Anchorage (which, as far as we can tell, is a pretty sketchy town) and drove the 4 hours to Denali National Park. As we passed through scenic Wasila, we couldn't help berating John McCain and his campaign advisors.

We spent 2 relaxing days car-camping at Riley Creek campground in Denali National Park while plotting our attack on the Denali backcountry. On Sept 4th we jumped aboard the 'camper bus' headed towards Wonder Lake - 86 miles down the only road running through Denali. Six hours, 5 bears, and several Dall sheep and caribou later we hopped off the bus, picked up our bags, and set off to find our a place to sleep for the night. We found a gorgeous spot:

View of McKinley (tallest peak in North America) from our tent front door.

Carissa at the cook site (above) and the view of McKinley from the cook site (below).

Rich pumping water for breakfast at Moose Reflection Pond.

Moose Reflection Pond (which according to maps is a little blip without a name) is so called because shortly after this picture was taken we were kicked out of the area by a massive bull moose and his two lady friends. At their closest they were about 50 yards from us. Moose -who can weigh up to 1600 pounds- have a large sense of personal space, and can be particularly aggressive during mating season (when we were in Denali; we think we overheard and witnessed some shenanigans of this sort).

Moose quenching their thirst in Moose Reflection Pond after we skedaddled.

Later on the 5th we rode the camper bus to the Toklat River where we began our 4-day circumnavigation of Cabin Mountain in the Polychrome mountains area of Denali. We were really lucky and had awesome clear weather (except for a brief rainstorm on the 2nd night) although we had some chilly nights that left us with ice on the tent in the morning.

We avoided any encounters with bears perhaps at least in part because we were shouting"hey bear" every few seconds while tramping through thick brush (in an attempt not to surprise/get eaten by a bear; see previous post about Bearanoia). We did have some fun wildlife events: 2 wolves ran through our camp as we were setting up on the 1st night; in the middle of the 2nd night something snorted loudly at us (we laid very still and hoped it would ignore us - it did); and we saw lots of Dall sheep, in particular a 3-some that covered an area it took us 2 hours to cross in about 10 minutes, resulting in a bit of Dall sheep envy.

We also got lots of practice at crossing very cold rivers (36F). Fortunately at this time of year they aren't that deep (nothing over mid-thigh on Carissa). However, crossing 36F river water at 9am in frozen boots feels pretty much the same as walking with a refrigerator on your feet - it took hours to get warm toes back.

Sadly, the backpacking came to an end and we left Denali for Anchorage (and a few final travel vaccinations). Here are some pictures:

We're off to Exit Glacier and Seward on the Kenai Peninsula now!

We made it to Anchorage!

We had a great drive on the the Alaska (or Al-Can) Highway: we saw lots of wildlife, soaked in hot springs, and camped in beautifully remote locations. And didn't get eaten by any bears along the way.

We're leaving for Denali National Park in a few minutes, and will be camping and backpacking for about a week. We promise to update the blog with more pictures and exciting tales of the travels of Rich and Carissa then.

Itinerary - what we think we'll do

This is the list of places we think we'll be going in the next 9 months.  I'm going to leave this post un-edited to see how this actually turns our.  Look for another Itinerary post soon listing where we have actually been to see how close we come to our plans.


Road-trip portion of SimLieb World Tour
Lower 48 – Glacier National Park
Canada – Waterton Lakes, Banff, Jasper, Alaska-Canada highway
Alaska –Denali National Park, Kenai Peninsula, Kodiak Island
Hawaii – big island, Kauai, maui

Countries we think we'll visit:
South Africa
Namibia
Botswana
Zambia
Zimbabwe
Malawi
Mozambique?
Tanzania – including trip to Zanzibar
Kenya
Uganda
Rwanda
Singapore
Vietnam
Laos
Cambodia
Thailand?
Indonesia
Australia – visit Rich’s Aunt Aileen and cousins in Melbourne; drive Darwin to Adelaide
New Zealand