On the way to Seward

I spent the morning in sheer bliss, wandering around the campground and Summit Lake, taking photos. I'm going to let them speak for themselves as I don't really have that much to say about them, except what might amount to photographer's notes. The weather was cloudy again, but it didn't diminish my happiness at being here.

Summit Lake reflections

Summit Lake Campground

Photographer's note: So the issue here is that I'd really like to have had a bit more of an angle on the bridge, but then more of the brilliant trees in the middle/background would have been hidden. This is all about compromise!

The tasty-looking berry at left and right actually is baneberry, which is highly poisonous. The one at left is masquerading as a high-bush cranberry, since it's stalk is poking through the innocuous cranberry's leaves. On the right, is the baneberry plant; the leaves do look quite different.

If one really knows what the cranberry berries look like, one would never confuse them, but it really pays to be alert if you're trying to live off the land. Supposedly they don't taste very good either; I did not experiment.

Fern growing in a bed of dwarf dogwood and moss.

I reveled in all the colorful parts of the forest, whether the plants were close to the ground and set off from the dark soil, or up in the trees, or farther off up the surrounding mountains.

So many colors: it's like an artist's palette

 While some plants are familiar to me now as plants of the boreal forest that I've been in for the past three months, there are some new ones. Instead of black and white spruce, now there is Sitka spruce. There's the nasty Devil's Club, and I think there is are some azaleas. Their leaves are also a rainbow of colors: green, brown and apricot. I'm running out of superlatives.

A carpet of dwarf dogwood

After several false starts, ("Oh, look at this..."), I tore myself away... I really did need to get going. Just a few miles down the road was the turnoff to Homer, which I intended to take in a few days. At the turnoff was a big lake, Tern Lake, and as I went past, I saw two white blobs that were too big to be terns. They were, indeed, trumpeter swans. 

Trumpeter swans

I screeched to a halt, found a spot to the side of the road where I could park the car, put on the blinkers, grabbed the camera, changed to the telephoto lens and sneaked up towards them. Fortunately there was a good screen of trees between the road and the lake. I gradually moved closer and closer, taking pictures all the while. You want to get close, but not so close that they are disturbed. 

As it was, they didn't seem to mind in the least, although I was very quiet and mostly hidden by the trees and bushes. 

Taking pictures of wildife is harder than taking pictures of stationary trees, obliging plants and massive mountains! The closer of the two swans never poked its head out from under its wing, and, of course, it had its ass end to me the whole time. It's not like you can politely tell it to wake up and turn around. The other swan was busy preening, tucking its bill under its wings, fluffing its feathers, pulling the feathers with its beak. It finally stretched its wings, and then started gliding around.

I had not realized how far back the legs are, or that a swan's neck is so long that it enables the bird to reach vegetation far under the surface, making the bird look like it's headless. Fascinating to watch!

Unfortunately, the weather was deteriorating (again). I seem to be on a one day marvelous, another day rainy, which kind of keeps one on one's toes. The clouds started to sock in, but the views were still wonderful since the cloud ceiling was still high enough that one could see the mountains and across the valley. The golden glow of the meadows, with the yellow cottonwoods contrasting against the dark green spruce... well, the scene will never get old.

Glaciers hide in the mountains on the way to Seward

It was raining by the time I did make it to Seward, which was something of a letdown. I stopped by the Kenai Fjords National Park Visitor Center, which is very small; kind of a hole in a wall. The Fjords don't really have a "main" area to visit, like Yosemite Valley. It's a big park, most of it only accessible by water or, I suppose, plane or helicopter, so I guess there's not much of a reason to have a large visitor center. I watched the introductory movie of beautiful photographs along with a very bouncy child and his grandparents (probably). Got my national parks passport stamped.

This is the National Parks centennial, so the stamp thing has sort of gotten out of control. Now they not only have a dated park stamp, but also a dated park centennial stamp. And now each visitor center has a separate stamp. In Denali, for instance, there was a stamp at the main Visitor Center, the Wilderness Center, the Murie Science Center, the dog kennels, and each of the visitor centers in the backcountry: Toklat, Eilson (and I'm sure Kantishna and Wonder Lake, which I did not get to). 

I wandered around Seward just a little, getting the lay of the land, but I didn't really want to get all that wet, so went looking for the library. As the gal in the Sea Center said, "You can't miss it, it's the purple building that looks like it has fish scales on it." That about described it. They were having a "Meet the Candidates" night in the community room, so it was a busy place. I'll comment on Alaskan politics some other time!

The library is new and has (or would have, had it been clear) gorgeous views of the mountains and sea. The fjords here have not filled up: they are still deep enough that fishing boats can get in and out, so it's a busy harbor, offering tours to see puffins and whales and more spectacular scenery. 

I can see why it would be a good place to kayak. The water is an almost lake-like calm. I've found places I'd like to go: Spires Cove and Bear Glacier Lagoon, which is one of the places where a glacier is calving off into the ocean. Pictures look amazing; I'm starting a new list!

Across the inlet from Seward

I didn't want to stay in town that night. It smelled palpably of fish, and seaweed, and damp, from both the rain and the ocean, so I high-tailed it back to the mountains for the night. I cannot say "no" to the lure of free camping in the mountains!

And as it turned out, that was a great decision!