Turnagain: Arm to Pass

Days are alternating between gorgeous and a miserable. Such is life on the road, in the fall, in Alaska. I'm loving the beautiful days, though... it's making everything worthwhile, and I'm treasuring them while they last.

Turnagain Arm, with the tide coming in

Morning dawned... clear.  I headed out early to take advantage of the weather.

Potter's Marsh

Potter's Marsh is a wildlife refuge, south of Anchorage on the way out to the Kenai Peninsula. There were nice tables there, so I had a welcome hot breakfast after the previous night's wet, wild weather.

The marsh is just outside of Anchorage, so it gets a good deal of attention and love, and is a good place for kids to experience wildlife. There are extensive boardwalks in several directions, and kids can run along the boardwalks and enjoy the wildlife without their parents worrying about the falling into mud or water, or getting too close to a bear or moose. I didn't check, but I think the railings are the governmentally proscribed four inches apart so that babies won't fall through. Presumably bear won't get in either, although they could walk along the boardwalks just like everyone else.

Potter's Marsh

Wigeons, again, I think.

During the time I was there, I didn't see a whole lot of wildlife. Maybe it was too late in the morning, maybe the birds have already flown south, or maybe I just don't have the greatest eyeballs for seeing birds. I did see some wigeons, and some sandpipers of some sort, but they were low in the water and behind the tufts of grasses, so it was tough to see them.

Plus, the light is getting low in the sky, so there were deep shadows on the birds that I did see, which didn't make for the greatest photography.

Nonetheless, I did enjoy my time walking on the boardwalks and futilely looking for songbirds in the willows and waterfowl in the marsh grasses.

It was just nice to get out and enjoy the sunshine, blue sky and lovely scenery of gold and green marsh grasses.

Two young trumpeter swans

Going on a little further along the road, I did spot some young swans, which I was quite excited about. I've been looking for trumpeter swans this whole trip, and even though I've seen some single swans from far away, I haven't been able to get any pictures or even stop to watch them.

The gray plumage of these young birds — not cygnets, but definitely not adults — did make them difficult to spot, so I was pretty overjoyed to see them, get some pictures and watch them preening for a bit.

 However, I told myself that if I was EVER going to get on the Kenai, I'd better leave and not watch swans all day!

There is always something else to see around the next bend!

Turnagain Arm

The Kenai Peninsula is known as "Alaska in Miniature" or "Anchorage's Playground" because there is so much to do there (mountaineering! fishing! hunting! kayaking! hiking! bicycling!), and it's all relatively close to the city. And the scenery is gorgeous. There's something for everyone: sea, estuaries, fjords and mountains, glaciers and tundra, lakes, rivers and fish. It's an amazing place.

Looking back across the inlet back towards Mt Susitna, aka "The Sleeping Lady"

Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet is so named because Captain Cook, in his quest for the Northwest Passage, had to "turn again" when the way closed up as so many others had and wasn't what he was searching for.

There are broad flats filled with glacial silt, and, due to the "bathtub effect,"  the tidal swing here can be as much as 38 feet. It used to have a respectable tidal bore that people could surf on, but the 1964 earthquake changed the dynamics of the water flow, so it's not quite as dramatic as before, although some strong tides apparently do still have a respectable bore. (Supposedly the incoming tidal bores on Sept. 20 & 21 are supposed to be very strong; might check that out!)

Low tide near the sea end of Turnagain Arm

There is something to see at every turn of the road, and fortunately the road builders have made lots of turnouts, and, for once I was on the correct side of the road for making lots of stops. This made me very happy, and I think I went all of twenty miles in six hours.

Steep mountainsides with fall color

This place is just achingly beautiful.

Fall colors spill down the steep mountainsides near the road, and on the other side, there were bright reflections on the glassy flats. The sky was brilliant blue, with white cloud puffs. It just doesn't get any better.

At one of the roadside pullouts, there was a guy with a trailered fishing boat. The boats I've seen on this road are seriously big for trailered boats (at least to me). He was crossing the road with a big blue five-gallon carboy, and I realized that he was filling up on water from a spring flowing from the mountain. Someone had put in a pipe, making it quite easy to fill up from the spitting pipe.

I felt so "in the know" when I went to fill up my puny 1/2-gallon recycled milk cartons. It's great water, and I've marked the place to fill up again on my way back.

I may have mentioned this before, but good water is actually a little hard to come by out in the wilds. In campgrounds, pumps are "weatherized" (i.e., turned off) after Labor Day in anticipation of the cold weather, and the water from those sources never seemed all that great to me, anyway. And they often warn that the water still needs to be boiled/treated before use. So finding a spring source was like gold.

Looking across the tidal flats to the other side of Turnagain Arm

Falls Creek

Falls Creek

Another time, I took the opportunity to pull over on the mountain side of the road at Falls Creek, where a creek was tumbling down through the forest.

It was so pretty, and I haven't seen many — well, any — cascades like this for a long time. The interior is really too dry and doesn't have enough relief to have waterfalls. (Not that I'm complaining about this!)

Another truck was parked there, and as I was trying to get a good shot of the foaming water, I saw two people coming carefully down the steep trail. They each had a pail of cranberries!

I decided I'd take just a small walk up the trail a bit and try to get a better picture. There's one thing about sun: it does create some problems in photography, creating harsh shadows and high contrast, which is not always what one wants!

It was a pretty trail, and I probably would have gone further if there had been someone else along with me. As it was I didn't go far as I was nervous about bears, especially knowing that there really were lots of tasty berries up ahead!

Devil's Club berries

It was interesting to hike in this forest. Southwest Alaska is full of microclimates that create different zones where different plants like to live.

For instance, on this trip I hadn't yet come across the very nasty "Devil's Club" yet, which I remember with such loathing from hikes in British Columbia in 1976.

Unfortunately, I'm back in a similar climate (wetter, more temperate), and I've made it's reacquaintance.

Devil's Club leaf

Devil's Club could be a pretty plant, and, to the uninitiated, it looks harmless enough. It has big leaves that might look like giant maple leaves that can be a foot across. Now they are turning yellow, so really brighten up the forest floor, almost glowing in the sun.

In the spring, they sprout sprays of white flowers, which now, in the fall, turn to big sprays of bright red (inedible, for us) berries that are quite beautiful.

They also have horrible, nasty prickers everywhere: on their fat, woody stems (thus the name "club") and even on the underside of the leaves. They make hiking through the underbrush a miserable experience, and if nothing else, they encourage one to stay on the trail.

If anything would convince me to carry a machete, it would be this plant.

I soon turned back, as the underbrush, combined with the steep trail, made it difficult to see ahead, and I didn't want to surprise any bears all by myself.

I kept stopping, as each place offered something new and wonderful. Perhaps on the way back I'll hike at Bird Creek, which looked popular (lots of cars parked), and a quick glance up the canyon showed spectacular peaks, more fall color in the canyon, and a relatively open valley.

At Upper Bird Creek, there were abundant orange ripe cranberries, sometimes with accompanying brilliant red foliage, other time with green leaves.

Highbush cranberries

I'm not sure which I like better!

Honestly, by this time I was pretty much speechless and inebriated with beauty, with a huge smile on my face and, if you'd seen me, I might have been dancing.

Beluga Point

I stopped at Beluga Point and hiked out to the viewpoints and read all the informative signs.

The tide was just turning, and it was incredible to see it come in so fast. There wasn't a tidal bore per se, but there was a

They warn people not to go out on the flats, as the glacial silt can act like quicksand and suck you down. And the tide comes in relentlessly, almost like a tsunami.

It would be interesting to do a time-lapse series of photographs of the tide coming in. As it is, you can see it inexorably creeping in — the water level along the shore rises noticeably, and the flats change from mud and sand to water in the space of minutes.

Tide just turning at Beluga Point. In an hour, most of the flats will be covered with water.

Look in the exact center for a white spot. It's a beluga!

I kept leapfrogging with a group of Asian tourists in a handicapped (? sorry if that's un-PC) van. There were two women in wheelchairs, one on crutches, and three men who were fully able, manhandling the wheelchairs and doing the driving. It was so sweet to see them get the women loaded in the van, then pull down the ramp and wheel the chairs up into the back. They had it down to a science! Everyone was so enthusiastic and smiling, but then, how could one not be?

As the tide came in, I was utterly thrilled to see some of the fabled beluga whales!

It wasn't one of those smack-you-over-the-head sightings, as you could just barely see them under the water. Then there would be a ripple, followed by a puff of vapor from their blowholes. Impossible to take pictures, as then they would submerge, and come up again somewhere else, a long way from where you'd seen them last. They really did follow closely behind the incoming tide.

I hadn't known that much about beluga whales before this. The are relative small whales, and almost pure white. They are endangered, and are now protected from hunting, even subsistence hunting. The Cook Inlet belugas are "genetically distinct" from other belugas found in the Bering Sea and in Russia, so are at some risk because their population is so small, and because they don't interbreed with others. Unlike other whales, they actually prefer the silty water of these northern marine estuaries. Natives here hunted them respectfully, using upside-down tree stumps (with the trunks firmly planted in the glacial silt) as hunting platforms to spear the whales as they swam by. That's about the extent of my beluga-knowledge.

All smiles, taken by a friendly photographer

Good grief, how could it possibly get any better?

Oh, but it does. As the road winds gently uphill, glaciers begin to come into view. They're everywhere!

The tide is just beginning to come in, but rising rapidly.  

I played with the idea of heading up to Aleyeska, but decided at my slow pace that I might have to leave this for another time, as I really wanted to keep going further on the Kenai.

I did, but slowly, savoring every moment. At the 20-Mile River, I got out and sneaked across the railroad tracks to get some particularly fine gold cottonwoods.

Near the 20-Mile River 

Color along the road

Now, you have to understand that getting spectacular photos actually isn't all that easy, for all that beauty is everywhere. The spectacularly brilliant trees can be too far from the road to convey that mass of gold you think you're seeing; if you get too close to them, they obscure the view of the mountains behind them. The sun can go behind a cloud, thus making them appear dull gold, not bright yellow. When you're on the road, they are easier to see because there's nothing in front of them and you're up high in the vehicle. By the time you get somewhere to park, you're down low again, and either the road is in front of the picture (not very interesting), or you're too close again. It can sometimes be frustrating, but eventually I have been getting some good shots.

And I had one particular mishap when I tried to get over a guard rail. For a short person, guard rails can be, uh, too tall for one's legs. Coming back, my boot caught on the sharp edge and sent me sprawling. Fortunately, the camera suffered only some scratches, and seems to be working okay. Me, too, although I was embarrassed and a bit shaken up.

Near Turnagain Pass

The road winds gently upward, until it finally reaches Turnagain Pass, at an altitude of about 1,000 feet. For someone who is used to Sierra passes at 6,000 to 12,000 feet, this seems really, really low, but for all that, the treeline is just above.

Near Turnagain Pass

Sinking into the moss and crowberries.

There was a good turnout here, and I headed cross-country up the hillside, hoping to get a picture that might show the grandeur that was all around me.

It is surprisingly difficult to hike through this country, for all that it appears open and smooth. Once I had scrambled through the dense willows that grabbed at my hair and left leaf debris and made it to the upper hillside, I started sinking into the vegetation.

It turned out that I have new respect for caribou.

This is their home turf, such as it is, and, as my Pikahiker boots sank into the deep moss and crowberry plants, I envied their springy gait and split hooves.  I found I had to make a conscious effort to lift up my feet (no wonder they have a springy gait) in order to not repeat the experience of falling that I had earlier in the day (although falling here would have been far more comfortable than falling on hard dirt or asphalt)!

It was something of a humbling experience. Luckily, going down was much easier that hiking either up or on the "flat."

My book club group was meeting this evening, so I parked by the side of the road and joined in remotely via phone. It's fun to be able to catch up with everyone, although I can't hear everything clearly. In fact, I lose entire sentences, but enjoy what I can pick up.

Summit Lake

I wouldn't trade the view for the world, though!

As it was late, and getting dark, I snagged a campsite at Summit Lake. I was the only one there, it was closed for the season, but they hadn't closed the gate, so one could still use the spots. Gorgeous, gorgeous place.

This day was one of the high points of this trip, but I'm accumulating so many, it's hard to rate them!