We ended our trip to Alaska on the Kenai Peninsula which is south of Anchorage. Kenai Fjords National Park is famous for fishing, glaciers and other wildlife. There are 2 destinations and of course, they are on opposite ends of the peninsula so we decided to stay in the middle. Our first destination was the port of Seward. We booked a 9 hour boat tour of the Fjords. We arrived at the dock early. Way early, as in the day before. We wanted to check out the town do a little shopping and have a nice dinner to celebrate my birthday. The recommended spot was Ray's. We had a great time and to top it off - my mother paid the bill! Can't beat that.
Birthday Dinner
The boat ride was, in one word, AWESOME. The weather was perfect, the crew was knowledgeable (and mostly female including the captain), the food was good, the views were unforgettable and the wildlife cooperated.
Kenai Fjords Tour Crew
We took the long tour so that we could get out to the Northwest Glacier which is pretty spectacular and so that we had a longer trip to see wildlife. We passed multiple rock islands on the way out which are the favorite nesting places for many sea birds such as Common Murres.
Common Murre
And the stars of the show - Puffins. Alaska has 2 types. This is Horned Puffin which look similar to our Atlantic Puffins. We saw hundreds of these flying footballs on the trip.
Horned Puffin
But these Tufted Puffins are really different with their yellow tufts blowing in the wind.
Tufted Puffin
Another puffin like bird is Rhinoceros Auklet. We saw a few of them. The name comes from the funny "horn" on the beak which is really just a feather.
Rhinoceros Auklet
Black-legged Kittiwakes nest on the cliffs of the rock islands by the hundreds too. They always look like they are smiling.
Black-legged Kittiwake nest
The strangest bird that we saw on the trip was a Bald Eagle. Doesn't sound strange right? Plenty of Bald Eagles in Alaska but this one was swimming. Yes, swimming. Here he is in the middle of the fjord doing the butterfly stroke.
Bald Eagle swimming
Here is is getting close to shore.
Bald Eagle swimming
And here he is hauling his catch out of the water. It was pretty incredible.
Bald Eagle
We arrived at the glaciers and it was pretty dramatic.
Northwest Glacier
We watched global warming in action.
The crew scooped up some ice so that we could have million year old ice cubes in our drinks.
Glacier Ice
We didn't need the ice since we were drinking Alaskan beer.
Cocktail Hour
Todd and I were really looking for a special bird that can only be found in the glacial ice but we didn't find one. Our disappointment was alleviated by the sight of Orca Whales. A pod swam past our boat. Here is a Mom and baby.
Orca Baby
Dad was a big dude! This is his dorsal fin which stood out of the water by 8 feet.
Bull Orca
I captured the whole scene with this shot. Breathtaking.
Kenai Fjord Orcas
Just when we thought there couldn't be more, we pulled back into the docks and saw even more. While we were nature watching, other boats were out fishing. Almost everyone came off the boats with fish. Mainly Halibut and Salmon. Check out the size of this gal - 200 pounds.
200 pound Halibut
The fishermen (and women) weren't the only ones feasting on the fish. The Sea Otters know that when the boats come back to the dock, they will get the fish scraps. They hang out below the filet table and just wait for manna from heaven.
Sea Otter
Sea Otter with fish scraps
This guy didn't need the handouts. He found his own crab and boy was he happy!
The rest of the gang arrived late Friday night. By that time, Connie, Di, Barbara and I already had our 8 passenger van plus some groceries, sodas (and beer) ready to go. We picked them up at 8 AM on Saturday morning and headed out on our adventure! The plan was to be as adventurous as possible without overdoing it. We failed from the very first day. Mandy told us about a glacier that we could stop by to see on our way to our first destination so we stopped. The Matanuska Glacier is accessible as a short hike. The catch is that in order to get to the glacier, you have to drive through private property. The land owners have cashed in by charging $25 per person to drive up to the glacier terminus.
The terminus is the end of the glacier where all of the rocks that the glacier pushes through the valley ends up. When the glacier recedes, the rocks remain leaving a moon like landscape only it is wet with run off from the melting ice.
The owners have makeshift boardwalks to help the tourists get out to the glacier face.
As you can see, the weather was miserable which made the glacier trip a nice diversion. We learned that the ice was still below our path and visible where the rocks and dirt were worn off. You can see it here - the light blue bits showing through.
You can see the size of just one piece of the glacier in this photo. That's me standing on million year old ice!
More about glaciers later.
We were headed east from Anchorage out to Copper Center which was our planned starting point for the next day's birding trip across the Denali highway. We knew we were out of civilization when we saw this sign in the hotel restaurant.
Copper Center is very close to America's largest national park. No, not Canada. Wrangell-Elias National Park which is 7 times larger than Yellowstone. More proof that #1 is deceiving - Alaska is really big. We didn't explore the park at all. It is so big that the Visitor Center doesn't even have little hiking trails. You have to travel hours to get to any of the attractions. We stopped long enough to buy a T-shirt and snap a group photo.
The Denali highway stretches from Paxson, just north of Copper Center in the east to Cantwell, the gateway to Denali park in the west. The road is dotted with birding hotspots which is why we decided to take this route rather than a more direct route straight north from Anchorage.
