After a couple of days of walking up and down Homer Spit’s
shoreline, we were ready to do some hiking again. Our Homer hosts
recommended visiting the state park across the bay. The only problem is
that you can’t drive there; the only way to get there is by boat. So we
took our first water taxi to Kachemak State Park.
Our “driver”/captain took us on a bumpy thirty minute ride across the
bay. Just before dropping us off on a gravel beach, sea otters were
spotted.
We were scheduled to be picked up by a different water taxi five hours later.
Armed with our bear bells and my bear spray, we started off into the
dense, wet forest. The Glacier Spit trail was actually very
well-constructed , and for the first couple of miles, we followed a
young couple who called out, “hey bear, yo bear,” every five seconds.
Then we hiked a side trail to a hand tram that crossed a river gorge.
This was my first experience with a hand tram, and I must say that Julia
was very trusting.
I managed to get her back again, so we backtracked to the main trail
and continued hiking. After another mile we saw several people standing
close together off the trail in the brush and taking photos. As we
approached, a young man told us that a black bear was ten feet off the
trail just five seconds earlier. I looked to where he pointed, but the
bear had clearly taken off and was no longer visible. Only slightly
disappointed, we hiked on to our destination. Grewink Glacier Lake.
The lake and glacier were spectacular.
The photos don’t adequately capture the intense blue of the icebergs.
I’ve never seen anything like it. Also, we experienced calving: when a
big chunk breaks off an iceberg creating two icebergs. The sound when
that happens is like an explosion and startling.
After spending over an hour at the lake, we hiked a couple more miles
back to our pickup point at the Saddle Trailhead. We highly recommend
hiking at this state park.
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