Seward, Alaska: Boat Trip

On our last day in Seward and the day before we flew home, there was one more item on Julia’s “to-do” list that needed checking off.  Before we left Alaska, it was important to go out on a boat and see the glaciers and sea life.

Now, while Julia grew up in a fishing family and around boats, I barely know how to swim and have already been seasick several times when out on the Pacific or Gulf Coast.  I am not a boat/water person. Then there was the matter of cost.  An all-day ride was over $200/person.  Marriage is about compromise, however, and we were on our 30th anniversary celebration trip, so we were going on a boat ride.

Partly because of low expectations, I was pleasantly surprised by our boat experience.  We left on a gray, drizzly morning.  Staff warned us to take medication if we were at all susceptible to seasickness, because seven-foot waves were expected in the Gulf of Alaska, which we would be crossing.  The boat seemed big enough that I wasn’t too worried.  During previous bouts of being seasick, I was either on a smaller boat and/or had possibly too much fun on the night before going out to sea.

There were a handful of people on our boat who were unpleasantly surprised.  I would guess about a half-dozen passengers spent most of the trip hanging over the back railing and filling up paper bags, as the boat rolled up and down through the waves. One elderly woman spent the entire trip throwing up or laying down in a dead-like position. She paid big bucks to be absolutely miserable for six hours.

We started the trip sitting at the rear of the boat, but as people succumbed to the rolling motion, we quickly moved to either the top or front deck, depending on the best vantage points.  We had assigned seating inside the cabin, and we spent some time talking with  our table-mates.  It was harder to see inside though, and the fresh outside air helped me from joining the sick folks on the back railing, so we spent most of the trip outside.

Within the first hour, we saw a pod of killer whales (orcas).

We drifted with the pod for about 30 minutes and watched these magnificent creatures surfacing  and blowing.  It was an unexpected sighting, staff told us, because these killer whales were passing through on a late migration.  While this wildlife sighting was our most memorable, we also saw sea lions, seals, dolphins, rare birds and mountain goats.  Due to the limitations of my phone camera, I cannot share most of these sightings with you, but I have a small sample.  If you click and enlarge, you can see the sea lions in the lower portion of first photo and mountain goats at the top of the second photo.

If someone asked me what my favorite part of Alaska was, it would be the glaciers.  The views from the boat were amazing, and we spent about an hour by the glacier.

As I watched the glacier calve (the breaking away of icebergs into the water), it occurred to me that future generations may not be able to see glaciers.  It’s natural for glaciers to retreat/melt in the summer and build back up in the winter. It’s natural for ice ages to come and go. However, the rapid retreat of glaciers today is not normal.  No matter what your politics, it would be a rare person to view a glacier, see photographic evidence of how fast they are disappearing, and not wonder what the world will be like for future generations.

I don’t have any answers.  Even if human beings are totally responsible for today’s climate changes, it seems unlikely to me there’s enough political will to have a snowball chances in hell to reverse those changes, even if we could.  One thing is for sure: nature is one powerful force to reckon with.

Kachemak Bay State Park

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.

Girdwood, Alaska

After our train returned to Anchorage, we rented a car and drove to Girdwood. We rented a room called the Treehouse for two nights. Our first stop was Girdwood Brewing Company. I had a Northeastern style cloudy IPA, while Julia took the West Coast version. In the third photo below, I discuss with staff the pros and cons of high alcohol percentages in beers that taste really good.

After a light breakfast on the next morning, we drove to the trailhead to hike to the Byron Glacier. Although this is a popular easy hike, we arrived early enough that we pretty much had the area to ourselves for exploration and picture-taking.

I wasn’t sure that I even wanted to hike to a glacier, but I am so glad that we did.
After a short nap at the Treehouse, we ventured out mid-afternoon to hike the North Face trail at Mt. Alyeska. Many people pay to take the tram up and then hike down, but frugal John wanted to hike up and take the tram down for free.  With a vertical rise of over 2000 feet in 2.2 miles, we earned outstanding views, a beer at the top, and the free ride down.