What better way to start Leg 5 than with a hike up Mount Marathon? Famous for its' 4th of July Race, Alaskans compete annually at sprinting up and down all 3000 Ft within 45-60 minutes. And I'll contend that it is more hearty than the Iditarod. It starts with a vertical section up a muddy terrain below tree line.
With wobbly legs, atrophied after 4 months in a boat, I made my way up. And within the first few hundred yards of steep muddy incline, I slipped down a chute and shredded my rain pants. Doh! My 'city' pants would later be duct taped together again. Very classy. Thankfully, the rest of the way up was just steep scree and very loose rock.
A marmot made his way across the trail.
From the top of Mt. Marathon, you can see the Resurrection Peninsula and Bay that I passed around a few days before, as well as the city of Seward to the lower left. I love this city.
The Alpine landscape behind Mt Marathon.
Hey IAN!!!!!! My friend since birth, Ian Aitken helped me with this trip in so many ways. He drove with me from San Francisco to Seattle, helped me get arranged, wrote me half a book, supported MedShare 3 times! and well, Ian and I will know all the good conversations had along the way. Best of luck at UNCG!!
A closer look at Resurrection Peninsula and Fox Island (aka Renard Is.) where I camped in the Alaskan monsoon.
Who's the movie star? Through the local kayaking scene at Resurrection Art Coffee Shop, I met Josh Thomas who made the movie Paddle To Seattle with his friend. It was great to connect with another Inside Passage paddler and to hang out with people in Seward. We went to a potluck dinner and the next day met up for the finals of the World Cup. We only caught the last minutes of the overtime and the winning Spanish goal because Mt Marathon took me longer than I thought and he was busy prepping for a PWS paddle. Best of luck with the sequel, Josh!
After three and a half wonderful days in Seward, I left at 9pm with a beautiful evening sky and had a peaceful paddle to Caines Head.
This derelict dock has an honorable history as a World War 2 military dock for an artillery base up on a cliff called Fort McGilvray. The weather had much improved from the squal that I paddled through on my way to Seward. So I decided to go for a hike up to the base.
View on the hike up to Fort McGilvray at Caines Head.
This is a gun turret used to protect Resurrection Bay from the Japanese in WWII.
The look-out.
Looking out the look-out.
My camp at Caines Head.
After a beautiful morning hiking up to the Fort, I started paddling and the fog and rain rolled in.
Her Majesty Turtle in Bulldog Cove.
She looks so good against this back-drop, I'm posting another picture.
Bear Glacier. A long moraine with trees and black sand separates the glacier from the ocean, with only a narrow river emptying the silt, ice, and cold outflow into the ocean. There are huge icebergs and bergy bits in the lagoon at the beginning of the river, so I hoped to be able to paddle upriver to the lagoon to see them.
This narrow outlet of the Bear Glacier river was very turbulent and only passable at high tide. In order to get to Bear Lagoon, I timed it so I was there 30 minutes before high water. As I crossed into the river from the ocean, I came too close to this sandy shoal as it stretched far out to the rock wall. I figured I had 8 seconds to cross the shoal between big waves because that was the period of the big swells. So I rode the back of a wave into the surf zone but then it stopped short revealing the sandy shoal beneath its' retreating whitewash. I ended up in shallow water as the next wave was pulling water towards it which brought me to a stop. The breaking wave hit me like a train, so I leaned into the wave, made a high brace and rode the wave across the shoal. The splash of cold water peaked my adrenaline rush. Then I paddled hard upstream the 1-2 mph river. This is sea kayaking!
This desolate beach is the morraine separating the ocean from the outflow river of Bear Glacier on the right-hand-side. After some time paddling upstream, I realized that the river outflow was 2mph and it would take me over an hour to reach the lagoon, making a return to the entrance dicey. If I was going to make it to the lagoon then I would have to commit to an overnight stay so that I could be back at the entrance at another high water. Yet I wanted to make progress around Cape Aialik since I had rainy windless weather. So I went back to the entrance and made my way south, flying through the rapids.
Josh had told me about these spires and I looked forward to seeing them. Look on YouTube for some videos of paddling through them. The water is much more dynamic than it appears in these photos.
It is impressive and encouraging that trees and vegetation can make the best of harsh conditions and grow even on these storm beaten rocks.
Looking back at Resurrection Bay.
Cape Resurrection and the coast east to Latouche Island brought fond memories.
The southern end of the Aialik Peninsula.
The outer rocks of Cape Aialik.
Chat Island on the left and Chat Cove to the right.
The next morning, the rain stopped after 2 days and I had a perfect view of Aialik Bay and could dry out my gear. This was such a great feeling. This was at Three Hole Point.
I had a nice following sea into Aialik Bay, regardless of the ebbing tide.
Pederson Glacier.
Aialik Glacier.
Behind the dead trees, killed by salt water, was a NPS backcountry ranger cabin. I stopped in to chat about my itinerary and navigation but nobody was home.
Coleman Bay.
Hey Sarah and Keith! The NPS backcountry rangers for Kenai Fjords National Park were out on patrol and I got to meet them and chat about the Fjords and the wildlife and then we realized an amazing coincidence. Sarah had worked in as a winter ranger in Mineral King in Sequoia NP where I once volunteered in 2003. We knew a lot of the same people and of course, could reminisce about pie at Silver City.
Abra Cove. How do you like that Abhra?
Aialik Glacier. I camped on the morraine on the right side.
An ideal campsite. Plenty of space to dry out cloths and a rocky terrain for leave no trace camping.
Since I am writing this after-the-fact, I miss doing my dishes down by the water like this.
Watching the sun setting over the glacier.
Sea gulls and puffin feasting on sardines around the brash and growler ice.
Pederson Glacier's two lakes are also reachable only at high water. So I timed my visit and made my way into the lagoons.
In Pederson's lower lake, I saw two black bear. This guy was foraging and didnt mind me taking some photos.
Buuuurrrrrpppp!!!
Entering the upper lagoon.
Holgate Glacier
Aialik was a native name for surprise bays, which really characterized the twisting and secretive bays of Aialik Bay. There were also a lot of arches and rocky outcroppings.
Quicksand Beach. I camped on this white sandy beach for the night.
Not 20 minutes after I left camp, this black bear came strolling down the beach. I'm glad I didnt sleep in that day :) Though that beach had plenty of space for both of us, and even a bear food locker since it was frequently used NPS land.
Cormorants drying out their wings during a sunny morning.
Chiswell Islands.
A Tufted Puffin. Alaska has Tufted and Horned Puffins and I saw plenty of both. Though they had an impeccable way of diving for a swim just when I got my camera ready.
After passing Aligo Point, I had my first look down to Harris Bay with Granite Island on the left.
A strong west wind came over Granite Island and kept wind waves breaking over my port side as I paddled north.
This is the largest sail boat I saw during the trip. The kind I normally see docked in Marina Del Rey leaking money. Enough power to be in Hawaii in just a few weeks.
With my compass at 210 degrees magnetic, I could see where I was going later in the week. As I came around Granite Island into Harris Bay, I could see the Kenai Peninsula extending southwest to Ragged Island. Gore Point was on my mind daily since leaving PWS, so I couldnt help but imagine it at the end of the horizon. Alas, Gore Point was not in sight yet. For the next two days, I was headed into Northwestern Lagoon for some of my last glacier viewing.
Cataract Cove.
My second sunset over a glacier as I neared Northwest Lagoon.
A porcupine came to my dinnertime picnic.
I couldnt help but follow him around the intertidal zone to see his haunched-over wobble walk.
A Horned Puffin.
The tidewater glaciers of Northwest Lagoon: Anchor Glacier (Left), Ogive Glacier, and Northwestern Glacier (Right).
Just 100 years ago, the NW Glacier was 10 miles further up the inlet. As it receded, it left deglaciated islands like this smoothed rock on Erratic Island.
Anchor Glacier.
Glaciers and eroded ground everywhere as I looked towards Southwestern Glacier.
Here a sailboat passed me and asked, chuckling, 'Do you have any diesel to spare?' I said, 'My boat runs on rice and beans, but if you eat enough beans, you'll have wind enough to get back to Seward!'
You might be able to see the waterfall that just broke through the face coming from the middle of Ogive Glacier. It was as if a collatoral vein just blew through the tidewater face.
One of the unpredictable currents around this glacier was pulling me northeast at ~0.5 mph yet in the brash ice near the glacier, there was very little flow.
Northwestern Glacier.
Could you imagine this being the surroundings of your bedroom?
Striation Island is a mountain of deglaciated smooth rock.
After months, I was finally able to pass by sea lions without them sliding into the water. No eye contact, quiet and slow paddling, and no flash photography seemed to help. Some didnt even see me.
Blue sky appearing was so encouraging.
Alas, rain rain rain accompanied me from NW Lagoon all the way to Nuka Island.
As I paddled past Two Arm Bay, I had an orange. I hadnt had one since I left Los Angeles and it was spectacular. It was given to me by a couple who arrived into a campsite as I was leaving. I helped them carry their gear and zodiac and they rewarded me with this Vitamin C treasure.
On charts, maps and even Google Earth, these dramatic cliffs appear green or as a convergence of many isoclines to show the steepness. Little numbers indicate a 500 Ft peak or a 1500 Ft ridge. The ocean is only simplified as blue or swirly lines that note the depth. But that just doesn't give the Kenai coastline justice. Seeing it with my own eyes, rising with the swells, feeling my hair damp and blow in the wind, and feeling the cold rush of a breaking wave across my cockpit makes me feel a part of this environment. I may pass it briefly, often unable to see the grandeur of the upper reaches, but its' raw strength is clear as day from the erosion, cleaved rocks, and huge bolders at the waters edge.
I'm sorry that my photographs just cannot begin to represent how stunning these cliffs are. The waterfall flowing through the middle for instance gushed with the rainfall that saturated my tent fly and vailed these mountains in deep fog. The clouds moved quietly around peaks and lifted the moisture because of the mildest change in temperature. And the vegetation that flattens the cliffs in shades of green is actually clinging with all its' might.
Entering Thunder Bay. As the water began to calm down, I began to temper the exhilaration of paddling on the big seas.
As I came closer to these waterfalls which looked like exploded fire hydrants, I recognized they were actually floods of 100's of fire hydrants.
This 40 Ft. waterfall flowed continually from an alpine lake beneath a glacier.
I camped and had a swim in Thunder Bay. It was a top 10 campsite for certain.
Looking northeast towards Harris Bay.
Looking southwest toward the Pye Islands and McArthur Pass where I crossed into Nuka Bay.
This is the Gulf of Alaska on a good day.
Me and the sat phone. For the last eight days of the trip, the value of this phone quadrupled in my mind. Not only did it help reach help for Kim's ankle injury, but I could get weather reports from the NOAA hotline and texts from my friend Chris who monitored weather, and lastly, it was invaluable when I needed to talk with family.
Hmmm, what is that peculiar circular object in the rocks? Let's paddle closer...a quarter mile later, I'm still guessing. Maybe a buoy or floatation device for big big boats? Any guesses?
A very rocky coastline around Harrington Point.
As I entered Nuka Bay, I could see that the rain was going to stick out for another few days as forecasted.
My camp in Ariadne Cove within Nuka Bay. When I arrived, I could see clear tracks of bear and something else in the sand...like a dog. I found a decent tent space within the trees to help slow the rain, and hunkered it out for 36 hours as the rain poured. After two days, the sun appeared and I could see the mountains in the distance.
9am sun dried my tent. As I first walked out of the tent onto the beach, I saw two wolves chasing and playing with each other down the beach. After we looked at each other for a bit, I went back for my camera, and when I returned to the beach, they were gone. Wolves are wonderful. And I still say this after one of my old tents was shredded by half breed coyotes in South Dakota...about 10 years ago. Wolves are far more interesting.
Surprise Bay.
After circling Adriane Island, I was blasted with a north wind and decided to leave Nuka Bay and start for Gore Point. I knew I needed a good weather window there, so if I staged myself well, I could take the best opportunity. And at this time, plans had changed and I wanted to get to Homer as swiftly and safely as I could.
Entering Katchemak Bay State Park.
Archipelago in Nuka Passage.
My lunch stop. Nutella on tortilla and almond butter/jelly on tortilla. I'd stopped eating the prunes and old raisens in the dehydrated fruit bag because....well, you can guess.
Come to think of it, Yalik Glacier was my last good view of a glacier.
The mixing of brown glacier flour with clear ocean water. I liked crossing back and forth between the two flows, whereas the silt was slow but had eddies.
Gore Pt in the distant horizon.
So many fantasticly large arches.
Playful otter. They were everywhere as I made my way to S. Nuka island to camp. Just 11 nm from Gore Pt.
Gore Peninsula with Gore Pt on the far left. Gore Point, named for Capt John Gore of the Resolution who succeeded Capt Cook, is a hazard for small boats because it is the southernmost extension of the Kenai Penninsula into the Pacific and is the top of a triangle of horrible weather that extends south to the Barren Islands. As far as large currents, the counter-clockwise Gulf flow hits here just as large tidal flows from the Cook Inlet begin. To make it even more dynamic, it has two large bays on either side flooding and ebbing past its relatively very shallow waters.
If the charts, data, and weather weren't enough, Gore Pt has a legacy of wrecking ships and is a nightmare for kayakers. Two well-trained Israili kayakers were pushed offshore last summer by a wind that only appeared once they passed the Point. A Coast Guard helicopter facilitated a rescue with a fishing boat that put all the rescuers and paddlers at great risk. I wasn't eager to find myself in the same position.
My friend Chris, who I will thank every opportunity that I can, monitored weather for me diligently throughout the trip and especially at Cape Caution, Cape Resurrection, and Gore Point. I had a weather window of 1 day for me to make it around Gore Point before SW winds began to get fiercely high above 20 knots. The day's forecast was for variable winds 10 knots, 4 ft seas, and no precipitation. Since the days before had been small craft advisories with mostly SW winds, I was wary that the winds could pick up and 'variable' could mean headwind. I started across the channel to Gore timed to be at slack. There was an increasing SE swell more like 4-6 Ft and a favorable 10 knot SE tailwind. Later gusts of SE wind came every few seconds up to 25 knots. A few whitecaps became common, then omnipresent.
I assured myself that if conditions worsened or turned to be headwind, that I would backtrack the 9 miles up to Tonsina. The coastline between myself and Tonsina wasn't landable because of cliffs and the few beaches being battered and dumping waves. The Ranger Beach section appeared to be a very difficult portage, though the landing could possibly be done. Using GPS, however, I was kicking along at over 4 mph despite the up/down with swell, and if the SE swell and wind continued, I would be past this ominous area quickly.
So I went for it! It was exhilarating looking at the arch, rocky walls, and igneous rock swirling.
The arch was difficult to photograph from this angle, but I decided to let this one go and paddle on so that eventually I could find calmer water for a pee stop.
The swirl.
This is one of the rarest photos because I dont normally take out my SLR when the deck is awash. Total, there were probably only 5 or 6 days with open ocean as wild as this.
Wait till you see the video on YouTube!
I know my skill level and the highly variable weather conditions of this area. I was comforable the whole day with the sea state and I passed Gore Pt just as I had planned, though the winds were +10 knots over the forecast. And I will always contend that I could just as easily have spent a week on S. Nuka island hunkering through less favorable conditions. Thankfully, I was still carrying 14 days of food if that did happen. Imagine, getting a day of SE wind during a week of SW winds. That was fortunate.
One of the cool things about the Gore Peninsula is the grassy walls that flatten the erosion and rockfalls.
Port Dick. Happy to make distance at this point in the trip, I skipped Port Dick and paddled on towards Windy Bay.
In the same day that I rode the marching 5 Foot seas past Gore Point, I also experienced ovoids on a glassy Pacific.
Fine dining with a great view.
Windy Bay
A cormorant on its' way from here to there.
Elizabeth Island.
I really liked this campsite on Elizabeth Is. It was one of those lucky nights where it only rained once I was done with dinner until 8am when I was ready to go. So I was able to shake the tent dry a bit before packing it into the stern.
Supposedly, when Michelangelo auditioned to paint the Cistine Chapel, he lost his portfolio and had no art to present. He was already well-known, but had to do something to win the contract. So he drew a perfect circle on the wall and when it was measured to proove his talents, he was chosen. That seems to be the height of human talent, yet nature finds a way of drawing circles everyday. Turned by the wind in many directions, this blade of grass drew a beautiful circle and the sand was there to witness it.
It is as if the Tufted Puffin has a cool 20's era combed back hair-do. These classy looking fellas dont fly well, but they can swim quite a distance underwater.
Entering Katchemak Bay from Cook Inlet. There was a standing wave here because of the shallow water, ebbing Katchemak Bay, and counter-current flowing along the mainland. It took me a bit to swing past this point, but I eventually made it.
A look behind at Seldovia. I met a sailboat here that had three men who came up from Seattle. We congratulated each other on making it and I will never forget their dropped jaws when they looked at Her Majesty and compared her to the 40+ Ft of their boat.
Her Majesty's last voyage in Alaska (at least, in 2010) was across Katchemak Bay to Bishop's Beach in Homer. After a 3.5 hour paddle across from Barbara Point, I pulled her up to shore gliding over seaweed. The forecasted afternoon SE 15 mph wind turned into a 20-25mph SE wind sustained gust for a good hour and a half. The opposing flood current caused the wind waves to get very steep with a 1-2 second period. It knocked over tents on shore. After that last lashing, I couldnt have any bold feelings for finishing my trip. I only respected Alaska's capricious weather and powerful seas more.
Something for the scrap-book. I'm DONE!
Gina and Bob met me in the Ocean View RV campground in Homer and invited me for a barbeque dinner in their luxury motor home. This was my impromtu celebration party since my family plans had changed and was nourishing for my body and soul. I owe them a tremendous thank you for their generosity. This is a great picture of them after catching a halibut the next day. Best of luck with the rest of your travels!
The next morning, Tom Pogson picked up my boat for shipping back to Seattle and then following a good chat over coffees, he dropped me off at the shuttle.
My goodbye to Her Majesty. She will return to the lower 48 by barge, which is inexpensive and pretty safe. Though I can imagine her on top of the 3rd stacked 40 Ft freight container, rocking past Cape Caution. She's been there and will be fine :)
I went through Seward briefly to pick up some left luggage. In my hostel room, I exploded all over the place trying to dry gear and prepare for a flight back to Atlanta.
Here are my letters that I kept in my chart case for inspiration and mostly sentimental value. Thanks to the St. Annes Soccer Team, Chris, Ian, Kim, Louise, Ryan, Rudy, my caring sisters and nieces and nephews, brothers-in-law, my parents, and Bob from Petersberg for your support!
This is a twighlight photo on the water in Katchemak Bay before my last night in the backcountry. It seems like a fitting picture to close on, filled with wonder and infinite beauty in the seas beyond.
