We had pancakes for breakfast this morning again at Midnight Sun cabins. The owner, Chris, is a very good pancake chef, but we learned yesterday that we got hungry pretty early. So we brought our own peanut butter to spread on the cakes, and milk to drink for a little added protein. At breakfast we always learn things, and this morning we found out our next door neighbor shot a bear last night. He had bought an expensive bear tag, and used the local advice to know where to hunt. We asked him if we could take a picture of his trophy laid out in the back of his pickup.
This ends our two-night stay at Moose Pass, and we were packed up and left around 9:00. Even though Mark usually spots all the wildlife on our drives, Denisa is proud to report that she saw two moose on this drive--even from her little side window in the back seat! We didn't stop to take pictures, however, because moose sightings have become so common place by the time you've been in Alaska for twenty days! We made the turn at Tern lake to get on the Sterling Highway, and this morning we are hiking the Russian Creek Trail.
This was listed as a favorite family trail because it is wide and smooth, and it is only 2.5 miles on a tree-lined path to the falls on the Russian River. Mark is Denisa's favorite family to take on this favorite family trail.
As we got closer to the waterfall, the water was churning beside us.
We took pictures of the Russian Falls from several vantage points. But our favorite shows Mark in his bright blue jacket just visible to the left of the falls.
Mark has an affinity for finding little ledges at the top of waterfalls.
We took a side trail to the sport fishing area at the water's edge below the waterfall. We had hoped to see salmon here, but the water looked fish-less. We didn't have to pay for parking here today, because it was the day before fishing is allowed in the Russian River. But from what we saw, it looks like the fish haven't heard about opening day, and they are running late this year.
Actually, fishing is not allowed at the waterfall and 600 yards downstream because it is a fish spawning area. But 600 yards away there will be combat fishing soon. The bears also love it here. One sign said: "If approached by a bear, a fisherman should be prepared to give up their spot." Good advice.
It was time to turn back towards the car, but Mark and Denisa decided to make a little detour to Russian Lake. We are definitely in moose country here, as almost every bush had been nibbled off.
Another sure sign of moose, is when strips of bark have been ripped off the trees, leaving the bright interior of the tree showing.
Considering that we are hiking along the Russian River and saw the Russian Waterfall, and now we are heading to Russian Lake, Denisa thought it was appropriate to talk in a heavy Russian accent during the hike. She pretended to be Natasha, and gave Mark his Russian name--Boris. She was making lots of chatter in her Russian accent to scare off the bears. She thought it was a great idea--Mark not so much. Connie said her knee was bothering her, so they decided to head back to the car--or maybe they didn't like the Russian accent either. It wasn't long until Mark and Denisa crested a rise and saw the Russian Lake below them.
We had been hiking in the forest, and after 1.4 miles down this spur trail the trees opened up into a lovely meadow for our best view of the lake.
Spring is definitely coming in Alaska, and Denisa couldn't help but take pictures of the new flowers in this meadow.
We hurried on our hike back to the car since Connie and Steven were well ahead of us by now. By the time we got back to the parking lot, we had hiked 8.3 miles with 994 feet of elevation gain. We were tired! We talked with hikers on the trail that suggested we drive to the fish walk that has been made ready for the on-slot of the fishermen's arrival soon. We walked the trail with its occasional openings to get down into the water.
But we took the most pictures of the beautiful ferns that line the fish walk.
They are still uncurling to their full height, and they are already close to five feet tall! What a beautiful sea of green ferns!
Our destination today is the town of Soldotna. We were excited to find we were arriving during the Farmer's Market. With food trucks and live music, this feels like a festival. This would be the first festival we've experienced in over a year! Maybe the pandemic is really over?!? We tried a reindeer gyro from the Reindeer Hut, a reindeer sausage, and finished up with a pulled pork sandwich and cotton candy. What a delicious stop!
The city park hosting the farmer's market is right on the Kenai River. We could look down on the fish walk they have built here too.
Our next stop was a little unusual. We read in the "Experience Alaska" web site that the best place to see eagles was at the Soldotna City Dump. We felt a little silly pulling into the dump, but we obviously weren't the first ones that had seen that web site. They had a map ready to hand out to tourists like us, instructing us to go to area C. It's not a great picture since we don't have our good camera, but we did see more than 50 eagles on the top of the hill at the dump. We giggled when we saw a motor home pulling into the dump as we left. It looks like they read the same web site that we did.
Just down the road, we toured the town of Kenai for Connie and Steven. No pictures for us, because we've already "been-there-done-that." Then we went looking for the elusive herd of caribou that we have been told hangs around this town. We spotted one caribou very far away, as well as the volcanic mountains across the Cook Inlet. We ended the day when we checked into our last cabin of the trip.
We are in the new cabin at Bella Haven Estates for the next two nights. We are pretty excited about the full kitchen, and a washer and dryer (complete with laundry detergent), and two full bedrooms. We are living in the lap of luxury here near Soldotna, Alaska!
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