This morning was filled with the last time we would pack our suitcases and eating the last of our breakfast foods. In fact, today was filled with many "lasts." We left our last cabin around 10:00, heading toward the Soldotna Visitor Center. We walked down to the fish walk so Connie and Steven could see the mile-long walkway that allows fishermen to get into the water without breaking down the river bank. This town is bracing for the thousands of fishermen that will be arriving as soon as the salmon arrive.
They also fish for trout in these waters. Inside the visitor center, they displayed this world record Dolly Varden trout, weighing over ten pounds.
But that fish was dwarfed by the record-breaking king salmon that was caught here in the Kenai River. This world record fish weighed 97 pounds, 4 ounces and was caught by Les Anderson, a resident of Soldotna.
Outside, Denisa took a picture of the wooden statue of the same record breaking fish, and the happy fisherman that caught that fish-- and a happy Mark.
In fact, they had more fun fishy wooden sculptures outside, celebrating the fish culture here in Soldotna.
This is our fourth trip down this stretch of the Sterling Highway, and every time we were curious about this little cafe and inn. Today was the day for four Okies to stop and find out how "Just an Okie" got its name. On our last day, we met the couple that moved here in 2018 to open this place. We found out they were raised in Seiling, Oklahoma, and moved here from Taloga, Oklahoma--both within an hour from where we retired. Their first season was in 2019, with a huge wild fire just a few miles away that shut down tourism in this area. Then no visitors came in 2020 because of Covid. After two tough years, they are ready to head back to Oklahoma.
We made our last stop to see the beautiful turquoise waters of Kenai Lake.
from Kenai Lake. We are enjoying some great sunshine on our last day! Fishing season officially started yesterday, but no one told the salmon. They are still in the ocean, waiting on the rivers to warm up a little more before they head upstream to spawn.
We are traveling at a slow pace this morning, enjoying our day of last looks and wandering God's wonders.
Then we decided we needed to pick up speed. We are heading towards the Anton Anderson tunnel and the town of Whittier. The tunnel is one lane, and is shared with trains as well. We know that east-bound traffic like us can only go through the tunnel on the half-hour. If we miss our opening at 1:30, we'll have to wait a whole hour at the tunnel entrance. So we sped by the tall mountains of Sterling Highway and headed on to Seward Highway and the Whittier Spur Road.
Whew! We pulled up to the tunnel toll booth at 1:27 and paid the $13 toll to drive through.
The parking area was packed, but it has great views of the mountains and glaciers that surround the tunnel. We were in a long line of cars as we approached the entrance to Anton Anderson Tunnel.
It's a 2.6-mile drive through the narrow tunnel--the longest in North America. We road the train through this tunnel a couple weeks ago, but this is our first time to drive through it.
At 25 miles per hour, it takes a few minutes to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
We have carefully planned our groceries, and we had our last picnic lunch on our car trunk. We ate all the leftover chips and crackers and tuna packets and fruit in a gourmet feast in a lovely location on our last day. Buying groceries and cooking meals has certainly made our trip more affordable.
Now that we are fueled up with lunch, we are ready to start the Portage Pass Trail, something we have looked forward to for three weeks.
When we first arrived in Alaska, the Portage Pass trail was still covered in snow and it was impossible to make it all the way to the lake. But warm and sunny days have made it doable, and all of us started up the first steep section. We quickly got high enough to see the waters of Prince William Sound behind us.
The warmer weather has made the climb passable, but certainly not snow-free as we went further up the trail.
We all made it to Portage Pass--800 feet above sea level. We can see sea level and the town of Whittier 800 feet below us now.
This is 0.7 miles into the hike, so everyone got the views of the mountains and glacier ahead of us. That's where Connie's knee decided that she shouldn't go any further.
Mark and Denisa could see that going further would include lots of snow, but they are up for the challenge on this beautiful weather last day.
Steven followed us a little further, and took this hand-holding picture of our last day's last hike.
The snow was certainly melting, and that meant we waded through lots of muddy sections as we kept going.
At last we topped a ridge for a good look at Portage Glacier. But what's that little thing in the water on the left side of the glacier?
We still had lots of hiking through the snow to get a closer look at the glacier for ourselves.
We finally got close enough to get some pictures with that nice blue glacial color.
We couldn't stop until we got all the way to the shore of Portage Lake. This is our last Alaska hike.
Besides the Portage Mountain that hosts this big glacier, we were surrounded by other beautiful Alaska mountains.
We didn't get out our ice cleats because the snow was soft instead of slippery. We got rid of our coats long ago on this hike, and it seems crazy to be in our shirt sleeves while surrounded by so much snow.
We have truly wandered in another of God's wonders on this last day in Alaska!
We thought that all the elevation gain of this trail was finished when we got up to the top of the pass. But since we headed downhill to the lake, we now have more elevation gain to get back to the pass on our way back to the car.
Since we had some time before we could drive back through the tunnel, we made the very short drive into the town of Whittier. We were here on a 45-minute train stop two weeks ago when it was very cold and raining. That day we took a distant picture of Begich Tower where most of the Whittier residents live in this "community under one roof." Today we drove by for a closer look.
We also drove up to the Buckner Building, built at the same time. This was a military post in the 1950's during the Cold War. While the Begich Tower has been re-purposed into a usable living space for this little town, the Buckner Tower is abandoned and in a sad state of disrepair on the hilltop overlooking Whittier. It is the largest building in Alaska, and once housed 1,000 service men. It also included a library, cafeteria, hospital, theater, bowling alley, church, rifle range, and jail.
We went back through town to take some blue-sky pictures of Prince William Sound,
and the mountain-encircled harbor. These last day pictures certainly make Whittier look much prettier than the rainy pictures we took on our earlier trip here.
We headed back to get in line for our turn through the Anton Anderson Tunnel. The Glacier Discovery Train that we rode two weeks ago was coming through as we watched. Then at 6:00 we made our last trip through the tunnel.
We made a short stop at the Portage Lake Visitor Center, which was already closed for the day. But we walked down to get views of this side of Portage Lake.
At one time they could see Portage Glacier from here. But now it has receded around the corner and out-of-view unless you take the boat ride or the hike that we just finished.
We made our sixth and last trip on the Seward Highway beside Turnagain Arm. Those six trips had different weather, different tides, and different views. Today we got our first views of the windsurfers that take advantage of the winds that funnel in between the mountains.
This guy was just laying his giant kite down as we parked to watch. We also managed to catch a small bore tide as the high tide coming in collided with the low tide going out of the arm. We'll take that as Alaska waving good-bye as we headed into Anchorage for the last time.
We ate our last Alaska meal and had our last gas fill-up before we turned in our rental car. Even though we were flying on a different airline than Connie and Steven, our flights left at about the same time--just a few minutes before midnight on our last day in Alaska.
We could see our last Alaskan sunset from the ground
and then from the air after we took off. This is proof that Alaska is the land of the midnight sun. Our last day was another great day of wandering God's wonders in Alaska.
No comments:
Post a Comment