Posts Tagged With: Mountain goats

A view along Turnagain Arm, between Anchorage and Whittier. Left side, south, shows evidence of smoke from the Swan Lake Fire on the Kenai Peninsula

Girdwood, Alaska. Wednesday August 28

Smoke and fire were major concerns today. We left Talkeetna to drive to Girdwood, east of Anchorage. We plan to stay here in Girdwood for two nights. The drive here continued on the Parks Highway, along a 20 mile stretch of road that has been plagued by wild fires. Over the past week, travelers were only allowed to go in one direction at a time, led by a pilot car, much as you might encounter in some construction zones. Emergency firefighting crews had first priority over the travel lanes. Delays of several hours had been common. The Alaska Railroad had canceled some of their runs since the fires were even closer to their tracks.

Fire view along Parks Highway between Talkeetna and Willow Alaska

Luckily the roadway just opened to full two lane traffic, although at reduced speeds. We past numerous stretches of burnt forest. Smoke stench was still prevalent. No structures that we could see had burnt, though. Many properties had signs thanking firefighters.

We spent an hour this evening listening to a local radio station live broadcast a community meeting in Cooper Landing, AK where we planned to spend Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. Our lodging host said “No problem, come on down.” This town on the Kenai Peninsula south of Anchorage was likely to be the area in which we hiked the most. The topic of the community meeting was the Swan Lake Fire, a blaze that has been burning for 84 days north and west of Cooper Landing. It is the largest fire in the U.S. So far it has burnt 160,000 acres. (see this video from Accu Weather: https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/apocalyptic-footage-shows-cars-narrowly-avoiding-flames-from-massive-alaska-wildfire/70009192) For most of that time it had not been threatening more developed areas.

Recently, the Sterling Highway through Cooper Landing over to Homer has been closed off and on; when open, it usually has a pilot car leading traffic one-way for a 20 mile stretch from Cooper Landing west towards Soldotna and Homer. We have to decide if we seek alternate lodging and forego one, two, or three of the expeditions we have reserved. At the moment, we are leaning to making different arrangements. You will find out the end result as it happens.

The Turnagain Arm is a body of water off Cook Inlet. The British Captain James Cook-he of fame for being a major European explorer to visit and map much of the Pacific Ocean. During his voyage to Alaska looking for the Northwest Passage, he came up the now-named Cook Inlet and turned right. That right turn led to a dead end and so he had to turn again to reverse his travel. Thus this body of water was named. It is ringed by mountains, forests and glaciers. It was the site of several gold strikes in the early 1900s.

The Turnagain Arm drive is rated as one of the most scenic in the country. The Seward Highway as it is called, is the only road route to the Kenai Peninsula, home to hiking, glaciers, boat tours, and great fishing. It is difficult for us to comment on its scenic beauty; most of it, particularly the southern side across the water from the road, was obscured by smoke from the Swan Lake fire.

Beluga whale in Turnagain Arm

Smoke did not make the drive uneventful though. At Beluga Point, we pulled over and watched Beluga whales diving for food. Belugas hunt for other fish to eat in shallow waters where killer whales have difficulty maneuvering. We could see several belugas, their white color in sharp contrast to the gray water as they dove and re-surfaced over and over again. Our pictures show them although not really close up. We have been “out-camera’d“ throughout this trip by the visitors with huge spotting scopes and zoom SLR cameras.

Mountain goats in Chugach State Park along the Seward Highway

Still at Beluga Point, we simply turned around and up on the mountains a group of about 25 mountain goats were walking single file along a narrow path. There was less smoke on the northern mountains. The goats stood out clearly with their white against the dark rocks.

McHugh Falls, another stop along the Seward Highway

The Chugach State Forest and Chugach State Park cover a large swath of land from Anchorage over east to past Valdez and south as far as Seward. We will be making numerous stops in these two during the remaining two weeks in Alaska. Beluga Point was just one of several stops today. We had lunch at the Turnagain Armpit Bar B-Q in Indian, AK. Great food.

A view of Alyeska Resort

Our lodging tonight is at Alyeska Resort, one of our splurges. It is a resort close to Anchorage with winter skiing and summer mountain hiking and biking. We chose it since it is very close to Whittier, home to one of our boat rides, and the lodging in Whittier appeared to be the pits.

Views from Alyeska Resort, non-smoke obscured

We rode the tram up the mountain and obtained great views of the smoke on the other side of the water. Our host at Armpit Bar BQ indicated today was a good day, the wind was keeping the smoke on the south side. Our planned hike was cut short by swarms of “no-see umm”. The small gnats were so irritating we headed back down again.

Thursday we drive to Whittier. Several aspects of that day should be interesting and fire free.

Smoke obscuring the view of Turnagain Arm as seen from top of tram ride at Alyeska Resort in GIrdwood

Ed and Chris. Thursday August 29 4:30 AM