2009 Tour Of Alaska - Cooper Landing

August 30, Sunday - We checked out of the hotel and headed into Homer for breakfast. As we rode along the spit, we noticed what appeared to be a volcano off in the distance. As I stopped to photograph it, I spotted another eagle on the beach on the north west side of the road.

 

 

We went on into Homer and had breakfast at the Fresh Sourdough Express, then hit the road for Cooper Landing where we had reservations at Gwen's, basically a fishing camp offering cabins for rent. As we drove up Alaska 1, the scenery across Cook Inlet was, as always, spectacular.

 

 

We checked out all the recreation areas along Alaska 1, but saw nothing of particular interest except some of the trees which were full of cones. The cones were interesting because they were small and soft compared to the pine cones we are accustomed to here in the south east. Here's an example of the trees.

 

 

We swung by Kenai so Dot could pick up some more postcards at the local Safeway Market. She liked the one from this particular store because they cost about 25% of those at the other Safeways and/or shops she looked at. We made it to Gwen's, checked in and had a nice log cabin. We rode down the highway back to the place where we had seen the grizzlies on the way down from Anchorage but, of course, there were none there today. We drove down Skilak Lake Drive to one of the other lakes (not Skilak) along the road. The entire area in this section of the Kenai Peninsula is in the Kenai Wildlife Preserve, Chugah National Forest or the Chugah State Park. The road looped around by several lakes, Skilak very large, and re-entered Alaska 1 about 12-15 miles. We didn't see any wildlife but the forest was interesting. We turned around and headed back to Gwen's. After getting suggestions from some of the staff at Gwen's, we drove back to the Russian River Campground, a state facility, which has a hiking trail (Russian River Falls Trail) to a cascade where salmon are reputed to leap up cascades and bears are supposed to catch them. We got to the campground and found that they charged $11 to park in order to hike the trail. Since it was almost 5:30, we declined, feeling that we didn't have enough time to get our $11 worth (grin). We went back to Gwen's, had dinner and turned in.

 

We got up then next morning and went to the Chief Kick Ass Restaurant (that's really the name) for breakfast. It was very good. We decided to hike the Russian River Falls Trail we had passed on yesterday at the Russian River Campground to see the salmon performing. We made our way to the parking areas, finding one full and the second near full. After parking and getting our gear together, we noticed some interesting mushrooms on the periphery of the parking lot. Here are a couple of pictures of them.

 

                 

 

      
Throughout our travels on the Kenai Peninsula, we kept seeing some wildflowers that appeared as bare magenta stems and leaves, magenta stems and leaves with lavender flowers or as magenta shafts with wispy or fuzzy seed "parachutes". As we hiked up the trail, we saw an example with all the components on the same plant.
      
      
      
There were red berries all over the ground in places and these mushrooms were common.
      
      
      
This willow ptarmigan was eating seeds on the path and we watched her for some time before she finally meandered off into the woods alongside the trail.
      

 

We finally reached the end of the two mile trail and found the falls (we'd call them cascades) with salmon congregated in pools at the bottom. As we watched, they tried time after time to leap or swim up the cascades, with only occasional successes.

 

                 

 

                 

 

 

      
After watching the salmon leaping and fighting the cascades for a while, we set off back up the trail. Along the way, we saw this rock squirrel who ran into the brush. I like the way the brush "frames" the little squirrel.
      
And, of course, there were lots of red berries in the ground cover.
      
We hiked back to the parking lot, then decided we'd drive the Skilak Lake drive again - but the whole length this time. Along the way, we stopped by Jim's Landing, a boat ramp and fishing area, where we watched groups salmon swimming upstream or maybe spawning. It's hard to tell exactly what they are doing but they seemed to stay in the same place for an inordinate period of time. I tried to take some photos but it was hard to see much through the water. There was one huge fish that was hanging out with this group.

 

We resumed our drive along the Skilac Lake road but only saw one more interesting thing. There was a culvert with a small pool at one end. The pool was full of red salmon. I didn't take any photos but I climbed down to the edge of the pool and while looking around, noticed a lot of half eaten salmon in the edge of the woods. Hmmmm, decided maybe I'd better get back to the car (grin). We drove up Alaska 1 to find a restaurant, finally settling on Kingfisher Landing. After a good meal, we made our way back to Gwen's and hit the sack. Tomorrow, we drive to Denali National Park.