May 10, 2009

Boom, an explosion of summer. It started a couple weeks ago with record temperatures. We have probably now had as many seventy degree days as all of last summer. The trees have exploded in green. The snow has completely vanished at lower elevations.

And our summer activities have begun. I have been riding my bike to work quite a bit, four days one week but only one day last week due to a threat of rain. We have ridden a little in the evenings and took a Sunday twenty mile ride on the road bikes last weekend, making a lap down through the coastal trail. We saw three moose on that ride.

Last Saturday we went to Talkeetna. We got a reasonably early start, stopped for donuts and coffee, and headed north. We took several detours along the way, exploring things that we hadn’t explored before. We explored inland lakes and found numerous access points to the Susitna River that we had never seen before. Most of these river accesses are part of the salmon fishing facilities and were nice and peaceful this time of the year. Our primary goal was to explore a couple lakes in the Talkeetna area. We hiked around the largest lake. It looks quite promising for kayaking and fishing.

The Talkeetna area was an odd mix of winter and summer. The snow still covered most of the ground in spite of the several degrees warmer temperatures that they were experiencing, solidly in the mid seventies. Our hike around the lake was exhausting. Walking on the unevenly melted snow was a constant battle for footing. Some of the deeper snow provided that pleasant experience of sinking unexpectedly and unpredictably. Where the snow had melted, the trail was a sloppy muddy mess. We also hiked along the rivers in Talkeetna where ice ledges hid the edges and invite people closer than they should go. We sat and watched the ice flowing downriver, trying to land rocks on the moving pieces. We enjoyed the views of Denali on a slightly hazy day. In total, we hiked over five miles in adverse conditions. My legs were tired.

This past Friday was a day off for me, but I still managed to work until noon. I took care of a few errands in the afternoon. Kris was having a girls’ night out so I loaded up the kayak and headed to Little Campbell Lake for the evening. I spent about four hours on the lake, fishing, paddling, and photographing. I caught a couple very small fish, one rainbow and one char, but there were some really big fish working the water. I saw one 24” char being hauled away and saw a few others caught in the 18” range. They were catching them from shore right by the parking lot so I felt a little silly in my kayak. At least I was able to enjoy the isolation of the rest of the lake.

On this weekend, we headed south to explore the Kasilof River. We stopped for a picnic lunch at Hidden Lake off of Skilak Lake Road in the Kenai Wildlife Refuge. The road was almost as messy as it was last year on our spring trip. Getting back on the road, I was happy to find that I hadn’t sunk in the mud enough to load my wheels and unbalance them like last year.

We arrived in Kasilof in the early afternoon and started with a visit to the beach south of the outlet of the river into Cook Inlet. The road down to the beach was even worse than Skilak Lake Road with massive holes threatening to bottom out my car and challenging my knowledge of the precise location of the tires. We contemplated turning around, but I solved the puzzle, finding lines through the pits that required less ground clearance than I had. A local walking his dog congratulated us on getting through with our muffler still attached. We chatted for a few minutes.

We hiked over a mile up the beach and along the river. We ran into someone casting a heavy surf rig out into the water. He explained that the hooligan were heading up the river on incoming tides and bringing halibut in behind them. He claimed to have firsthand knowledge of fish as big as forty pounds and had heard of stories of a hundred pounder. Apparently it was for real as the tide started rolling in, numerous fishermen arrived and lined up along one stretch of the beach. We didn’t see any caught, but it was amusing to think of catching such a valuable deep water fish from the cheap seats.

After our exhausting beach walk in the brisk air, we headed to our lodging, a riverfront bed and breakfast about seven miles upstream from the mouth. Since it is still off season, we had the place to ourselves and had a nice chat with the owner.

In the evening, we headed up to the upper end of the river, near where it drains out of the massive Tustemena Lake. We have never seen the lake as it is relatively remote and inaccessible. This intrigued us and invited us for a hike upstream along the shore of the river, hoping that the next bend would bring us a view of the massive lake. We weren’t planning to hike far so we didn’t have water or weapons with us. We didn’t see any sign of bears, but after covering a mile in the late evening, we decided we should head back to the car short of our goal of seeing the lake. We could hear the waves crashing on the shore, but the river was running parallel to the shoreline and we were on the wrong side of the river.

Today we stopped at the beach on the north side of the river and walked along beach a bit during low tide. It was peaceful. We imagined what it would look like during dip netting season when the river is lined with residents looking for the easy way to fill their freezers. After that brief stop, we headed back to the wildlife refuge to take a five mile roundtrip hike up to a lookout point over Skilak Lake. The road that gave me a challenge on Saturday seemed pretty mild compared to the road to the beach in Kasilof. I blasted right through the rough spots this time around.

The hike was spectacular. It was a nice climb up to the summit of this little mountain that provided a 360 degree view. The climb was through an old burn area which provided clear views most of the way up. The hike was a little muddy. The only animals we saw were a rather chatty squirrel and a spruce grouse that didn’t seem to care that we were talking to it.

The volcano is building a massive lava dome. It is likely to collapse in a dramatic event. In an odd way, I was hoping it would go off while we were in Kasilof in hopes of getting some spectacular pictures. Instead, the skies were rather hazy and the volcano only puffed a little steam while we were there. Nonetheless, it continues to threaten to further disrupt the local lifestyle. A tanker stopped at the Drift River terminal last weekend and drained the rest of the oil out of the tanks there. Our oil production is still down.