We arrived in Seward and went down Herman Leirer Road which is the road to Exit Glacer. There is a huge area on the river that you can boondock on. We stayed there Thursday night and headed into town Friday for our 6 hour Kenai Fjord boat trip with Major Marine Tours. We had a pretty full boat which wasn’t surprising since it was a really nice day. We had assigned tables inside but we chose to sit outside on the second level in the back of the boat.
We saw sea otters right away floating on their backs being all cute. We didn’t have to go far before a humpback whale showed off a bit around the boat. It was pretty cool to see and pictures never do it justice. We chose the 6 hour trip because we wanted to see more of Kenai Fjords National Park. We were able to see coastal mountain goats and a black bear on shore. The captain drove the boat through a narrow section that was full of caves and was so pretty.
Our trip took us through Resurrection Bay past Bear Glacier and then around a point to Aialik Bay. The time it took to go around that point was only 30-45 minutes but it was open water and pretty rough. The staff were handing out puke bags to everyone and many people had to use them. Craig and I don’t get seasick and even we felt a little icky. Once around the point, the ride smoothed out and we saw Holgate Glacier. The captain turned off the boat so we could listen to the cracking of the glacier but unfortunately, we didn’t get to see any calving.
On the way back we passed a group of sea lions and we were all entertained watching one try to get to the top of a rock. There were many sunning themselves and didn’t much care that we were there cheering them on. As we continued, a pair of Orcas were spotted and we spent a lot of time watching them. It was a great day and we are glad we opted for this touristy excursion.
Once off the boat we headed to the Breeze Inn for a quick meal and then went back to our boondock spot on the road to Exit Glacier. We knew it would be busy out there for the weekend, but man, it was packed. And since it stays so light so late, many people just don’t feel the need to go to bed. We found a spot tucked into some bushes but there was no getting away from people who didn’t care where they parked or how close they parked. We didn’t want to go back into town on the weekend because we knew it would be busy so we just hunkered down for the weekend.
Our buddy John and his dog Blue found us Sunday night and while we were chatting a small plane came swooping through camp, touched down it’s tires, and then took off again. It did that about 5 or 6 times and then landed. It was pretty wild to see!
Monday we drove up to Exit Glacier hoping to hike the trail up to it again but were disappointed to see just how packed the parking lot was. We had done the hike in 2018 with almost no people on the trail so we opted to skip it this time.
We headed into Seward. We took showers, got supplies, fueled up and then walked around downtown a little bit. We went to the Yukon Bar, which is a locals bar, and had a beer and left our dollar bill. We went into a few shops but then headed north to Hope.
We camped out at a free campground south of Hope and then headed to Palmer Lakes Trailhead on Tuesday. We hadn’t done a hike in a while and we had an awesome sunny day. It was only about 3 1/2 miles with a little bit of a climb. The views were so amazing!!
We drove into Hope after our hike. We had driven through in 2018 but it had been raining heavily. Hope is not a big town and there was not much going on at all. Apparently there is live music on the weekends that will bring in a thousand people but it was completely dead when we drove through.
We found a great boondock spot overlooking Six Mile Creek and that is when the talk of whitewater rafting it came up again. When we were here in 2018, we talked about it but since we had Gus we didn’t want to leave him for so long. We have rafted a few other rivers but none that were solid Class V rapids. We decided to go on Friday so we stayed at our boondock spot for a couple days just enjoying the views and rested up.
When we arrived at Chugach Outdoor Center on Friday afternoon and learned that we would have a full crew of 20 people plus 4 guides and 2 safety boats. These guys and gals were awesome! They were professional yet fun. After getting all suited up in our dry suits, we were loaded on a bus and brought up river. We all had to dive into the 35 degree water and swim as hard as we could until a whistle was blown and then we could flip onto our backs and float down to the rest of the boats. Once you were close, you were told to swim hard again to get to a boat. That was probably the hardest part because you were still fighting the current and trying to get through the water wall into the eddy. Then someone in the boat had to grab your life jacket and pull you up into the boat. There is no being shy and everyone did great.
After that we all got into 4 boats, 5 to a boat plus a guide and off we went. We were with two older gentleman that didn’t want to paddle so Craig and I were happy to take the front and be the paddlers and another young man was tasked to sit between Craig and I and hold onto our life jackets so we didn’t fall out as we were paddling. We had never rafted when everyone doesn’t have a paddle. Our guide sat in the middle and did an awesome job of bringing us in, through, over and around all the fun stuff.
There are 3 canyons on Six Mile Creek. The first one is easy and just got us used to the boat and listening to our guide’s instructions. Second canyon has Class IV rapids and got a little more intense. Third canyon has solid Class V rapids and there were 7 of them, one right after the other. Some of the names of the rapids on Six Mile are Pearly Gates, the Nozzle, Suckhole, Jaws, Merry-Go-Round and George Foreman just to name a few. Some people took the option to get out after Second Canyon but we are so glad we didn’t. It was a blast and so intense and we would do it again in a heartbeat!
We had applied and were chosen for a pet sit in Eagle River for July 3-7 so we headed there on Saturday morning for a quick meet and greet so we didn’t have to try and get back there before they left on Wednesday. The meeting went great and we are excited to get to hang out with two cute kitties this week.
We grabbed some supplies and then headed to Point Mackenzie which is across the bay from Anchorage. The couple boondock spots we had found on iOverlander were either taken or just not that great. We found a little pull off to stay in for the night but decided we didn’t want to spend anymore time there.
We headed up to Hatcher Pass and found a great little spot on Willow Creek. Unfortunately it wasn’t very level and we struggled to get even close to level with all the tools at our disposal so we decided to move. We found another pretty spot on Willow Creek just down the road. It was a little busier but that was to be expected the week of the 4th of July.
We had ordered some stuff from Amazon which took 2 weeks to get to Anchorage so we planned our route around that. We’ll be heading back into town tomorrow to pick up packages, get some supplies, hit some breweries and then settle in at our pet sit. We are looking forward to being in a house for a few days. The truck and camper need some TLC and it will be be good to get everything cleaned up.
Off to Eagle River…