Our camp spot in Cooper Landing was at the Princess Lodge on the Kenai River. There was a trail down to the river where we walked after dinner and enjoyed some viewing platforms.
There was a bend in the river where we could see the fish swimming upstream to spawn. By this point they were very red and ready to find their landing place. This must have been a particularly calm place in the river because we saw five fish come and go after taking a rest stop here. Once you’ve seen how hard they work to get back upstream you have a new appreciation for how difficult this last journey is for them.
The next day we went down to the Russian River boardwalk. It was a nice walk, but short. This place is all about fishing now and the reason for this boardwalk was to give fisherpeople access to the river.
There were built in ramps that help protect shoreline, and led right into the river for fishing.
Fishing still not being our thing, I had found some bike trails in the Chugach National Forest. This one from Cooper Landing went up the Russian River to the falls, then beyond to some lakes.
At the Russian River Falls there were more viewing platforms and we got to watch the salmon swimming upstream through the falls. I caught this fish making a mighty leap up the falls. It made pedaling with our power bikes seem pretty easy that day.
We continued beyond the falls to a beautiful lake. The trail went further but got pretty sketchy. We called this our turnaround point, and it was a beautiful destination.
Being late in the summer, the grasses were grown up around the trail in several places. I rang my bear bell a bunch when we couldn’t see what was ahead!
The next destination was Porcupine Campground near the town of Hope, again in the Chugach National Forest. This one is at the end of the road on the south side of Turnagain Arm. We had a rest day after arriving with pouring rain, but another beautiful and private campsite.
When the weather broke (mostly) we went for a hike on a trail along the coast to a destination called Gull Rock. The trail was also very wet and overgrown, but it was a nice hike.
The only time we got close enough to the beach to see out over the water, we were on the edge of a bay. There was a young black bear foraging on the beach and it heard our voices and ran back into the forest. I felt bad interrupting its lunch, but felt worse because it went back into the woods right in the direction we were walking. I’m pretty sure I heard it at the other end of the bay as we walked by.
Something I’ve been working on this year is cooking over the fire. I have cast iron from Rob’s mom and this turned out to be an absolutely delicious campfire cooked pizza.
The bike trail I was most excited about was through the valley up Resurrection Creek. It goes from Hope all the way south to Cooper Landing, It’s 37 miles, but we had no illusion we would get even close to that far.
The reviews on AllTrails.com were really good, and we heard from locals that two recent races had made it into Hope on that trail. What we didn’t realize was that it was a very technical mountain bike trail. Our mountain bikes are home in the garage, and while our power bikes do great on dirt trails, this one was a little too much for us. We made it 3.5 miles in and decided it wasn’t the day we wanted.
So while we were waiting for the only restaurant in town to open up for lunch, we took a drive to the other destination we had on our radar but had not explored yet. I keep saying that every day on this trip is a WOW day, but this was just WOW WOW. We went up over a little pass and into a valley. At the head of the valley was the trailhead for the Palmer Lakes hike. If we have one regret this year it’s that we didn’t explore and figure this one out sooner. We would have given up both of the previous adventures for this bike ride and hike up to the lake. We might actually figure out how to sneak in a trip back here on our way north if the weather is anything like it was yesterday.
Today we headed south again towards Seward. We’ll meet Jon & Lynn there in a couple of days. We stopped at another campground in the Chugach National Forest. This is our happy hour / book reading spot on Kenai Lake. Again, just another WOW moment.
Pix for this blog are here