Kenai Fjords National Park and other stuff

After we collected our RV (Minnie Winnie!) in Anchorage, and loaded up with groceries, we set off down the Kenai Peninsula and did some exploring. First up was the Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet.

Farther up the arm, this is what it looks like at low tide:

This is one of the few places in the world where a “bore tide” occurs. Definition from a an Alaskan website: The "bore" is a tidal phenomenon in which the leading edge of the incoming tide clashes with the flow of the outgoing tide to form a wave that travels up a river or narrow bay. These tides, which can reach 40 feet, come in so quickly that they sometimes produce a bore tide wave that can reach 10 feet high, and locals surf it! Unfortunately, we were at the wrong time of month (best with new and full moons) as we were driving by. However, we did watch the tide coming in and it looked like a river in the bay.

(please ignore the waving person at the bottom left of the video)

Next up was a hike to the Exit Glacier in Kenai Fjords. We did the easy trails first, getting this view:

check out the people at the river’s edge (for scale)

Since it hadn’t started raining (yet) we decided to try the first 1.3 miles of the strenuous trail up beside the glacier. We climbed 1300 ft, and it took us an hour just for that ~mile.

The wildflowers were out like crazy. There were some rain forest-esque areas also:

yes, that’s the trail…(above)

It was so cool to look down on the glacier.

Steve contributed this awesome panorama

The Scottish Bluebells were so dainty and bright -

On our second day in Seward, we took an all day boat tour of Kenai Fjords National Park. We lucked out on a gloriously sunny day.

There were tons of glaciers, and lots of wildlife. We saw humpback whales (just spouting), Stellar sea lions:

…sea otters, even a black bear (at a distance):

blurry because I was totally zoomed out on the lens and still had to blow up the picture

…and Harbor Seals -

I was loving the reflections -

We then hung out in front of Northwestern Glacier…

(we were still a mile away at the shot below)

…and it cooperated and calved a number of times while we were watching:

The harbor seals on the ice (above) provide scale for the glacier, calving and splashes.

This “ice fall” was really neat to watch make its way down the chute after the dam broke at the top (please forgive the poor stabilization; I’m not a great videographer, and the boat was bobbing some) -

Loved the blue! -

These were Horned Puffins (so named for the markings on their cheeks) that were interacting up on a cliff -

(I’ll let you zoom in on your screens, rather than getting them all fuzzy)

Here you can better see the markings:

As we came back into the harbor, there was an immature bald eagle just landed:

The End.

puffin butt