chasingsummerp.008

Chasing Summer p.007

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Day 21 - Sept 5th - to Anchorage

Only one pic today. It's on the beautiful pass that we went over continuing the dirt road where we camped.

We arrived on the morning in Anchorage. We couldn't find any charm to it but decided to stay there one night, at the cheapest hotel we could find. They didn't have Internet but there was "a place in the breakfast room where clients were able to get WIFI from a close by location". Let's go with that, even if our room was underground. At least we were able to do our laundry. I spent most of my time updating the thread there while Teryk was working in putting together an 'Anchorage by night' guide book

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Day 22 - Sept 6th - Anchorage to Homer

The famous Kenai Peninsula is in our program today. The road South of Anchorage bordering the water (Turnagain Arm) is spectacular! It’s impressive to see on the other side of the water the high and steep mountains of the Kenai Peninsula, often separated by glaciers. The reflection of them on the calm water at low tide is gorgeous. We had the sun facing us (and were enjoying the ride too much) and so I have only one picture of this great section:

As can be seen on the map the peninsula' mountains are located in the east side and so the road continues to be beautiful, even though more clouds are now in the sky.

Indeed, it looks like the weather might change (and Kenai is supposed to one of the rainiest place in Alaska) so we’re hurrying to Homer that’s supposed to be a great place to stay.

Mid-way, it’s still green and hilly. The road follows a river and we see dozen of fly-fishermen. The more West we go the flatter and less interesting the road is. On the West side of the peninsula the road follows the coast going South and it’s nice to have glimpses of another sea arm, the Cook Inlet.The arrival on Homer is almost a shock: appearing suddenly on the horizon are high mountains with a couple of glaciers separated from Homer by the Cook Inlet. If Homer itself is not really impressive the site where it’s located certainly is!

It was too dark for a good picture but you can see like a long earth peer going towards the mountains: it's the 'Spit'.

Homer is now 2 'separate towns': the real one inland and the harbor on the Spit with tourist accommodations and restaurants. That's where we go first:

Here we are, at the very tip of the Spit

You can camp (for a fee) on the beach at the Spit and so we decide to stay there for the night. Hard to beat the view!

The Spit was a bit strange to me: a mix or a real working environment (the harbor) and some very touristy places. All that mixed with an ‘end of the season’ atmosphere and some dark clouds… Not exactly the place I was expecting but cool nonetheless. We take a walk around…

We get a locally brewed beer at the 'famous' Salty Dawg Saloon

Some oddities...


The 'campground' was everything but crowded...

There was a couple of hitchhikers camping not too far and we ended up sharing their fire camp and bourbon. The guy was especially interesting and it was cool to listen to him singing and playing guitar at night...

Day 23 - Sept 7th - Homer to Anchorage

We decide to leave Homer this morning. It has been a bit disappointing compared to what we were expecting but it might be just because it's the end of the season and the weather was not too nice. At least there is no rain yet...

We're back on our way East towards Seward. It sprinkles a little but it's not too bad so we decide to visit the 'Exit' glacier, just before Steward.

It's impressive...

But not as much as realizing that what we're seeing is only a 'tongue' of a massive ice field. What you can hardly see on this map is that the 'Exit' glacier (right bottom of the map and NW of Seward) is minuscule compared to the immensity of the glacier on top.

Every time we go for a hike with our riding gear on we can hear interesting comments about it

It's a very nice trail and they put markers on how far the glacier used to go, starting maybe in 1925. It's scary to see how fast the glacier is retracting lately!

We get to go really close to the glacier and it's quite impressive!

We then go to Seward for a bite to eat in an internet cafe...

Seward seems to be a cool town but we're kind of trying to beat the threatening rain so we're leaving towards Hope, a very small town, North of the peninsula.

It looks like time has stopped in Hope...

Here is downtown Hope

It doesn't look like much but the road to get there is nice and there is a campground at the end of town so I would recommend the detour.

Time to head to our last stop in the peninsula: Whittier. "During the WWII Whittier was chosen as a 'secret port' by the army because it was well hidden in a fjord and because consistently bad weather hangs over it." That I can vouch for! It started to pour rain even before we reached the 2.5 miles tunnel that leads to Whittier. Here we are trying to stay out of the rain until it's our turn to go through the tunnel.

Until 2000, only trains could go through but now the road is open alternatively to traffic each way going every hour.

The metallic and wet road seems risky according to the pamphlet they give to motorcycle but the trip is quite neat!

Here we are in the 'center' of the town wondering where the heck there would be anything to see.

I can't say we enjoyed much our stay in Whittier. It might be because of the weather: rain and strong wind make the place rather inhospitable.

Nice harbor though...

It's 6 PM and a crostini is all we had for lunch. We decide to eat at a Chinese restaurant to plan on what’s next. We check the Lonely Planet and the notes I took from this web site: nope there is nothing in Whittier that we may have missed. The only interest of the place is the fact that it was a “hidden” place.

We decide to leave and depending on the weather either camp North or Anchorage or find a cheap place in Anchorage. We get ready to go but we check the time schedule for the tunnel first: damn, it’s too late! Now, we have to wait for the next one (each hour) at 8 PM. We spent the time in a café, the rain and the wind are not so bad seen from behind a window.

Riding past Anchorage to find a place to camp seems compromised now that the days are shorter so we make a reservation in a Youth Hostel. We wait in line at 8 pm sharp at the entrance of the tunnel. A message on the billboard tells us (motorcycles) to wait on another lane. The half dozen cars goes through. We wait. A couple of other cars show up and proceed. We wait while it’s still raining. 8:05 - No cars have been in sight for a while but we still have the red light. Finally, at 8:15 we got the green light. I just can’t wait to get out of this place.

On the other side of the tunnel, everything is better: less wind, less rain and my spirit goes up a notch. Time to go to Anchorage. Even if it’s dark with heavy clouds above us, the road is still beautiful and fun. The hostel is in the North part of Anchorage in a not so nice neighborhood. We have a hard time finding the place but finally meet Ed, the Manager of the Hostel. He takes us to another house (the Hostel has 8 of them) because “it has a 6-foot fence and it will be better for the bikes”

. He shows us the house: the kitchen and laundry are fine but the bunked beds crammed in each room are not particularly appealing.

Luckily, the lawn is just perfect for us to camp in it! $10 each and it’s all ours.

Teryk doing some maintenance: the 640's vibrations are hard on the tail light bulb so he had put a robust LED instead. It looks that it's not robust enough!

We meet some of the people staying there and it looks like this place is as much for ‘social purpose’ as it is for travelers. Ed is a really nice guy and we end up speaking of the animals we’ve seen and what he does in winter etc. Turns out that he loves to hunt (like most people in Alaska) and he tells us that he has frozen some of what he hunted and fished: salmon, caribou etc. Next thing, he just proposes us if we want some samples to try. Sure! He comes back with all that!

Caribou sausages, Caribou tenderloin and bacon. Stripes of salmon marinated and smoked using 'First Nations' recipes...

We tell him that this is way more than “samples” and that we would feel embarrassed not to pay him for that but he insists and tell us that he doesn’t have often people who traveled from that far. We can only thank him for his generosity. Then he asks us if we would know how to cook fresh fish. You bet! So a minute later he comes back with a big piece of salmon.

It's so nice to be able to meet people that generous!

Day 24 - Sept 8th - Anchorage to McCarthy (Wrangell NP)

It's been raining all night. At least I was able to use this huge tarp that I bought in Dawson City.

After a good breakfast of caribou bacon

, and eggs, we take the road East. I have mixed feelings leaving Anchorage in the rain. I know that Glenn Hwy is quite scenic and it’s a bit of a shame to do it without seeing anything because of the low clouds. In the same time there is no weather improvement forecasted for the next few days so there is no point at staying in Anchorage longer. An hour or two later, my hands and my crotch are completely wet, the rain and visibility still as bad and we are not happy campers!

Too bad, I can ‘feel’ that behind the clouds the scenery might indeed be beautiful. We get the confirmation in the beginning of the afternoon when finally it clears a bit:

We stop for a late lunch at Glennallen and discuss about our options: either go to Valdez with heavy rain forecasted or go first to Wrangell with ‘only’ 70% chance of rain. We choose the second option. The stomach full and with the rain temporarily over, we feel better and enjoy a good pace on the road to the park.

We gas up at Chitina, the last 'town' before the Park.

The last 60 miles are a dirt road and it’s pretty fun, with almost no traffic and the bright yellow leaves compensating for the gray skies.

I'm still amazed by how huge everything is here!

Bad news, my front tire has a puncture!

It seems to be still holding air a bit so we decide to just pump more air into it and see how many miles it will last. Luckily it held enough air to ride the 15 miles to the end of the road so we could do the repair from a drier place.

The Wrangell-St Elias NP is huge (13.2 millions acres) and is still a true wilderness park. At the end of road there is nothing but a parking lot and a pedestrian bridge. The 'towns' of McCarthy and Kennicott are still miles away. The cool thing for motorcycles is that they can use the bridge but we’ve decided to stay in the hostel hidden in the woods, right before the bridge. No electricity or water in the small cabin but it’s nice, warm and dry: just what we needed! Even better, we’re the only ones in this 6-bed place. It’s very quiet and with no internet or cell service it does feel remote here.

I take off my wheel and check the tube. I just can't believe it! The tube is positioned about 5 inches from where the valve should be! Therefore it created a 'fold' that was rubbing against the tire until it got punctured. Suddenly I'm not so happy about the work done at Barb's Alaska Leather

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Here I am, patching my tube...

Since there is still daylight we decide to checkout McCarthy. It’s definitely on the small side but nice, with a feeling of authenticity. I guess it’s quite different in July with more tourists. We had heard that there was a special Bob Marley party in Kennicott tonight, about 10 miles down the road and we wanted to see what it was all about. But hey, let’s have a beer first at the McCarthy’s saloon. It was pretty quiet but we started to meet some cool locals and decided to stay longer. It’s amazing how different and interesting are the people we met in small places of Yukon and Alaska. They had one point in common: their love for the great Northern! In several occasions I heard their story about visiting Alaska one day and never leaving it since then.

If we think sometimes of us as adventurers it’s really nothing compared to some people we meet there. There was a couple of guys for example who had just come back from spending a week hiking glaciers. A plane had left them somewhere out there and they had been fighting their way around crevasses, sleeping on the glacier too.

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