Anchorage and the Kenai Peninsula

I spent a total of five days in Anchorage and traveling to the Kenai Peninsula. Riding into Anchorage via the Glenn Highway is nothing short of spectacular – which makes reaching the city that much more of an anti-climax. As I noted earlier, there is a huge disjuncture between Anchorage’s setting, and what has been done with it. Nevertheless, there are a couple of things worth seeing – most of them involving getting away from the city and into the natural environment. Potter’s Marsh, for instance, is a world-class bird-watching area. The area of Flattop has superb hiking trails – along with bear and moose. On the cultural side, my favorites were a visit to the Alaska Heritage Center, which presents the life and culture of the five major native groups in the state. It’s an active exhibition – there are small-scale settlements of each group, along with interpreters who explain how subsistence and other activities took place. Another find was the outstanding collection of native artifacts housed in the main Wells Fargo Bank Building – quite a ways from the tourist areas downtown, but worth a visit (and free, to boot).

For the most part, though, Anchorage has about as much charm as Plano, TX, or Bakersfield, CA. Everything is horrifically expensive, and the amount of tourista crap downtown, catering especially to the cruise ships that call here, is breathtaking. One of the hyped destinations, Glacier Brewhouse, was actually pretty good – even the beers were decent. Overall, though, it’s best to get out of town to see the things that make Alaska interesting.

I made a strategic decision to forgo the long loop trip to Denali and Fairbanks. The chances of actually seeing Mount McKinley are iffy, at best (it’s usually covered by clouds, and that was the forecast for while I’m here). Fairbanks’ main attraction is that it’s the jumping off point for the Haul Road up to Point Barrow, and is one of the easier points from which to reach the Arctic Circle. Otherwise it has a huge military presence, and is also where many of the oil workers from the northern fields live, traveling up for two week stints in the fields, then two weeks back in Fairbanks. As I’ve been above the Circle on a number of occasions, I didn’t feel a burning need to do so again. Instead, I decided to spend a couple of days riding down to Homer, which is set in one of the most magnificent settings imaginable -- on the shore of Kachemak Bay, surrounded by snow-covered mountains, with numerous glaciers, and even a couple of active volcanos. Homer is the Halibut Fishing Capital of Alaska – and people come in droves in their RVs to camp on the Homer Spit and haul in the halibut. Homer is also home to some oddities – for instance, the Alaska Yurt Village, a collection of yurts for sale, which also house a number of counter culture emporia. These are much bigger than you might think – one of them was the size of a small house, heated with a woodstove. Most of the denizens seem to be more refugees from the 1960s and 70s. The town also has a great restaurant – the Café Cups – which someone had tipped me to. Great food, and a wonderful setting.

The next day, I rode out East End Road, which took me to the furthest distance from Minnesota I would reach. Again, stunning views of the glaciers and mountains across the bay. It was hard finding a place to park, though – a lot of people who move to Alaska definitely are here for the isolation – and they don’t want to be bothered by people, especially tourists. The number of no parking and no trespassing signs was daunting. It was hard to find a place to pull off the road to take a picture.

I headed back up the Kenai Peninsula, taking the side trip to Seward that I had skipped on the way down. I went into Kenai Fjords National Park, to hike up to Exit Glacier, one of the most accessible of the dozens of glaciers in the area. Excellent interpretation, and amazing views. As usual, it didn’t seem possible to capture the scope of things with a camera (but I tried!)

Seward, like many of the destinations up here, was less impressive than the journey to get there. Unfortunately, most people seem to pay more attention to the official destinations, and miss what is really amazing – the sweep of the landscape, the scale that it presents, and the variations in near, middle and far distance. I thoroughly enjoyed the ride down the Kenai and back – a total trip of about 600 miles over two days. This is maybe the most beautiful part of Alaska.

After the Kenai, I spent a last night in Anchorage (in the Highland Glen B & B – one of the best finds of my trip). Today (Sunday), I started home. I managed 525 miles, going up the Glenn Highway to the Richardson Highway, hitting the Alaska Highway at Tok, and continuing on into Yukon Territory and Burwash Landing, where I now am. But it’s after midnight, and time for bed. Yawn . . .