June 30 – Hiking around Homer

It looked like a beautiful clear day so we did some easy hikes today.

But first, being a Saturday, there is bound to be a farmers market in town. It opens at 10, we got there around 10:30 and it was packed. By the time we left about 1/2 an hour later there were a lot less people as I guess everyone rushes to get the fresh produce before they run out.

We broke down and bought some crab. The king crab was $29 a pound and we just could not do it. The guy had some called Bairdi, which he said were not as pretty but the meat was good, “Grade B shell, grade A meat” and only $9 a pound. We got 3 pounds for dinner tonight.

Our guide on the hike yesterday had recommended a hike that started about 15 miles east of town that went through a meadow with lots of wildflowers so off we went. The road out goes along the side of the bay and then climbs steeply to the trailhead so we are well up the hillside with great views of the mountains on the opposite side.

Just up the path was a small platform with a picnic table so we had our lunch. There were two glaciers in view just over on the opposite side of the bay.

The trail was called the Alpine Meadows Loops. The dominate flowers were lupines. Every time either one of says lupine, we always think of Monty Python.

There were lots of other much smaller flowers mixed in, though.

Driving back to town we found a viewpoint with a great view of most of Kachemak Bay.

From this side you could really see how far out in the bay that the spit goes. The small dark line in the middle of the picture below is the end of the spit.

The next hike was on the other side of town. We passed by the viewpoint that everyone stops at to see the spit for the first time. The view paled in comparison to the one we just had but they had some nice gardens which Jennie investigated.

The path was called the Diamond Ridge Trail. We drove about 1 mile in off the highway on a very bumpy dirt road. The trail zigzags from the bluff down to the beach following the valley created by a stream.

Once down at the beach, Jennie collected a few more rocks.

One of the volcanoes was visible across the Cook Inlet.

After the climb back up to the car we headed back to the RV.

Time for dinner.

Not being crab connoisseurs, we have no idea how it compared to king crab but it tasted great to us.

Done.

I went for another walk around the campground after dinner to work some of it off. It was low tide.

They have a pond with only a small opening to the sea, where everyone seems to fish, when it not low tide.

June 29 – Homer, Alaska

We had an easy day today. We woke up to bright sunshine but looked out to see that we were in a hole surrounded by darker clouds on all sides. We ended up being in and out of the sun all day but there was no rain, which is very good.

We went to the Alaska Islands and Oceans Visitor’s Center in Homer. There were a bunch of interesting displays about the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge and the general Homer area.

At 11am they had a guided walk out at nearby Bishop’s Beach.

We did the 10 minutes hike down to the beach to meet the guide who was a biologist that seemed to have worked everywhere. She spent time in Maine, the southern states and some summers out in the Aleutian Islands learning native crafts and lore.

It was too bad that high tide occurred exactly in the middle of the walk because there are much more interesting things to see below the hide tide mark. Maybe will will go back when the timing is better. She talked about the seaweed, the geology of the area and some of the plant life. The guide’s 8 year old daughter came with us and spent the time busily collecting samples for her mother to show us.

As you can see it was a bit cold when the sun went away.

One of the people on the tour spotted a fin out in the water. We all stared for a while and managed to see about 3 more. The guide said they were Orcas or killer whales. The fin would only pop up for a second so you had to be fast and looking in the right direction. She also said this was the first time she had ever seen them on a guided walk. We were definitely not fast enough for a picture.

Off in the distance we could just barely see the plume from one of the volcanoes. The clouds obscured the actual mountain which was about 70 miles away.

One interesting thing is that there are coal seams in the white cliff at the end of the beach in the picture below.

The wave action is eroding the cliff so the coal falls in the ocean and eventually washes up on this beach. The guide said that years ago that half the population of Homer would heat their homes just by coming out to the beach to collect the coal chunks. The coal is very low grade and smelly when you burn it though so people would switch to more environmentally friendly fuels when they could.

The coal is the reason Homer is here at all. There are huge amounts of it and it was mined for a short while but because of the low quality that did not last.

After the walk Jennie went off down the beach collecting rocks while I just stared out for a while.

WAY down the beach.

The walk back to the car is through a wetland called Beluga Slough, on a sort of floating boardwalk. This pillars let the walk rise and fall.

We met someone sitting part way along saying they had seen a moose and that there were some Sandhill Cranes close by. There were a couple about 100 yards away.

And then a mother and young way off in the distance. I love the zoom on this camera.

The moose showed up in the parking lot when we got back to the car.

We had lunch in the car, went back and finished seeing the displays and then went to the town visitor’s center to get some info on some local hikes.

I went for a short walk around the harbour.

June 28 – To Homer Spit, Alaska

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We we have reached the end of the road, literally. We have travelled about 7400 kilometers and the road just does not go any farther. Today we went about 1.5 hours south to the end of the Homer Spit.

It was raining when we woke up but as we travelled it eventually let up to just low grey skies.

Across the inlet it seemed sunny and we saw some of the volcanoes. One of them last erupted in 2009.

As we drove down the hill into Homer you can see the spit off in the distance.

It is very narrow and almost 4 miles long The first section is pretty empty.

Out towards the end there are a bunch of serviced campgrounds (that are really just parking lots) but they are very pricey at more than $40 a night according to my book. We selected the city owned campground for $15 a night with no services. It’s pretty basic but the view of the mountains in the background is not bad. We even got the TV dish working and there is city owned WIFI all along the spit for $24 a week. As long as it is sunny enough to keep the batteries charged we are set.

We saw this tour group’s bus last year in Washington. The back of the bus is a set of 24 tubes for sleeping. I think they setup a kitchen under the canopy.

After getting settled in we walk up to the end. The last mile or so is tourist central.

In order to find room a lot of the places are on pilings over the rocky beach.

Homer calls itself the halibut fishing capitol of the world. There are a lot of boats here and just about every third store is offering a fishing charter. It was about $100 for a half day trip but you also need a $100 fishing license.

We saw this one place advertising all you can eat crab legs so we had to investigate.

With those prices we said maybe not today, or ever. We did stop for some halibut fish and chips.

With people either fishing off the spit or coming back from a trip and cleaning their fish there are a lot of birds around. They just love these bins.

They say there are a lot of eagles around but so far we have only seen three.

My brother sent me an email saying that we seemed to be ahead of schedule. It is true we have been moving kind of fast in the last while. The problem is the July 4th holiday. It get really busy everywhere but I wanted to be as far away from Anchorage and all its people for that time. With the holiday being on a Wednesday I am not sure which will be the busy weekend. We will stay here at least a week and see how it goes. Since we have to go back the way we came, at least until Anchorage, we will go slower and stop at the places we skipped.

The weather forecast for the next week is not bad. Mostly sunny with some showers. There should be enough to do here. Some days off aren’t terrible either.

The weather off to the west looks nice tonight.