Alaska South-Peninsula
By Jaimy de Vries
After our cruise we arrived in Whittier, in the Kenai Peninsula. The Kenai Peninsula is located south of Anchorage and covering nearly 25,000 miles, it’s home to Homer, Seward, Kenai, Cooper Landing, and is very popular for fishing. Of course, there are so many other things to do in this area of the state too! Whale watching, kayaking, hiking, visiting glaciers and much more! We left Whittier and drove to Seward and Homer. And we visited the Russian River Falls twice.
Whittier
Our first day after getting off the cruise was a practical day. We needed to get some cash, wait for our rental car and drive up to Seward where we’ll do grocery shopping and checking in. But sadly we needed to wait a lot time in Whittier because the person who would bring the car, replied late because her phone died. But it was fun to wander a bit through Whittier. It’s a small fishers town with just a couple of hundreds residents. They all live in fact in one big building. Whittier is nestled between glaciers and lush mountains and it’s the gateway to Prince Willian Sound. This area attracts thousands of visitors every year. They come because it’s the best place to see amazing tidewater glaciers and marine wildlife that’s easily accessible from Anchorage (just 90 minutes by car). In fact, you’ll find the world’s largest concentration of tidewater glaciers here. It would’ve been nice if we could stay here a bit longer, but there were no accommodations available.
Happy with out rental car!
Seward
Seward, a small town located on the Kenai Peninsula and situated in Resurrection Bay’s inner area. Resurrection Bay is a famous fjord with some of the most epic views in the state. It is also in a prime location to go on one the the best hikes of Alaska, like the Mt. Marathon, lost lakes & Harding icefield trail.
Another interesting thing about Seward is that it took a part in the Gold rush history of Alaska and was the starting point of the iditarod trail.
Picture of David Mark on Pixabay
Our accommodation was the Nauti Otter Inn and surely one to recommend. What a fun place! Because of it’s name they had a mascotte of a pirate Otter. So you saw everywhere around the premise signs of a pirate otter (the Nauti Otter) giving us explanations about the check-in, how to make breakfast (waffles) and clean up after yourself. Very creative and fun. Even more fun the accommodations itself. First we stayed in two shacks (mobile homes) and later in a yurt. We could even dress up as an otter and take a photo on the premise with our shack.
The other interesting part of our stay was making your own breakfast. You could choose what you wanted to eat: (disgusting) Quacker or make your own waffles. We never made waffles ourselves, so it was our first time. Someone said to us: “the first time can get a bit messy”. Well not for us! we were pro’s! Our first waffles (the other ones too) were perfect and we even made them without spilling.
On our last night we stayed in the yurt village. We had a yurt with the theme: puffin. It was our favorite place to sleep so far, and it would be hard to top it off. Maybe a yurt with a toilet inside haha. Now we needed to walk outside in the middle of the night for a pee-pie.
In front of our Lumberjack shack
Having fun dressing up
Our yurt, the best accommodation so far!
But back to what we did in Seward. Well we had some days with good weather and some days that it was pouring rain. On our first “real” day in Seward it was pouring rain. We drove around to explore the area. We visited an eagle nest, went to the bear weir where we saw lots of Salmon jumping on a small waterfall and we walked around downtown. Downtown we took a small trail called two lakes trail. After cooking and having dinner back at the Inn we took a hike on bear lake trail. There are bears living there and people trying to scare you off with stories on the hiking board, but we haven’t seen one. We took a wrong turn actually, but eventually we made it by crossing a river. We saw many, many salmon swimming and jumping in the lake. Quite cool! Food enough for bears, so no hungry bears up here. The rest of the evening we relaxed, gaining enough energy for our next day because we have a long day of hiking ahead of us.
Harding Icefield Trail
The highlight of our week in Seward, a long hike called The Harding Icefield trail. This is a 7 hour hike with an elevation of 1200 meters (4000 feet). Not an easy hike. When we asked a guy while climbing up “How’s the top“? He responded: “It’s worth every step” and I can tell you now: it definitely was! It’s one of my top hikes so far…and I think that says something because I did many hikes on the American continent. I loved the changing landscapes. First we had many tree’s, wildflowers, bushes and a beautiful view over the exit glacier. After a 600 meter ascend the vegetation started to change, no trees or big bushes anymore. It started to look like a tundra landscape and eventually we were walking on rocks and snow. You could also feel the landscapes changing, it started to get colder.
At the top we had lunch with an amazing view over the glacier and the Harding Icefield. Afterwards we decided to head out a bit farther. We took a steep descend down to get closer to the Ice Field. We even walked a little bit on it and took some nice photos. There were two women walking on the Ice Field up to the glacier, that was so stupid..so dangerous!! Please don’t do anything like that unless you have experience with that or you’re on a tour!
Later we walked down back to our car. Eventually we did the hike in 7 hours including a big break, climbed 375 stairs and took more than 30.000 steps. I burned 2000 kcal on that hike. A good work-out. We were quite tired afterwards. We charged our battery with a nice prepared Italian dinner with red wine and cheered to our lovely hike.
The other days we did some more simple hikes. We didn’t want to overdo it, because we had quite some muscle pain. But we loved our hike at bear lake and Tonsina Creek. Especially Tonsina Creek Trail was nice. A simple hike on a well maintained trail that leads to the beach at Resurrection Bay. If you’re lucky you can spot some wildlife from the coast, like sea otters, seals and maybe even a whale. We only saw dead crab. We had lunch at the beach close to the sea. After we finished our sandwich we turned around and saw that the tide almost flooded our way back to the beach. We just made it in time, otherwise we were stuck on a little island for a while.
Smoking hot
You can’t leave North-America without learning how to make a little campfire. In North-America they like to make fires at night and come together to eat S’mores. But we also learned another delicious campfire appetizer: pigs-in-a-blanket. We both tried it. But first things first: we needed to make a fire! And that’s not so easy with only wood and no firelighters and oil – that would be cheating (what I’d like to do back home). Well we learned what’s the best way to do it: cut smaller pieces with an axe, start small and build up. And we are now pro’s!! We liked the S’mores and pigs-in-a-blanket. It tastes like more!
Russian river falls
On our way to Homer we stopped at the Russian River Falls. A place that offers some great fishing opportunities and beautiful hikes. We paid 11 dollar to park our car. We came here to see the Russian River Falls. This is a special place where you can see lots of salmon. A lot!! They’re coming from the great Pacific ocean, swimming a long way against the current and jumping to climb the falls and reach their birth place: the Russian River lake. They do this when they turned 3-5 years to spawn and die up there. “Incredible right!?” Well I was impressed and hoped not to reincarnate into a salmon. That would be a heck of a life job.
But we weren’t here to only see salmon. There is something Salmon attracts… yes bears! We actually wanted to see bears catching the salmon, nice and safe from a veranda. We read on All trails that they mostly come for a meal between 10 am – 2 pm. It’s like Brook Falls where you can see bears catching fish at the falls, but way cheaper. Brook Falls will cost you around 600-700 dollar per person.
We arrived there at 12 pm. It was fun to watch the Salmon jumping on the waterfall. We waited till 3 pm, but unfortunately we haven’t seen a bear. So we went again another day when we were driving up to Eagle River. But again, no luck! Very sad, but you just never know with wildlife. Maybe on a random hike we will spot a bear hunting for fish. But chances are little. Underneath an impression of our visit at the Russian River Falls.
Jumping Salmon
Salmon from underwater
Our patience was not rewarded, leaving us a bit sad.
To give you an idea why we waisted 6 hours of our life in the hope to spot some wildlife, is because of the images on All trails below! This would’ve been so cool to see! ….. But I’m a bit over-exaggerating. Still it was a very cool spot to see many salmon trying to jump on the waterfalls to reach the lake. Sometimes they managed, sometimes a big face plant on a rock.
Picture of Ceara Parks on All trails.
Picture of Shelby Gillenwater on All trails.
Homer
Homer is a lovely fishers town located on the Katchemak bay in the South of the Kenai Peninsula. Most of the people living here are either fisherman or farmer.
Everything in this town is about fishing. You don’t have car wash, no here you have boat wash. You don’t by ice for your drinks, no you buy ice for your fish. If you go to a pizzeria, you’ll see lots of locals and whole families, still wearing their boots and overall
Picture of Barbara Jackson on Pixabay
We stayed here 6 days. Less would be fine too, but we got to see everything and we didn’t had to haste. It was a very relaxing stay. Come out at bed between 9 and 10, have breakfast and coffee and leave around 12 to discover the area. It’s not really a place for hiking, but we took two hikes along the coast of Kachemak bay: Homer Spit and Diamond Creek Trail. We started with a hike to homer spit of 3 hours. An interesting hike where you could really see and experience the tides. Homer spit is a little harbor town with nice restaurants, shops and tourist offices. On interesting thing with the hike is you can see the tides changing: on our way to Homer spit the tide was low, but when we walked back it was high. A must visit at Homer Spit is the Salty Dawg Saloon where the walls and ceiling are covered in dollars. We didn’t found any gold yet in Alaska, but this comes close.
One of the best hikes is the Diamond Creek trail. First you need to go down through forest and along a canyon to reach the beach. Then we walked along the shore. And we finally saw a sea otter! I just love them, they’re so cute. While walking on the best we had an amazing view over the Denali mountain. Just incredible that you can see it from that far.
Fish station at Homer Point
Huge 18″ pizza
Old house along the Homer Spit trail.
Salty Dawg Saloon at Homer Spit
Inside the Salty Dawg Saloon
View over vegetation and sea at Diamond creek trail. On the background a volcanic island.
Walk on the beach at Diamond creek trail with Denali mountain on the background.
Pratt museum
A local museum called Pratt Museum is highly recommended on the internet. So we got curious and went to the museum on a rainy day. When we went to the museum it turned out it was actually closed. But a lady came outside and let us in because we’re here only for a couple of days. So sweet! It’s an interesting museum about the nature and history of Kachemak bay and art displayed by the native cultures. When we walked inside we were amazed by the huge displayed dead animals, mostly by how big the moose is. Quite scary if you will catch one in the wild. They can be aggressive too and can kill you. Maybe they’re even more dangerous than bears. We learned about the history of Homer, a town where first only the natives lived. A native clan also called as the water people. I love and adore that the natives have a big respect for nature. They only took what was necessary, keeping the animal & fauna populations intact. And they were so smart and creative in making their own equipment and clothing. I was impressed by their rain jackets made off the stomach of a seal. Who would thought of that right?
Amazed by the big moose “Is it really that big!?”
Later more residents came in the 1900’s. There was no road so they reused everything. For example use a coffee can to make fishing equipment.
It was not always easy living here. Close by there are tectonic plates, making Tsunamis not unfamiliar here. Of course this costs lot of trouble before. We saw many tsunami evacuation signs everywhere in town. There are also lots of tides. This can make sailing a bit more difficult, but the tides also creates fishing opportunities not only for men but also for wildlife and birds. And besides the fisherman’s know really well how to handle the tides.
Kayaking
All the tours are so expensive here. We decided not to go on a boat taxi to sail to the other side of the bay. For example a visit to Halibot Cove ($70 two way) or Seldovia ($90 two way). But we did went on a kayak trip, because I just love kayaking and one of my bucket list items is to get close to wildlife from a kayak. We paid $150 per person for a half-day kayak trip with True North, the kayak company in Homer. This was including a water taxi to Yukon Island. It was quite a rough ride…so Jaron got a bit sea sick. We suited up on Yukon island an both got a 1 person kayak. What new was for us, is that it had a foot peddle. But it turned out to be an easy system.
I enjoyed kayaking, it always make me so happy and relaxed. It gets my mind at ease. Who’s mind was not really at ease was Jaron. He was not feeling well. I hold his kayak while he was feeding the fish (vomiting). We hoped to attract some wildlife but we didn’t, not even a sea otter. Sad! But we did find some jellyfish and some huge kelp! In the far we could see whales sprouting air. That was cool!
You never know with wildlife. We could’ve been disappointed but we decided not to focus on that. It was a beautiful kayak trip and it is just special to kayak here in Alaska.
Heavy boat ride to the Kayak camp.
Suit up!
Kayaking in Alaska!
We drove from away from Homer up to Anchorage and by that saying goodbye to the Kenai Peninsula. It was a lovely drive in the Kenai Peninsula with a beautiful view over the Denali mountain and lots of wildflowers. I especially loved all the fireweed fields that you can see everywhere in the Kenai Peninsula (in summer).
My guide for your Kenai Peninsula trip
We stayed in Seward and Homer. Maybe Cooper Landing would be a good addition to your road trip too, but we skipped that and decided to stay longer in one place.
Seward
- Recommended duration visit: Seward 3 days
- Best places to eat: Chinook waterfront, the Cookery, Woody's Thai kitchen, Mermaid grotto.
- Best hikes: Mount Marathon, Lost lakes, Harding Icefield, Tonsina creek trail & Caines head trail.
- Highlighted things to do: fishing, wildlife watching tour in Kenai Fjords national park, visit exit glacier, watch salmon run at bear weir, visit Resurrection bay, Alaska Sea Life center, flightseeing (lots of helicopter and waterplane tours).
- Best accommodation: Nauti Otter. A great place, clean, good pricing and just so fun & unique!
- My favorite activity: Hardings Icefield trail.
Cooper Landing
- Recommended duration visit: 2 days
- Best hikes: Russian river falls & Russian River Lakes, Ptarmigan Creek Trail, Resurrection Pass South Trailhead.
- Highlighted things to do: Visit old mining town Hope, see flying Salmon at Russian River falls and maybe catch a bear hunting them.
Homer
- Recommended duration visit: 3 days
- Best places to eat: Fat Olives (Italian - pizza's!), Two sisters bakery, AJ’s Oldtown Steakhouse & Tavern, Duncan house dinner
- Best hikes: Diamond Creek trail, Homer Spit trail
- Highlighted things to do: Flight to Brooks Falls for bear watching, fishing for halibut, wildlife watching tour, kayaking, stroll at Homer point, have a drink at Salty Dawg Saloon, visit Seldovia or Halibut Cove, Pratt museum.
- Best accommodation: Yurt at the Plantman
- My favorite activity: Kayaking and hikes.