Hiking to Grewingk Glacier from Right Beach

The first week of July we often spend camping on Right Beach in Halibut Cove across Kachemak Bay with my aunt and uncle and cousins. This beach has cliffs on each end of it, so once the tide passes a certain point, there's no getting in or out except by swimming or boat. This makes the hike to Grewingk Glacier a matter of coordination, planning around the tides to hike out and be back before the tide reaches "that point",

My niece and I were the only ones at camp and up for the 14-15 mile hike to the glacier the first day at camp. We started bright and early at 8 a.m. to try to be back before the tide got past the cliff outcropping. It dawned a beautiful morning--with a rainbow over Homer! Luckily it wasn't raining where we were.

A rainbow over Homer greeted us the first morning of camping at Right Beach.
Hours later there was still a rainbow visible!

The first mile of the hike is on the loose pebbles and rocks of the beach, which I consider the most challenging part of this trek. After passing Left Beach, there is a stream crossing. Each high tide the lagoon behind the beach fills up; with the coming of each low tide a rushing river forms as the water empties out. After the cliff outcrops of Right Beach, this river is the other major obstacle to making it back to camp. Since it was a few hours into the low tide, the river was only about a foot deep. I had my hiking boots on with neoprene booties, which I hike in when I expect my feet to get wet (nearly always in Alaska!), so I just walked right through the stream. My niece took off her running shoes and socks and waded.

Wading the river formed by the emptying lagoon

Further along the beach,we found the trail in the beachgrass, which made walking faster and easier. The orange triangular T (trailhead) sign was our clue to head into the woods. The trail register greets the hiker first, and right behind it the outhouse. We set a fast clip. My estimation was that we had 6 hours tops to complete the hike and make it back to Right Beach without having to swim or get a boat ride back. While the map shows it as being a 14 mile round-trip hike, the glacier continues to retreat rapidly, so I am guessing it is at least 15 miles now.

The arrows mark our route to the glacier, starting at Right Beach

There was no bear scat the entire trail to the hand tram. The last time I'd done this hike the hand tram had been terribly difficult to operate, and there is no way I would have been able to do this hike if it were still in that condition. However, I'd heard it had been repaired and was easier now, and that was the case, though it was still a workout, especially past the midpoint when we had to pull ourselves up rather than down!

The tram spans the glacier river

After the tram the trail begins a steady climb up about 500 feet up a little knoll. The trail was quite overgrown in areas so it felt like wading through the grass and the pace slowed.

The knoll provides a nice view of the glacier outwash, river and lake

On the way down the knoll to the glacial outwash area, we passed an area with trailwork done, with the trail leveled and grass cleared. A shovel was leaning against a tree, though no person was around. That section was all too short and soon we were wading through grass and brush that towered over our heads again.  Once down to the outwash plain it wasn't as brushy but the trail was rockier and rougher.

The shock of our day was just past the turnoff to Emerald Lake. The sign said 1.4 miles to the glacier. We came around a corner and there, just twenty feet off the trail to the right, was a dead black bear, splayed out like you see them for bear rugs. It looked to be a two-year-old, and the flies were swarming it. My niece and I stopped in shock and uncertainty. What does one do when they encounter a dead bear?? Are live bears protective of them? It didn't look like anything had been feeding on it, which was a good thing. After snapping a picture and consulting each other, we opted to continue our hike. After that spot there was quite a few small bear scats on the trail for a quarter of a mile or so. As I would find out the next day when I ran into a state park ranger on the Saddle Trail, the black bear had no bullet holes that they could find but its jaw was broken. They moved it far off the trail later that day as someone had reported it.

Dead black bear along the glacier trail

The last 1.4 miles (supposedly) feels really, really long, as it did the last time I did this hike. Finally we got to a knob overlooking the glacier. Looking at  the time, we were a bit behind schedule to get back before the tide came in and cut us off from our camping spot, so we snapped a few pictures, ate a hurried snack, and did not actually go down to the glacier (which my kiddos did the next day when they did this same hike). I've been around enough glaciers it is not a huge ooooooooh and aaaaaaah experience for me anymore. Being on a tight schedule and being  quite tired added to the effect of "been there, done that."

Grewingk Glacier

Now we were really focused on getting back fast, but my legs were tired and it was hard to make them go fast, especially when we couldn't see the trail because of the overhanging grass. One sweet spot in our day was when we returned to the tram. It was on the other side of the river so we had to pull it across before we could get on. A backpacking couple from Europe that we'd passed on the trail arrived just as we were getting on it and they pulled us across so it was a free and fast ride! Sweet!

We started alternating running with hiking to pick up our speed, and the trail got very busy with folks heading up the trail to Grewingk Glacier Lake, a much easier and shorter hike. I had cell phone access so I called my cousin back in camp and asked her how the tide was looking and how much time she thought we had. She guessed we could make it, but it would be close.

Finally we were on the home stretch:  back on the beach. It was so hard to walk fast on those pebbles. My feet were so tired.  Back across the stream, this time closer to the lagoon as the tide was coming in and the spot that we'd crossed at 8 in the morning was now under 5-8 feet of water.

Final stream crossing near the end of our hike

Where we'd crossed the stream earlier in the morning was now under a lot of water as the tide came in

We weren't home free yet. We had to cross Left Beach, which is only a few hundred yards long, but we could see that the water was right up to the base of the cliff outcropping. We made it across as a wave went out and there was a moment when we could still walk across without getting our feet wet. We were literally minutes away from having to wade to get back to camp. It was two hours and twenty-two minutes before high tide. The hike had taken us 5 1/2 hours. I was so happy to be back! 

The next day when my kids did the hike they knew they wouldn't make it back in time since they left at 1:00 p.m. as the tide was already coming in. That is why in the video it shows them being picked up by boat on the beach by the trailhead.

It was a good day and I felt like I earned my s'more that evening as we sat around the campfire!

A Hiking Trip Video--Grewingk Glacier

All right, folks, congratulate me--I'm blogging two days in a row! This one is compliments of my son.  Here's the video he created after doing the hike from Right Beach to Grewingk Glacier (the glacier, not just the lake, which is the most popular hike in Kachemak Bay State Park). I'll blog separately about my hiking the same trail the day before he did, which might help explain some of what you see in the video.

How Does My Garden Grow?

Some folks may have wondered if I was ever going to blog again. I admit the thought crossed my mind as well. Insanely busy spring turned into even more insanely busy summer and now that I've gotten lots of yard/house improvements behind me, and a bunch of adventures under my belt, I think I may have found a breather to sneak in writing a few blog posts of some of those summer adventures.

But first, on the home front, is the garden. I've been harvesting lettuce, kale, spinach, parsley and basil for a month already, but now the cucumbers, tomatoes, kohlrabi and zucchini are coming it and it begins to feel like abundance.

Today's harvest:  bibb lettuce, curly-leafed kale, beet greens, spinach, strawberries, kohlrabi, cucumber and zucchini

This year I planted my own starts for all but tomatoes and zucchini (only because I didn't have the seeds on hand when I was planting starts!). I keep my seeds in the freezer and discovered that they dated back to 2009, the last time I'd done starts. I wanted to see if they would grow. But as often happens, I planted waaaay too much, because everything except the turnips grew, and grew well! So rather than my usual 3 cucumber plants I have 15!

I ran out of space in my garden for the cole plants: broccoli, cabbage, kohlrabi and cauliflower so I threw them into any spare space in my greenhouse. Of course, spare space when I planted them is much different than now, so the gigantic zucchini plants are crowding out the poor broccoli plants. Don't know if that was an unwise move or not. I was going to transplant them outside if some of the outdoor plants died, but only one did so they didn't get transplanted.

After two mild winters and unusually warm summers, I'm not sure what normal is anymore, but it sure seems like everything is early. Funny how I can gladly adjust my expectations.  This warm summer has brought little rain, and I know it would be doing better if I watered it. Delivered water is now up to 6.5 cents per gallon so to maximize the profit of growing my own veggies I try to minimize watering. Even after we got 2 or 3 days of solid rain the other week, it was still dry under the surface. I keep an eye on the forecast and will it to rain, though for other reasons I sometimes will it not to rain!

July 21 garden view

This year I planted fewer potatoes and way more cole plants and lots of kale. In any spot in the garden that seeds did not come up I've been tossing in more lettuce or spinach seeds for a late crop. We had some landscaping cloth leftover from past years' projects and on a whim I decided to utilize it to keep down weed in and beside the garden. It works like a charm; I don't know why I didn't do this years ago. It reduces my weeding time significantly, and it keeps down the weeds next to the garden in an area we can't get to with the mower. It also provides a buffer that the slugs would have to cross to get to the plants if slugs were an issue, which they are not since it is so hot and dry.

I planted a few different crops this year:  I had celery seed left over from years ago and threw it in; it is doing great in the greenhouse. It was a dud in the garden. I finished off the rutabaga and turnip seeds. As I mentioned the turnips didn't come up but the rutabaga are going nuts so I'll be making pasties again this fall, which is the only dish I use them in. I might have to expand my repertoire of rutabaga recipes this year.

As always, the compost lines are obvious in my garden, clearly delineating between soil that has been supplemented with good stuff and the natural soil. Both my rows of beets and carrots show this, giving me the heads up of where to plant my compost next spring. The store-bought fertilizers just don't do as much for my garden as fish gurry and compost, so if I want beautiful plants, I need to do the work to make my own fertilizer. I'm getting my routines down, though, so it goes more smoothly and easily.

The strawberries must love this warm weather. The plants are well over a foot tall and producing fairly well. I just put chicken and rabbit wire over them but the birds still manage to get in and munch the berries so I think I need to invest in some bird netting. I hung some old CDs around off the wire, thinking the movement and shininess might discourage the birds from hanging out with the strawberries so much, but when it is calm they don't move at all so I'm not sure they're helping much.

All in all, I'm pleased with the garden this year. Especially pleasing is the lack of weeds. I've had 2 light weedings of the entire garden since I planted it the end of May--once in mid-June and once in mid-July. A light weeding means the weeds were easy to pull and it took less than 2 hours to weed the whole garden. I don't know if it's because my soil has more nutrients in it now, or if it's just too dry for weeds to grow. Either way, I'll take it!

Fat Tire Bike Event in Homer

After a couple days in Anchorage for a conference with howling winds I was looking forward to a beachwalk in Homer. A friend called me up and she took me to a "secret" beach access point I'd heard about but never checked out before.  A short walk over a frozen boggy area got us to the top of the bluff where we were amazed to be greeted by the sight of dozens and dozens of fat tire bikers streaming by, the line stretching off in both directions. What the heck?

Yep, those are bikers down there!

We clambered down the bluff and immediately came across a man we knew who filled us in. Apparently it was the annual Fat Bike Festival in Homer. Each year they have a different ride or events, and this year's was to start at Miller's Landing off of Kachemak Drive and ride to McNeil Canyon where they would have food and a fire and then bike back, a ride of about 8 miles each way. Apparently the first couple miles were really rough. Where we'd come down it was ice alternating with slush and not ideal walking by any means. It didn't look ideal for the bikers either. They didn't particularly look like they were having fun, and not long after we got down to the beach it started snowing so pretty soon there was no beautiful view that you see in these pictures and was just gray snow coming down.

There was a stream crossing right where we came down the bluff and some folks were nervous about that. A number of bikers congregated but eventually they all crossed.

By time we started heading back some of the bikers had turned around and headed back too, opting to have the wind (and snow!) on their backs and get home. As one man told us, you can't choose pain but you can choose whether you suffer!

Congregating by a stream crossing

A dog with a camera mounted on his back!

Misty Morning on Engineer Lake

A few years back I took a weekend trip with some Homer Women's Nordic gals to the Engineer Lake cabin. We had a beautifully foggy morning, though it made things a bit interesting rowing back to the parking lot through the fog!

Well, folks, a few months ago I went through all my Alaska photos to date and chose ones I thought I might not have shared or that were my favorites. These photos are the end of that list of to-share pictures. It is perfect timing because I will begin working Monday at Kachemak Bay Campus as an Adult Basic Education instructor, on top of my online teaching responsibilities and community communication workshops. My free time will go down to zip till summer, which thankfully I will still have off to go adventuring around Alaska. Part of my new job will be taking me across the bay to the villages of Seldovia, Port Graham and Nanwalek, so I'll keep you posted on adventures over that-a-way. 

Kenai Lake Reflections

Here is an example of termination dust on the mountains--light snow that has fallen on the peaks but not yet made its way down the mountain. These photos are of Kenai Lake in Cooper Landing. It seems so rare that the lake is so calm that the mountains are a perfect reflection, so I snapped a few pictures.

While the trees in this second photo are blurry, as I snapped this photo from the car as we drove, the mountains are still clearly reflected in the water. The trees create an interesting foreground--not my usual "pretty picture that I post, but interesting I thought!

Wintery Mountains

I'd never seen the mountains by Summit Lake looking so dramatic before. It was one of those times it was worth taking a picture! That winter lighting again.