Portage Glacier Area

Three years ago when we visited the Portage Glacier, it was one of the highlights of the month we spent in Alaska. This time it had to have been the biggest disappointment of our trip, which is why I didn't even take a picture of it. The glacier above is the Byron Glacier, which can be reached by a .8 mile easy hike. The Portage Glacier is well-known because it was a major supply route between Prince William Sound and Anchorage in the early days of the state. Portage Glacier is receding quickly, and when we visited 3 years ago we were able to walk on a paved path to within feet of the glacier. Now there is a lake where the road used to be, and you can pay to take a boatride on the lake to see the glacier up close. Since that wasn't the experience we or the kids wanted, we opted to go to Whittier, whose tunnel entrance is right by the glacier. That was a really cool experience!

The tunnel is 2 1/2 miles long, one lane. Trains run through it as well, so the tracks are embedded in the road. The walls are rough-hewn stone. While the tunnel is narrow, it is also high to allow for the height of the trains going through. It was $12 round trip to drive through the tunnel, which we thought was a bit steep. The tunnel is on half hour schedules, so for one half hour the traffic can go through one way; the next half hour vehicles can come through from Whittier. It runs from early morning to late night, and is closed throughout the nighttime. Besides boat, this is the only way to get to Whittier. It is the alternate route to the Portage Pass (the pass is basically going over the Portage Glacier). The tunnel and Whittier were built during the war, so Whittier is basically a military base. I'll cover more on Whittier in that blog entry!

Granite Creek Campground & Area

The Granite Creek Campground is a little over an hour south of Anchorage in the Chugach Mountains. There is not much special about this campground. While it is on a creek, it wasn't the sort you could do much with (too fast for wading, to muddy to fish, no nice spot to sit). There were no hiking trails or much of anything besides the campground. There were pit toilets and water, and the sites were very spread out so you didn't really feel like there were a lot of people there. It is right on the Sterling Highway with paved bike paths stretching for many miles in both directions, and if we go back, we will bring bikes and/or rollerblades to take advantage of that. It is also just a mile down the road from the Johnson Pass Trail, a 23 mile long trail. We only made our way a few miles down it, as we found berries to pick. There were more trailing raspberries along here than anywhere else. I think trailing raspberries are one of the more delicious berries I've eaten. However, they are nestled close to the ground and you have to be looking for them. It takes many berries to amount to anything but a light snack, so we just enjoy the taste bud delight.

Crescent Creek

The Cresecent Creek area, about 1 1/2 to 2 hours south of Anchorage, is a fun outdoor playground area. There is a boat launch, 2 campgrounds (one more developed than the other), tons of fishing in the Crescent Creek, and hiking. We stopped there on our way through and watched the fly fishermen pulling in the trout. As you can see in the picture, there were a lot of salmon. They are red because being in fresh water changes their color. Once they spawn they will die, which is why there is a dead fish in the foreground. At this point the salmon are not good eating, but the fishermen were pulling in the trout from amongst the salmon. This was a beautiful Labor Day weekend so there were more fisherpeople out there than usual.

The Crescent Creek Trail was a nicely kept up trail, wide so you could walk double, and through some nice woods. It is billed as a good trail for family dayhikes. The only downfall of this trail was that there were so many mountain bikers careening down it that we had to be on constant lookout for them. I think at least 25 bikers zoomed by us in the 1 1/2 hours we were on this trail. Again, Labor Day weekend may have made the traffic heavier than usual. We delighted in picking some berries. The crowberries a few miles up the trail were huges and juicy, which is unusual for crowberries!

McNeil Canyon School

Aurora and Denver go to McNeil Canyon School, a 10-15 minute drive from our house. It is a K-6 school with about 130 students, which is almost exactly the same size as the elementary in Vanderbilt. Class sizes are mostly 15-20 students. There is one teacher per grade, except for 5/6 which is combined into one big class of 30. The students here call teachers by their first names, which is totally bizarre, and I have a hard time with. I like Aurora's compromise: Mr. Bill. Aurora's teacher was Teacher of the Year recently for the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District. One third of the students at McNeil are Russian, some who live outside the Russian communities and others who are driven from Razdolna or Voznesenka each day (busses do not go out to the villages).
Each school in this district has a Site Committee, since in this case the school board lives 2 1/2 hours away in Soldotna. The staff is very positive and progressive, using best practices. They find ways to make learning fun. Aurora and Denver never come home tired and drained like they used to, though that could be from the schoolday too, which is from 7:50 a.m. to 2:20 p.m.
School is very rarely cancelled. While there is snow, it is logistically nearly impossible to close school for an entire district that encompasses hundreds of miles. And if one school closed it would put them out of whack with the rest of the district's calendar. So they just don't close school.
I met the principal of McNeil this summer at a potluck and asked him what the biggest challenge the school had. His answer was that more parents are working and not available to volunteer during the day in the school. Frankly, if that is the greatest challenge in the school, I think things must be going awesome! I have a hard time picturing a school with lots of parents volunteering during the day.
Every student that enters this school district has to have a physical. One immunization that kids do not get in Michigan that is required here is the Hepatitis A. All students in the district are required to get a TB test each year. This is done by the school nurse in school.
Overall, it is a very comfortable, positive place for our kids to be, and we are confident they are receiving a good education there.

Our Drives to Work!

The nearest store of any type from where we live is the Fritz Creek General Store you see pictured here, which is also our post office. Our mail is delivered to Homer, but as a service to residents of East End Road, those who have PO boxes can get their mail at Fritz Creek (a 15 minute drive instead of 30 minutes!). The food here is good (hot soup, sandwiches and fresh baked bread) and lots of locals have lunch or dinner here.
Doug has to drive 1/2 mile on gravel, 1 mile on paved road, then 5.5 miles on gravel road to get to Razdolna. The gravel road is new (in the past few years); in the past it was what we call "the bush", which means you cannot drive a car there.
My drive into Homer is longer and more challenging. It is race car driver heaven with all sorts of curves, tight uphills and downhills, hairpin turns, etc. I have actually come to enjoy driving this road every day, though we'll see if I still say that on the first snowfall.

East End Road is the only way into Homer. It follows the bluff above Kachemak Bay. Across the bay is the mountain range with glacier after glacier. I discovered the worst part of this road on the first day of school last week: school busses. If you get behind one, you are going to be stuck behind it alllllll the way into Homer. It makes a 30 minute drive feel like eternity as there are stops to pick up kids every few hundred feet. The elementary students are bussed to McNeil (which is at mile 10 of East End Road). Middle school and high school students are bussed into Homer. The first day of school the line of cars stretched over a mile, out of sight behind me, as we followed the schoolbus. They don't believe in pulling over to let cars pass. Now I have to plan carefully what time I drop my kids off for school so as to avoid the worst 2 of 3 busses that pick up kids on that road.

Bishop's Beach

When we first moved here, I kept referring to Cook Inlet as "the lake" since I am used to the Great Lakes. It seemed the same to me. However, the more time we spend walking on Bishop's Beach, the more fascinating it becomes. The pictures above show Bishop's Beach to the north and south of the parking lot that is right in town. The picture on the left is the way we usually walk. You can walk the beach 15 miles in that direction to Anchor Point. There is also trail to a beach halfway, at 7 miles, and many people make a day hike of that, parking a vehicle at each end.

The biggest difference with this beach and the Great Lakes is the tide and the sealife. Kachemak Bay (which is where this beach is located,off of Cook Inlet) has some of the highest tide changes of anywhere in the world. In fact, there is only one other place that has a greater difference between their high tide and low tide. What this means is that the beach is always changing. Of the dozens of times we have hiked this beach, it is never the same. Two days ago (the full moon), was a very high tide. On the picture on the left, it would be within feet of the cliffs. On the picture on the right, it was all water! Tides bring such fascinating sealife and plants in. We find hermit crabs, kelp, seaweed, shells, clams, mussels, oysters and many more that we don't know what they are. We have seen sea otters swim right up to the shore, and yesterday a bald eagle flew over and landed about 30 feet from me on the sand (it was low tide) with a fish that it proceeded to eat. The eagle's nest is on the promontory you see on the right picture. It had 2 baby eagles in it this year.

The first few times we walked the beach, Denver would take bags and collect "treasures" and bring them home. Now he settles for only the "coolest" things.

There are not a lot of hiking trails in Homer, so if we want to go for a walk, the beach is generally our first choice. Where once it was Aspen Park in Gaylord, now it is a beach that is always changing.

Pushki

Doug didn't know what he was getting into when he mowed the field (playground) next to Razdolna. Two weeks later he is still suffering from what we now know as pushki. Here's what happened, and how he got it.
The grass and weeds in the field at school were 3-4 feet high so Doug got on the school's newly acquired riding lawnmower and went at it. He wore jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt. A few hours later he broke out in a rash of raised welts and started itch. The juice of the cow's parsnip (a tall plant that grows to about 4 feet high with a white flower on the top) basically causes burns on the skin. When Doug mowed the lawn the juice went right through his clothing. He had 4 hours to take a shower and wash it off to avoid the rash. Unfortunately, he didn't realize what it was until it was too late. His whole body broke out. On top of that, this rash is photosensitive, so once you are exposed, it is very important to stay out of the sunlight otherwise it gets worse. Doug had spent that entire day and part of the next out in the sun. He did not find out what it was until a few days later. He has tried all sorts of creams and ointments. Of all of the ungents, a medicated gel for sunburns with aloe and lidocaine has worked the best by far. The Kenai National Wildlife Refuge has a website on pushki, and they recommend causticum treatment. Doug has taken it for 3 days, and does not know if that is what has helped, or the gel or just time. He still has some open sores, and the itching has gotten much better, but he still has some discomfort 2 weeks after exposure.
Sensitivity seems to vary from person to person. Our landlord's mom has it so bad that when she gets a blister and it breaks, the ooze from the blister creates new blisters. Her son played with cow's parsnip as a child, picking them and spent hours playing with the stalks and he has never had any ill effects. Once you get pushki you are more suceptible the next time. And I read that if you burn cow's parsnip stalks you can get internal blisters from breathing the smoke! There is so much around that it is nearly impossible to avoid casual contact, and none of us got it all summer despite brushing against it when hiking. It is the fluid inside the stem that is the source of the rash/burn.
I would take a picture, but the flowers have all died and gone to seed for the season (just in the past week or two). If you want to read more about this I highly recommend the Kenai Wildlife Refuge site. Google "pushki" and it will be the first entry. And whatever you do, if you come to Alaska, make sure you know what this looks like and avoid contact with the juice!