2nd Annual Harlos and Rich Kayak Trip

Ok, my brother is asking for a blog post.  Here's some of our favorite pictures from the 10 day kayaking trip we did in May. Last year we did a fair amount of the western Prince William Sound. This year we went from the village of Chenega Bay across the Southern barrier islands to Cordova.  It being May, the vegetation hadn't grown too thick yet so we had good places to camp. We also were able to stay 3 nights in forest service cabins on Montague and Hitchenbrook Islands. That was a sweet bonus. The weather was amazing, it sprinkled lightly for about 5 minutes twice just as we were going to bed. Other than that we had sun. It was sometimes a bit windy but we had calm waters for our big open water seven mile crossing that had us pretty nervous.  There were no mosquito bites on the trip. The only negative was that I was taking an antibiotic that made me super sun sensitive.  It took until about the 5th day of 22 hours of daylight on the water before I figured out why sunblock wasn't working. I did major damage to my face and hands. Other than that, the trip was amazing.  Between the three of us we took thousands of pictures. I've added a link to the abridged version and cut them down even more for the blog. Enjoy!

Picasa Photo Album

Putting the boats on the ferry.

On the ferry to Chenega Bay.

The Russion Orthodox church at Chenega Bay.

Packed and ready to leave...

Really nice shot by Rich.

We portaged the boats over this grassy area to explore a twisty back area.

Shipwreck at Hitchenbrook entrance.

One of our many cush campsites.

A wrecked boat Drew wanted to take home.

That's a big bear print...glad we didn't run into him.

Making dinner.  Rich and I made some pretty good meals, but Drew showed us up with four unaltered recipes from Bon Apetit magazine.

Spent a lazy warm afternoon napping and reading on the beach like we were at the jersey shore or something.

All the seal and otter pups were so cute!

A couple we ran into after 9 days without talking to anyone.  They invited us over to their off the grid home for barbecued oysters and king crab salad.

Pulling up oysters off the dock for dinner.

Yay!  A long imagined dinner in Cordova materialized as burgers, fries, and shakes from the Picnic Basket in Cordova.  

For just having a branch in Cordova, they had a pretty nice building.

Didn't really think about where to camp in Cordova...so we ended up just off the road by the ferry terminal...classy, I know.

When we talked about food we wanted on the trip, Corn Pops was high on my list.  I got some for breakfast on the ferry ride from Cordova to Whittier.

Leaving Cordova.

Packrafting!

It took me a bit, but here are our packrafting pictures!  Our friend tipped us off to someone who was selling two packrafts in our sizes, so we took the plunge (haha) and bought some packrafts.  Our first trip we just kind of paddled down Portage Creek for fun.  The next time we took a professional with us who basically helped us realize that we don't know anything about being on rivers.  It was fun though, we learned a lot and we had pretty good weather.  We hope to use them in the future on some backcountry trips.

The packrafts blow up with these bags that you fill with air and then deflate into the packrafts.  It's a lot easier and faster than blowing them up with your mouth.

Just as we started to get the hang of what we were doing we ran into this little family of moose.  Very cool to see them, but I didn't want to get anywhere near them.  We pulled over and watched them to see if they would cross or not.  The mom wanted to but the babies weren't willing to follow, so they ended up retreating to shore and we passed by without a problem.

So glad I live in a place like this!!!

Walking back on the Trail of Blue Ice we saw a black bear and enjoyed the land part of
Portage Valley.  We both agree that Portage is the prettiest of the four valleys.  That's
probably because it gets the most rain of all of them...
but on a sunny day it doesn't get any better.

I love that I can do this kind of thing just a few minutes away from our house.  We feel so lucky to be up here. :)  Hope your summer has been just as sunny.  We just took my parents down to Portage to enjoy the valley as well. We'll have to post some pictures of their trip soon!

Out and about...

Drew and I did the Virgin Creek Trail on one of these fine sunny days we've had recently.

After awhile we decided to get off the trail for a change of scenery.  We ended up coming down the mountain after a bit and popped out behind some houses.  Drew said that this was the most beautiful view in Girdwood:

Turns out we'd stumbled onto Echo Ridge, one of the places we've toyed with buying a place for ourselves.  Maybe it was meant to be...

We've also seen some moose and bears around the house this spring.  There is a mama moose and two babies that I see almost every day I run.  I love living in such a beautiful place!