Leon Turnbull Photography

Most of our week in Alaska was spent in Homer on the Kenai Peninsula. We sure had it good in Homer. Free lodging for the entire week. Can’t beat that. Mostly, we stayed with my wife’s aunt, who has a summer cabin in Homer. I’ll talk a bit more about that later. One day, however, we were very fortunate in that we were invited to stay one night at an incredible cabin along the beach, just outside Homer. My wife’s cousin is a doctor in Homer and is rather well off, and he owns quite a few acres along the beach, and has built a private cabin there. It is a beautifully built log cabin, and is completely environmentally friendly, solar powered, all the running water in the cabin is collected from rain, and vegetables grown in the fabulous garden. I particularly liked the outhouse. It has no door, and overlooks the beach. If anyone was walking along the beach while you were sitting there, you would be able to see them, but they would not be able to see you due to tree cover.

To get to this cabin requires about a 1.5 mile hike down a public trail to the beach, then up the beach to the cabin. Along the way, we saw seals, sea otters, and eagles. There was even a small waterfall along the trail. It felt a lot like hiking in Hawaii because it was a rather hot and humid afternoon, but the vegetation was so lush and beautiful. It was a fairly easy hike to the cabin, and my kids both managed the hike very well. We were joined by Tara’s brother and his wife and baby, and our host, Tara’s cousin.

Now I have to admit that I really didn’t want to go out to the cabin at first. The reason was that it was pouring rain all that morning in Homer. I was sure we would get totally soaked and be very cold hiking out there, and it would not be an overall pleasant experience. My wife, however, insisted that we go. I am glad that she did. The rain cleared up by the afternoon, and it was a very lovely evening, and I was able to get this very nice photo down along the beach at sunset. At low tide, there are tons of cool tide pools on the beach in front of the cabin. We had a lot fun exploring them.

Well, you know I would have loved to have seen a grizzly bear and gotten a good photograph of one while I was in Alaska. But from a safe distance. I did not really want to encounter one while hiking, especially a Grizzly mom with her cubs. Especially an agressive Grizzly mom. Especially an agressive Grizzly mom that had been known to have recently charged other hikers. And thus, I came to the trailhead at South Fork Eagle River Falls and encountered the sign as shown below. Hmmm …

But you see there was a waterfall here that I really really wanted to see. Should I just turn back because of this sign? Or should I continue and hike to the waterfall? Of course, I would continue.

You may think it was very dangerous for me to go hiking alone in known grizzly territory as such. But it was a calculated risk, and I determined it to be very minimal. I knew from talking to a couple of bikers that the grizzly was seen 3 or 4 miles away, and the waterfall was only a half-mile in. They had just been to the falls and had not seen anything. So I determined it was safe enough to continue. But I was still a bit nervous hiking into the falls, and I was making noise and whistling the whole way. I really had nothing to worry about though. I saw no sign of any grizzly. Even so, I did not spend much time at the falls. I would have definitely liked to have spent more time here, and try to get down to the base of the falls. That would have taken a bit of time though, and I figured it might just be pushing my luck. So I just opted to take my photo from the viewpoint and go right back to the car.

When I got back to the trailhead, I saw a couple joggers heading out on the trail. They were obviously locals and had no care about seeing any grizzlies. I told them the grizzly had been seen 3 miles in, and they obviously were going a lot further than just a half-mile to the falls. But they had no worries whatsoever. You gotta love them Alaskans.

Sign at trailhead. Note the masterful spelling job. 🙂

Taking a short break from all my Alaska images. I don’t want to bore you to death with too many incredibly scenic images of Alaskan landscapes. ha ha.

This past weekend, we went down to Folsom Lake to have a bit of fun. It was only about 90 degrees, so it wasn’t too horribly hot and we found some shade to eat our lunch. If it was any hotter though, I wouldn’t have been able to handle being outside in it. After lunch, Tara and the kids (and the dog) swam around in the lake, and I went around looking for stuff to photograph. If you are wondering why I did not swim, there is no way you would catch me swimming in a gooey, yucky, lake, any lake. No way. I was happy to join my family there for the afternoon, but I will stay on the land thank you very much. Anyway, I couldn’t find much in the way of birds to photograph; they did not seem to want to come very near to me. That is probably mostly because my dog was running around off leash, and splashing around in the water. We were the only ones in this area, so it was cool for her to run around like that, and she had loads of fun doing so. But it also meant she had to have a bath when we got home, which she never is very thrilled about. Anyway, I struck out on the birds, but there were a lot of dragonflies flying around, so I thought I would try my hand at taking some photos of them. I saw a few of them like this one, just hanging onto a blade of grass, riding in the wind. I kinda liked this shot, taken with my 100-400mm lens.

This was one of the funnest things I did while in Alaska: in Girdwood, I went on a hike along Crow Creek to an old hand tram, which required pulling myself across a very high gorge in a little box with only my hands. At the other end of the creek was this small 10 ft. waterfall in a neat little gorge.

I started off the hike at the Crow Creek Mine, an interesting place where you can pan for gold and look at the old miner buildings. It costs money to go in there, but since I was just going on a hike to the hand tram, the lady there was very nice, gave me directions to the trail, and I didn’t have to pay anything. The hike follows through a forest, joining up with the historic Iditarod National Historic Trail. This is not part of the famous annual Iditarod race route, but the historic trail actually goes further than the 1100 miles from Nome to Anchorage, and continues on through Girdwood to Seward, and includes a total of 2300 miles of interconnecting trails.

After awhile of hiking, you eventually come to a dead-end. A massive gorge across Crow Creek that cannot be crossed. Oh, but it can be crossed. Here I find the hand tram, a little cage that you crawl into, and pull yourself across the creek on a pulley system. It is a very neat experience, but at first I found it a little daunting. I’m slightly uncomfortable with heights, and here I am in this little box, pulling myself across the creek, and it is very very high above the creek. Is this thing even safe? It also required a lot of strength for a single person to pull yourself across. Good thing I ate my Wheaties in the morning. By the time I got to the other side, though, I was having balls of fun. That is good, too, because I still had to go back across again.

On the other side of Crow Creek, the trail winds up and down to a neat little gorge on Winner Creek (yes, it is a winner – ha ha). At Winner Creek is a small 10 foot high falls. It is not a spectacular waterfall, but it is in such a beautiful setting. This whole trail is just awesome, definitely one of the highlights of my trip to Alaska. It was raining quite hard here though, making it difficult to photograph.

After visiting this little gorge, it was time to go back across the Hand Tram. I stopped in the middle of the creek to take some photos looking down. See below. Once I made it to the other side, I noticed a couple hikers had come up behind me, waiting to cross on the tram. After I got out, they had to pull the tram back across to their side. But they were pulling it the wrong way, and the tram kept slamming into the structure on my side. I yelled across to them to “Pull it the other way! You are pulling it the wrong way!” But they just didn’t get it. I even tried to help them get it started, but they just pulled it back, slamming it again into the structure. Finally, I gave up trying to help and left them to their own devices. They probably thought I had somehow tied it up so they couldn’t pull it back across. I wonder if they ever figured it out? Come on guys, it is not rocket science!

Here’s a snap of the Hand Tram:

View from the Hand Tram in the middle of the creek:

Rain. Rain. Rain. That’s what it did all the second day I was in Anchorage. As I drove further south, it seemed to rain more and more. I think that is because of the Alyeska ski resort mountain at Girdwood, which probably draws in a lot more moisture than other areas further away. And that is where I was headed: Girdwood. My brother-in-law told us “you have to stop at Girdwood, it is so amazing”. Well, frankly I couldn’t see what the big deal is about Girdwood. It has 1 gas station, 1 gift shop called the “Tourist Trap” (what an awful name, it sure makes me want to go in there – not), and 3 pizza places. That’s it. Well, maybe it would have been nicer had I actually been able to see the mountain, if it wasn’t all overcast and rainy.

Virgin Creek Falls is a small 15 ft. waterfall tucked away in Girdwood on a very scenic, gorgeous, clean flowing, pristine (virgin like) creek. It is located at the end of a private road, but it does have public access to the falls. And it is a short 5 minute hike to the falls. I don’t mind the rain, or hiking in it, though I don’t like photographing if it is raining hard. The rain was sort of off and on, so it wasn’t too bad, though I definitely got a bit wet on this short hike.