Leon Turnbull Photography

I prefer my waterfalls without the mosquitoes on top, thank you very much. I also prefer my waterfalls without the hordes of other hikers, and I definitely prefer my waterfalls with a decent view.

Well, I am back from my week long vacation to Alaska, and my first posting is Thunderbird Falls in Chugach State Park near Anchorage. As you may have gathered, it is certainly not the best waterfall I saw on the trip, but it is the first, and that is the only reason I am posting it first. I took tons and tons of photos on this trip, and it will probably take a couple months to go through them all. I saw quite a few waterfalls and quite a bit of wildlife on the trip, though not as much as I had hoped, for either of the two. Still though, it was a fabulous vacation and coming back to 100+ degrees in California was not too pleasing. Alaska is an incredibly beautiful state, kind of a cross between British Columbia, Oregon, and Hawaii. You may think that is odd for me to say that, but the scenery reminded me a lot of BC (with the towering snow-capped mountains, oceans, and swift, clean flowing rivers), and a couple hikes I went on reminded me a lot of Oregon (with the lush greenery), and another hike we went on reminded me a lot of hiking in Hawaii (hot and humid, but with beautiful green vegetation).

I was not too impressed with Thunderbird Falls, for the three reasons I mentioned above in the first paragraph. I did go back to it a second time though, in order to seek out better views (to no avail). I arrived in Anchorage in the early afternoon, had lunch, checked into my hotel, and went to REI to buy bear spray. My wife and kids were already in Alaska, but they were up at Nome for a wedding. Although I would have liked to visit Nome, my work only allowed me to take a one week vacation, so we decided that week would be better spent down at Homer, rather than up at Nome. However, I was able to go a bit early and stay in Anchorage for a couple nights before meeting my family at the airport. My plan was to hit the local waterfalls, as many as I could, and try to find some wildlife as well. Anchorage is not a big city, but it is a very difficult city to drive around in. It is very confusing, the signs are a mess, and there are many 1 way streets. Getting to REI was particularly crazy; even though it is surrounded by 4 streets, there is no way to drive to it on any of them. I suppose the locals have it all figured out, but it took me all of 3 days to get the hang of driving around this city.

My first stop was the ever popular Thunderbird Falls. I was surprised at the number of people hiking this trail. In fact, I was quite surprised at the number of people out hiking all weekend, even on trails that seemed to be not very interesting. It seems the Alaskans like to hike. Or maybe they were mostly tourists. I’m not too sure. Thunderbird Falls is one of the trails that really is not that interesting. Don’t get me wrong. It is a really nice waterfall, dropping impressively about 70 ft. on the Eklutna River. But there are just no good views of this waterfall. There is an overlook which had a totally obscured view of the falls. Then there is a trail going to the base of the falls, but it does not have a view either. To get a decent view, I had to scramble up a particularly slippery rocky slope that had a steep drop-off down into the river. The first time, I went up the wrong way, and could not get up where I wanted to. When I turned to go back down, I found that I was pretty much trapped. I could not go up or down. I had to slide on my bum back down the slippery slope very carefully, and hoping I could get a solid enough grip on the slippery rocks with my boots so I would not fall. I made it back down with only a muddy bum to show for it. I was not happy with my photos, so I returned again the next day looking for a better viewpoint. This photo was the result. I still was not happy with the viewpoint but I felt I could not get any higher vantage point safely. At least I did not get a muddy bum this time, but I did get quite a few mosquito bites. They were swarming around this spot as I took this shot. They jokingly say that mosquitoes are the state bird in Alaska. I guess they were perhaps twice the size of Californian mosquitoes, but somehow with a statement like that I was expecting them to be a heckuva lot bigger than they were. Either way, I didn’t want to stick around at this viewpoint too long.