Photos of the Day -- Coastline, Smokes, and Becharof Lake
I did something I seldom do today. Something I ought to do more often, but continuously find myself in too big of a rush ... I took the scenic route. I was headed for Dillingham but traveled via the coastline of Cook Inlet, through the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes to Becharof Lake and then on to Naknek and ultimately Dillingham. It took me nearly 7 hours, and the weather was nearly perfect the entire way with only a few miles of snow showers on the Kejulik River. I landed on several occasions to stretch my legs and do a little beach combing. The coasline on the West side of Cook Inlet starts off tame enough but turns into an absolutely inhospitable mess of boulders and sea cliffs. The snow is still 2 feet deep even at sea level along much of this route and landing options were few and far between. There are no weather reporting stations along this route so it is seldom traveled because the weather is generally pretty horrible. It's rare to find a day like this so I was excited to go exploring.
On the beach near Chunitna Bay. (See last image. Spot point 6)
A pathetic attempt to show where I was at. At least that's where I thought I was at, but who really cares because I was following the coast so I knew I wasn't going to get lost :o)
The salt water of Bruin Bay with the the ice of Lake Iliamna on the horizon, separated only by a few miles of land. (See last image. Spot point 8)
Looking into Crater Lake in Katmai National Park. The center of the lake was not frozen I would guess because of the heat from geo-thermal activity. (See last image. Spot point 12-ish)
I was picking my way through the peaks enjoying the view, when all of a sudden, I was looking down into this festering, sulfuric steaming, snow cone. It stunk like rotten eggs, it was awesome, and it scared the crap out of me because I didn't know what was coming when I crested the shoulder of this peak. I backed way off to take this picture. I think it was called Martin Mountain. (See last image. Spot point 14-ish)
I landed at my friends lodge near Becharof Lake called Grizzly Skins of Alaska Inc. This is a family run business and they've been working and living here nearly 30 years. This is an awesome family and if you want an excellent guided experience for your hunting, fishing, or ecotourism trip these are the folks to call. A client had just taken a large Brown bear and I enjoyed hearing the story over a cup of coffee and a reindeer sausage sandwich. I had never been to their lodge so this was a real treat.
I landed on Kvichak bay to do a bit more beach combing and look at some bear tracks. It was a sow with her cub of the year, cute little tracks. (See last image. Spot point 20)
This was my route of flight for the day starting with point #1 in the North and ending with point #23. Can you tell which way the wind was blowing? The Spot sends out a waypoints at fixed time intervals. Heading South the reporting points are close together but when I made the turn to the North things really stretched out. The wind was out of the Southeast, which is why the distance between points 15, 16, and 17 are so great. I averaged about 65 miles per hour while headed South West but once I turned to the Northwest I was cruising at twice that speed. This was a good day, lots of fun.
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