The Entire Day
Arlene and I left the AirBnB at 6:20am to catch a 7am water taxi across Kachimak Bay. We reached the beach on the other side at about 7:30am with 6 hours before another water taxi would pick us up on a different beach. We were the only ones on the boat and the Captain dropped us off on a beach that was deserted except for two eagles.
We walked along the beach to find the trailhead which was marked with orange signs then followed the path for 1.4 miles until we reached a decision point. One way went toward Grewingk Lake (which was one of the main goals of the hike) and the other went out to what we thought would be a view of the Grewingk Glacier. We started toward the view and instead found this tram across a glacier runoff river.
After messing with it for a few minutes to ensure that we understood how to use it and that we would be strong enough to get back, we went a little way out over the river and Arlene took this picture of me.
Then we pulled ourselves back to our starting spot and returned to the trail to Grewingk Lake.
From the tram it was about 3 miles to the lake and the walk was uneventful but the terrian reminded me of the rocky outwash near Exit Glacier except this was 50 years further along with sparse vegetation growing in the rocky dirt. (I just asked Arlene if she had any comments about the walk from the tram to the lake and she said that we should have gone all the way to the other side of the river on the tram. It would have meant spending less time on the Alpine Trail and if we had known what the Alpine Trail was going to be like, we certainly would have chosen the tram.)
The lake was amazing. This is one of the few occasions when the picture actually seems to capture the experience. By the way, the captain of the water taxi mentioned how oddly cloudless was the sky. The weather was freakishly good. The ice in the lake and the glacier on the far side were spectacular. Arlene said, “Wow, wow, wow.”
That’s us in front of the lake with the glacier in the background!
It was almost hard to leave but we did and within a few minutes of continuing the hike we had encountered 20 other people hiking down for the view and these were the first people we had seen for since the captain of the water taxi 2 hours earlier. We went up the Saddle Trail and about 1/2 mile before reaching the beach where we’d be picked up, we turned left up the Alpine Trail which was steep and over-grown. At this point we were at about 7.3 miles with 5.5 to go and 3 hours until the rendezvous with the boat taking us back. From here, the going was very slow. Here is a picture of Arlene with the trail on her right. I should have taken the picture where it was more over-grown rather than this relatively clear and easy part.
We didn’t make it to the top; we needed to turn around to get back in time for the return trip and we’d covered only 1.5 miles in 80 minutes. Oh, well. But there was this mountain on the other side of Cook Inlet that we could see.
We had to wait a little while for the water taxi because it was late and we didn’t know what had happened because the battery on my phone had died. (Yes, the only reason was that my battery was dead… we had cell coverage all day.) Arlene enjoyed the ride back in the water taxi.
Later we went back to the spit and stopped at the Salty Dawg Saloon. Arlene wanted me to drink beer but I declined because it was too small and crowded. But here we are in front of it.
Hmm… pizza.