Kenai Peninsula, Alaska ~ 2002

Good Morning.  Recently, I promised a few of you that I would put up some photos which I took during a trip to the Kenai Peninsula during the first two weeks of July, 2002.  Early July is the high season for catching Coho Salomon, or "silvers" as they are known alongside the rivers.

These cabins overlooked Kenai Lake

Ian (then 14 y/o) and I landed in Anchorage using many of the frequent flier miles I had acquired during numerous business trips to Japan. We rented an old Ford Taurus from a 'mom & pop' operation and drove down to Cooper Landing near Kenai Lake. Initially, we camped.  Then I found some old cabins, one of which I could rent for $35 a night!  The owner's wife was furious with him that he let it go for such an incredibly low price at that time of year.  Ian befriended his son, who'd recently been 'med evacuated' by helicopter to Anchorage after falling out of a tree and having his stomach sliced open to an extent that his entrails were flowing out.  His father had to hold them in on the trip to the hospital because the local nurse was nauseous at the sight.  The doctors stuffed them back in, stapled him up, and sent him home to continue the life of a boy in the Alaskan wild.  His bright red, newly formed scar appeared like an external capillary and he wore it too proudly much to the consternation of his parents. One in four boys, he could (and often did) avoid their oversight.

I took this picture above the plane, where I was hiking. I started from lake level.

He brought home 30 lbs of filleted Haddock on this day

Kenai Lake

Sunlight for 18 hours a day - he spent most of that doing just this

Desolate high mountain lake

Scrounging for garbage at a restaurant just to the right

Very colorful guy made these ~ hated tourists, loved alcohol

Dozens of these unique manifestations such as the above in Homer

He'd been in the water over 8 hours at this point - before this a Gameboy was the only thing which could hold his imagination that long

Rebadged Isuzu

Home Sweet Home

Note "Flush" button

Urinal

Off the road from Anchorage to Kenai

The earth resolutely reclaims what it owns

Ian and I soon went our separate ways, he spending most of his days alongside the river or in the lake fishing and me hiking the many thousands of feet overhead in the mountains where I found high meadows and solitude.


Cheers