Happy Thanksgiving!

North Peninsula Trail

A Snowy Day on the Kenai Beach

Kenai Beach

We hope that all you Minnesotans, Coloridians, Connecticisans (or is in nutmeggers?), or wherever you may be, had a wonderful and relaxing Thanksgiving weekend! Although away from family, we were able to enjoy are Thanksgiving day with co-workers/friends.

This weekend finally snowed enough where we could ski, but not enough for groomed trails. Despite the lack of groomed trails, we skied anyway. We skied the North Peninsula Trails on Friday and the Tsalteshi Trails on Saturday. Both will eventually be groomed, but for the time being we'll take what we can get.

Kenai had an electric lights show, bonfire, and fireworks on Friday night. We went to the fireworks. Supposedly they are suppose to be beautiful when the snow is falling, unfortunately we were not graced with that. But it was kind of fun watching fireworks with snow on the ground, something new for both of us.

Saturday evening we met up with some friends from MN, Mary and Tom Doig. Their son plays junior hockey for Fairbanks and they happened to be playing the Kenai River Brown Bears in Soldotna (our local team). They were in town to watch him play so we joined them. It was nice to see familiar faces from home!

A Frosty Weekend on the Lakes (November 21-22, 2009)

Another weekend of winter hiking. On Saturday we conquered the Seven Lakes Trail, hiking 8 miles from Kelly Lake to Engineer Lake and back again. The lakes were practically untouched except for some occasionally snowshoe hare prints near the shoreline. The trees were frosted over and the sun never really came out long enough to melt the frost off their branches. With the snow, frosted trees, and cloudy sky, the landscape was an array of whites and grays. Moose tracks and snowshoe hare tracks were of plenty along the trail, however neither were sighted. A few spruce grouse gave us quite a scare as they flew from nearby trees with their thumping loud wings. Boreal chickadees were also heard and seen along trail. The trail took us past two other lakes as well, Hikers Lake and Hidden Lake, which we did not have a chance to explore. The lakes very much reminder us of what you might see in the BWCA or along the Gunflint Trail.

Sunday brought us to a new lake in the area, Peterson Lake. We were hopig to snowshoe, but unfortunately there was not quite enough snow for it to be worthwhile. Rather than hiking a trail, we opted to hike the perimeter of the lake. The lake was well frozen. Early this morning or late last night, the lake had a couple other visitors. Wolf tracks, at least two sets of them, followed much of the shoreline. You can see just how big their paws are in the picture above. As we continued along we kept our eyes open for snowshoe hare, suddenly we spotted a small white creature, but not a snowshoe hare. An ermine was along the shore and bounded up into the forest as we approach. Something that neither of us have ever seen before!

A Plethera of Eagles!

On Monday morning (November 9) we finally received snow that stayed on the ground! This is unusual for the Kenai Peninsula, typically snow is on the ground in October. We are of course thrilled because this means opportunities for cross country skiing and snowshoing are coming soon!

We spent the weekend doing leisurely hikes through the snow. On Saturday we headed back to the North Peninsula Trail in Nikiski, a hike we did this fall (Which will soon be a ski trail! We just need a bit more snow.)The bog and lake are completely frozen over and bits of labordor tea can be seen peeking up through the snow cover. It was a brisk day, about 15 degrees, but no wind, which really makes the difference.

On Sunday we popped on over to the recycling center and on our way out we spotted 17 bald eagles perched side by side in about 4 or 5 neighboring trees. Never have we ever seen so many baldies together in one spot. There were about 5 juvenile birds out of the lot. We spent the afternoon hiking the Tsalteshi Ski Trail (yay, more ski trails!) were we continued to seen many bald eagles flying overhead and perching in nearby trees. If this is what the winter brings to the Kenai Peninsula then bring it on!

Backyard Birds

Magpie

Stellar Jay

Red breasted Nuthatch

Boreal Chickadee

Recently we have also had a Tree Creeper visiting our birch trees just outside our kitchen window.

Rochelle's Birthday Weekend

On Saturday afternoon we hiked up about 750 ft. to SKilak Lookout, which gives a panoramic view of Skilak Lake and mountains to the east and the volcanic mountain ranges to the west. We were the only humans on the trail that day since there were no other footprints in the inch of new snow. But, we were not alone. About half way up the trail were a fresh set of moose tracks walking along the trail, and just past those were some small squirrel tracks jumping along the trail. The trail was 4 miles round trip and we ended up finishing in about 2 hours. On Sunday we made a return trip to Captin Cook State Park at the end of the Kenai Spur Highway. It was low tide in the bay which allowed us to see the very dangerous mud flats which act as sink holes. Also, low tide allowed us to find some pretty cool rocks. Another cool sight we saw was a river eroding away the mud as it flowed toward the ocean. I assume that the eroded river path is mostly filled in when high tide comes in and the river re-erodes the path as the tide goes out. Never the less the bay was very visible from one side to the other(which we haven't seen before) and we could see the mountains and a lot of oil rigs off-shore. Then on Monday Rochelle turned 27 (I think).