Cache Creek Cabin Adventure

Hi Everyone,
We took a two day ATV trip to a remote place called Cache Creek Cabin with our friends Andrew & Teresa. What a BLAST!! Sue and I drove a 4 wheel drive side by side Yamaha Rhino and Andrew and Teresa drove a Bombardier 4 wheel drive ATV.

From where we unloaded the ATV's to the Cache Creek Cabins was about 30 miles on a road/trail that had pot holes, dips and water up to 3' deep. Andrew & Teresa led the way and I figured if he could make it across the ponds and rivers then I would have a good chance to. Thanks to his excellent guiding, we never got stuck or rolled it the whole trip (came close a few times). We did get a little wet at times as water came into the ATV during river crossings, driving through deep puddles and a light rain from time to time.

The Cabins are owned by a couple that Andrew calls Grandma & Grandpa (Winona & Ken). Great hospitality and awesome home cooked meals. The cabins are rustic (no power, sewer or water) but they are very clean and comfortable. The was an outhouse about 50' from our cabin. During the evening we were given a "honey pot" which was a five gallon pot with a toilet lid!!

This area is still heavily mined for gold. We decided to try our hand at panning for gold and were able to pull out some small flakes while Sue was able to find a small nugget. It's very exciting to see gold in the bottom of you gold pan. We didn't strike the mother lode but still had tons of fun.

The trip ended too fast as we could have spent a week or more just exploring the area. Maybe next year.

Take care for now and thanks for looking,
Vern & Sue

Here is Dug trying to grab dibs on the drivers seat...Sorry Dug, your legs aren't long enough.

Dug found a machine that he could drive so here is Andrew giving him directions on how to get to the cabins.

It's hard to see in this photo but the trail ahead leads off into the mountains. What beautiful country.

Here is Andrew & Teresa crossing one of the many rivers getting to the cabins. The deepest was about 3' deep.

Sue took a few photos of the landscape on our way, but again pictures just don't do it justice.

A beautiful valley with streams and beaver ponds.

While exploring the area near the cabins, Andrew (eagle eye) spied these fresh Grizzly Bear tracks off of the road. That is a quarter inside this front paw footprint for reference. It looked to be about 10" across. I don't think I would want to meet this bear in a dark alley, or anywhere for that matter.

Here is a photo of the back paw. It was as big as my size 12 boots and twice as wide. Andrew found some bear scat probably from this bear that contained what was left of a beaver.

Here is Sue and Teresa posing on one of our stops in the back country. Just awesome scenery.

We were sorry to see the trip come to a close as we were all tired and wet but what a fun time. If you every get to Alaska, you have to seek out Andrew & Teresa and go one one of these tours, you won't be disappointed. As you can see Dug is so tired he was laying down taking a nap for this photo.

It was time to say goodbye to Andrew and Teresa, we will miss them. We had an awesome time with you guys....see you soon.

Howdy Everyone,
I was finally able to figure out how to let anyone post a comment. You do NOT need a sign on to post, so please have at it. I have also place a reaction button for quick reaction comments. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Vern & Sue

Otter & Moose Videos

I decided to try and post a few videos we took of some sea otters playing in the bay by our motorhome and a mama moose and her two babies. They are not the best resolution because of the time it takes to post, but if you want the full size, video just let me know, it's about 100mb.

Hi everyone,

Still having a wonderful time here in Seward. We will be leaving today to head up to Talkeetna, where we will be going with Andrew and Theresa (we met them in Delta Junction, Alaska). Andrew has arranged for us to borrow an ATV Rhino and head to Cache Creek mining camp. It's about 60 miles in the back country and "grandma" fixes meals for us. More on that later.

Today is another beautiful day in Seward. A few days ago we checked the weather and it was supposed to rain for 3 days...so far no rain!!

Here is the view from the hike we took. After attempting Mt. Marathon we headed north on the trail looking for a water fall. We got to this point and after 3 miles still couldn't see or hear the water fall and decided to turn back. The view, scenery and potential bear sightings was worth the straight up climb.

This is Mt. Marathon. The runners run straight up from the lower left of the picture to the upper right of the picture along the very small trail you see in the center of the picture and then straight down again. Two and a half miles pretty much straight up with an elevation gain of 3,000 feet. The fastest guy has a time of 43 minutes and the fastest woman is 1:02. Since it took Vern and I an hour to go a third of the way up we figured we weren't ready for the run this year!!

At the Sea Life Center we saw all the things we had seen in the wild, but maybe not this close. We wouldn't have wanted to get this close to a male sea lion weighing 2,000 lbs.

We had so much fun watching the otters. They were right in front of our motor home. Each day they would come back at the same time to feed. They were very entertaining.

They would go down and get clams and then come up and float on their backs to eat.

Seward is the start of Iditarod dogsled trail. We walked several miles of this famous trail.

We saw this Puffin on our glacier cruise. It was hard to get a picture as they can scurry along the top of the water really fast and they could dive to avoid us.

On our sea kayak excursion, we checked out the tide pools and saw these prehistoric looking things called Chiton. I'm not sure of the name of this type of Chiton but it was about 3" long.

These were called Leather Back Chiton. They have a hard exterior and a clam like interior, they are almost impossible to get off the rocks.

Huge star fish. When we went kayaking the tide was down so much (24') it gave us wonderful tide pools. This star is about 24" across.

Josh (our kayaking guide) showing Vern how to hold a star fish. The star fish was very soft. It was okay to touch all the sea life as long as we put them back where they were.

We have to go for now but will try to post more in a few days.

Thanks for looking,

Vern & Sue

Day 41

Hi Everyone,

You would think after 41 days we would have seen everything there is to see up here but everyday seems to bring something new, it has been awesome so far. Yesterday we took a Glacier Cruise to the Aialik Glacier. This glacier is fed from the Harding Ice Field. The header photo above is of the Aialik Glacier. You can see two tour boats below the glacier (I think these boats are about 150' long each). The glacier is much bigger than it looks. We were told that the glacier is 600 feet high.

Tomorrow we are going to try and hike half way up Marathon Mountain (3000' in elevation climb in less than 1.5 miles). On July 4th they have a race up and down the mountain. We were told that the top runners have done the complete run up and down in 60 minutes. They told us the top men can make the descent from the top of the mountain to the finish line in town in 11 minutes. We will post photos of the trail tomorrow.

Take care and thanks for looking,
Vern & Sue
Here are some pot holes we encountered driving to Millers Landing in Seward. It was like this for 2.5 miles. We thought about filling in the holes ourselves (we came to our senses about 10 seconds later).

On the glacier tour we were awestruck by this humpback whale that was feeding near the glacier. It would come up with it's mouth open then close it to catch all the fish in it's mouth. It was and awesome sight. These photos were take without a telephoto lens, that's how close it was. The captain of the tour told us he had not seen a whale feeding in this area for at least 10 years. I guess we were very lucky (click on photos to make larger).

Here is the last shot of the whale as it dives out of sight for the last time.

While near the glacier you can hear the sounds of the ice cracking. It almost sounds like thunder as it's so loud. This photo above (center of photo) shows a large chunk of ice just after it broke off. The piece was about 100' across and about 50' high. It created a wave that was about 6' high. They told us this glacier moves 5' a day.

Here is another piece breaking off (center of photo) I know the photos don't do it justice but believe me it was an awesome sight and sound.

Hi Everyone,
After leaving Skilak Lake area (and frantically looking for bear - with no luck) we headed to Seward. On the way there we stopped at Exit Glacier to see the glacier and hike around. After seeing the Glacier we stopped by this couple who were looking up into the hills. Vern asked, "do you see anything?" The woman said a bear but I can't find her. With Vern's eagle eyes he spied the grizzly bear. He told the woman and she said, "oh no it's just a rock!" Vern said, "well that's one big moving rock." With our binoculars we could clearly see a very large (4-5 foot shoulder height) grizzly bear with her two cubs. For the next mile we would just stop and watch her and the kids. Whenever you stop and you're looking up, everyone wants to know what you're looking at. In that mile we probably showed 25 people the bears, it was awesome. The best part was a park ranger walked up and asked casually, "oh have you seen any bears." We said, "yes." She looked surprised and when we showed them to her she was so excited and said it was her first grizzly sighting this year!! After that Vern and I volunteered to be Park Rangers....hee hee just kidding.

But I don't know how to explain how excited we were to see a mama grizzly and her two cubs just romping around on the hill side. Unfortunately they were too far away to get a picture. We were at the perfect distance to see a grizzly and 2 cubs though.

We're leaving to go on an all day catamaran trip to see some water wildlife!!

Love Sue, Vern and Dug




Us by the Exit Glacier.

This is a view of Exit Glacier. Once we arrived at the base we could take the one mile walk and be right next to the Glacier.

This is a view where the Glacier use to be. This valley area was all covered about 200 years ago.

This is Skilak Lake where we camped for 2 days. We were on a hike to see bears and the Skilak Glacier...unfortunately we didn't see either. It was a little over 4 mile hike.

These are a pair of Red Faced Cormorants. We saw them in Homer. Very rare that you would see these birds nesting and there were 3 pairs. They have beautiful green feathers down their back.

Homer and Soldotna

Hi everyone,

We just spent the last week in the towns of Homer and Soldotna on the Kenai Penunsula. Believe it or not I was able to get Sue in a sea kayak. We had a guide and spent all day Kayaking in and around a place called China Poot Bay. We only took a few photos because of the wet conditions. We had a great time and didn't flip it once. We explored tide pools and saw every kind of sea creature that inhabits the shores. We will post again in a few days as our next stop is Seward. Hope everything is well with all.
Talk to you soon,
Vern & Sue

This is Sue: If you can believe it, I would love to do it again!! Hopefully we'll have another opportunity in Seward or Valdez. If I see a Killer or Gray whale....that could end my enthusiasm for sea kayaking :)

This is the only photo of us Kayaking, as usual Dug is trying to hog the picture, but as you can see by the smile on his face, he had a wonderful time too.

Here is Dug again, thinking he has a seat all to himself. Sorry Dug, but you get to ride in my lap.

You can click on the "Map" down button and select Satellite to see a satellite image of where we currently are.

GPS tracking powered by InstaMapper.com

Hi Everyone,
We finally made it to Homer Alaska. What a beautiful place. The views from this town are awesome. See the new title photo? This is a panorama view of the Redoubt Volcano on the right and the Iliamna Volcano on the left. We walked up and down the Homer Spit (the Homer peninsula, total of 8 miles :) - yes I'm helping Sue with her Avon Walk training) and visited numerous shops on the boardwalk. Tomorrow we are going on an all day guided Kayak tour of the islands across the bay from Homer (we will post those photos tomorrow). Tuesday we will be heading up to Soldotna to fish for King Salmon on a guided float trip in the Kenai River. We will keep you posted on upcoming travels.
Thanks for looking,
Vern & Sue

We were walking on the Homer Spit hiking trail and saw this Bald Eagle coming at us, Sue grabbed the camera and snapped this shot as it flew by. These are truly beautiful birds in person.

We took a drive last night to east Homer and took this panorama of photos from the road overlooking Kachemak Bay and three glaciers (Dixon, Portlock and Grewingk) in Kachemak Bay State Park. Click on photo for a better view.

Here is a closer view of the same area.

After visiting the Crow Creek Mine near Girdwood, we found this hike that follows the old Iditarod Dogsled trail. This was the original trail that went from Seward to Nome in the early 1900's. The trees and ground cover reminded us of Lord of the Rings movies as the trees were tilted and the ground cover was thick with moss and ferns.

Dug and I tried our hand a gold panning on the Crow Creek. Unfortunately neither of us is coming back a rich man/dog, probably probably because of our inexperience at panning. We did however find a few flakes of gold (very small flakes). Dug was more excited than I was.

Here are the huge flakes being displayed in the pan. That's them to the left of the penny.

Here I am working hard at this panning thing. About an hour and a half is all I could handle. Dug lost interest after about 5 minutes. Better luck next time.

Thanks again for looking and take care,

Vern & Sue

Day 28

Howdy everyone,

Well it has been exactly a month since we left home and have covered a little over 4,000 miles. It seems like a week. We finally left Denali National Park and headed south to Talkeetna (we will probably be here a few days). The weather has been rainy and overcast so we we very lucky to see Mt. McKinley when we did. The weather is supposed to clear in a few days. Hope everyone out there is well and we will probably be posting again in a day or two. Thanks for looking.

Vern & Sue

We were stopped at a rest area north of Talkeetna and saw this tanker flyover. We were able to snap a few photos before it passed by. It flew overhead at about 1000'. Not something you see every day.

While driving through Denali State Park, we snapped a photo of this mountain peak sticking out of the clouds.

The only two thing we haven't seen in Denali National Park are Caribou and Grizzly bears. On the last day we went out at about 9:00p.m. and located a few caribou but missed out on the Grizzly bears (better luck next time). The state is full of them so we should run into "one." Once we got home it poured the entire night.

We took a hike along Savage Creek and found this Marmot. Can you see him? These are very friendly critters that look soft and snugly but I am sure they have a bad bite. They are like big beavers without the paddle tail.

The last few days inside Denali National Park has been awesome. We had a few days of bad weather (overcast and rainy) but yesterday it cleared and we got some awesome photos of Mt. McKinley. We were fortunate as many visitors to the park never see the mountain (only viewable 20% of the time) because of the clouds.

We have been on a few backwoods hikes but have yet to see a bear or other dangerous critter, mostly squirrels, marmots and ptarmigans. But we have our bear spray just in case. We can't even describe the scenery in words and photos do it no justice. I guess it is something you have to see for yourself. And we're up for another trip here!!

We will be posting again in a few days as we begin heading towards Talketna (southbound). Thank you all for keeping up on our blog and keep the comments coming.

Dug, shown here, standing on top of a beaver dam at Horseshoe Lake (where many signs were posted to stay off). He was scolded again for being someplace he shouldn't be.

Dug was put on a timeout for his misadventure, although he's still smiling. Bad Dog.

Here we are enjoying a campfire at 11pm. Still looks like daylight because sunset isn't for another hour and a half (12:30am)

Here I am looking for any kind of wildlife on one of our backwoods-off the trail hike. No luck finding wildlife but we did see lots of their scat (poop). When we went to our ranger training class on identifying scat and tracks...we realized we had been standing right next to grizzly bear scat.

This is a Willow Ptarmigan nesting near a trail we were on. They have the weirdest sound of any bird I have heard. If you get a chance, pull up a sound bite on this bird.

On the same trail we came across this Marmot. He wasn't bothered at all by our presence. Very cute.

Here is one view of Mt. McKinley. It's hard to imagine but it is 83 miles away in this picture. It is over 20,000' high. Very massive.

Here is a closer view of Mt. McKinley.

We saw Golden Eagles soaring overhead. These birds are very large with wingspans up to eight and a half feet. They have been seen taking small Dall Sheep off the mountains.

Here is a Dall Sheep that was feeding near the roadside. The last time we were here we saw these from about one mile away.