Dry Landing

WET LANDING. It has officially been one year since Team Leslie arrived in the wilds of Alaska and began sharing our stories of trials (think "moose watch") and triumphs (think kayaking with sea otters). To commemorate this landmark and to celebrate our last days of summer before a return to the working world, we went off on one more trip to a back country yurt across Kachemak Bay only accessible by water or air. I must tell you that this trip marks a serious level of advancement for us as Alaskan locals. In order to even attempt to meet with success, we needed to proficiently do the following:

1. Pick an area we wanted to explore using a map.
2. Find a rentable yurt or cabin in said area.
3. Hire a water taxi to deliver us to said yurt.
4. Pack and dress appropriately for said water taxi and yurt and exploratory trip.

We thought we had it in the bag, but apparently knowing the proper steps did not necessarily lead me to taking the proper actions. You see I had my heart set on a hike I'd read about before we even arrived in the state: the Grewingk Glacier Trail... A sapphire blue glacier. A glacial lake full of calved icebergs. A roaring creek away from the lake. And a HAND TRAM, hanging above the creek, to get us there... powered by our own muscles and inspiration. Yesssssss!!! (I can not express to you how up-my-ally this sort of thing is.) So I looked at a map, chose a yurt right near the trailhead, hired the water taxi, and prepared to go with my trusting husband and daughter.

http://dnr.alaska.gov/parks/aktrails/ats/ken/emeraldlk.htm

Luckily, a chance conversation with a Homer shop-owner a few weeks before our excursion revealed the following information:

1. The map I looked at had not accurately shown the terrain - like impassible tidal marshland between our yurt and the trail head (see the word "mud" on a better map above).
2. Thus the yurt we rented, at Right Beach near the Glacier Spit trailhead, turned out to be completely wrong; it was only connected to the trails via kayak travel. In fact, what we wanted was the yurt at a place called Humpy Creek... which would likely be experiencing a huge run of humpies (pink salmon) during our visit, attracting the majority of bears from the massive Kachemak Bay State Park to our area. Super.
3. Now to get to Humpy Creek, our water taxi needed to be carefully scheduled according to an incoming tide and we would need to have a "wet landing" - unable to pull up to solid land, we would drop anchor off shore and need to wade or swim to our yurt site.
4. Long story short, despite having a year in Alaska under out belts, we were not appropriately prepared for any of this!

Soooooo, I hopped back on the phone, canceled one yurt, found another yurt, canceled our first water taxi, checked a tide chart, scheduled another water taxi, switched our duffel bags out for dry bags, and grabbed both bottles of bear spray. Obviously, because I am able to type this and do not seem extraordinarily emotionally altered, we must have all returned safely and were not mistaken for humpies by fish-crazed bears. Phew.

Almost there!

As fun as we thought...

But harder work than we thought!

Morning at the yurt.

Crossing Humpy Creek.

"The tide is coming in fast - please come grab me!"

Wet landing.

Mission accomplished.

DRY LANDING. So despite bumpy (or should I say humpy?) learning curves which include the anecdote above, Team Leslie feels like overall, our first year in Alaska has been a relatively "dry landing" so to speak. From mountains to sea, we have taken advantage of most opportunities to learn and explore, and we have found joy in both the dark days and the sun drenched nights. If time, technology, and you are willing, I plan to continue chronicling our Alaska Adventure into the next chapter... Thank you for joining us on this wild ride!

Yee ha!