Cooper landing - July 1

We spent one more pleasant day with John and Mary in Anchorage. Mary and I went touring gardens and  to the zoo to see  a baby musk ox. So cute when they are small. The guys went off to do whatever and we met back at the house in the late afternoon. We were all dragging a little as we had been up past midnight the day before looking at Moose! Mary fixed Moose burgers for dinner that night. It has a stronger taste than beef but is very lean.
The next morning  (June 1) we left and headed for the Kenai Peninsula. We drove along the Turnagain Arm. This was beautiful as it was high tide. At low tide, which is 30 feet, it is a huge ugly mudflat. We stopped at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. They are another organization that does animal rescues. Here they have the large animals that have been injured, abandoned, etc. and that cannot be released back into the wild. This was a wonderful 140 acre refuge for the animals. We got really upclose and personal to the animals.

We then continued down to Whittier. This town was developed during WWII  as a port and petroleum delivery center that was connected by railroad to the mainland  and there are still some old buildings left. . It wasn't until 2000 that the Anton Anderson Tunnel was modified enough to allow vehicular traffic through the 2.5 mile long tunnel. The triangular building in the picture is the entrance in. It is very long, narrow and dark.  It is the longest highway tunnel and longest combined highway/railway tunnel in North America at 13,200 feet elevation. We were there, we had heard about it so why not drive through. It was a little nervewracking to be driving on the train tracks all the way through. It took us 11 minutes. Once we came out to the other side in the town of Whittier we explored some but it was a dismal, depressing place so we turned around and waited for our turn to drive back through. Trains have priority. Go Figure!

Then it was on to Cooper Landing.  This town sits along the Russian River which is well known for its Salmon Fishing. They were suppose to be running now. We didn't get there until late afternoon so the campground was full. There was one spot opening up and the park service had a waiting list that they would fill it from at 5:00. We were number 12. We pulled off to the side as we only had 10 minutes to wait. While we are there we see driving out our friends John and Karen (Winnebago) that we hadn't seen since Wrangall. They had done some hiking there but did not get any fish.  We did not get the space but did learn that we could park for the night in the Overflow parking Lot. (No services) for $ 4.00. Thank you Golden age pass. We spent a quiet night and the next morning we drove further into the park to the Day Use area. $5.50. We walked down along the river where there was a wonderful trail and every couple of feet there was an access to the river. Lots and lots of  people in the creek fishing. We didn't see a lot of catching however. We walked back up to the camper and Garry talked with one guy who mentioned that if we hiked up to Rainbow falls there was a path that lead down along the river and after we got past the No Fishing area there was a pool where people had good luck fishing.Ii had wanted to hike up there anyway so Garry got on his fishing gear and we set off on a 2.5 mile hike. (one way) When we finally got up there I was disappointed because the falls was more a set of rapids and there was a fish ladder there for the Salmon so I only got to see 1 actually jumping up the rapids. That is why there is no fishing there. We found the path that took off down along the river. It was an unmaintained path over rocks, tree stumps, etc. Garry started down it but with all the fishing paraphenalia he had it was going to be very difficult to traverse. He stopped, looked at me and said it wasn't worth it and so we turned around and hiked back. I felt bad for him. We were exhausted by the time we got back to the camper. We had hiked over 5 miles. We got something to eat and sat there watching lots of people head down along the river to fish. We only saw 2 come back with any fish. We had been told that some bears had been spotted in the area but we never saw any. We were deciding where to spend the night and decided that the Overflow parking lot would be just fine again. We were tooo tired to drive anywhere. We stopped by the park entrance to inquire about the possibility of spending another night there. The ranger reconized Garry and after listening to his tale of woe he said we could stay and he wouldn't charge us. So we went and parked and collapsed into bed. Tomorrow is another day.