Flightseeing Trip - Soldotna, Alaska 7/15/2010

Our Float Plane

View of the Kenai River. The mouth of the river is in the right of the picture. If you can zoom in you can see the boats that are dip netting.

Ribbons of rivers leading through the tundra. People actually live next to some of these rivers. Again If you zoom in, I think next to the smaller river in the foreground is a house.

Boats lined up for a turn at the fishing hole. I think it should be called the fish barrel!

Getting away

Again

NOT this time!

You are all mine!!!!

Here fishy fishy fishy!

Thats what I call kicking back enjoying a meal!

Me smell fish!!!

Ally OOP!!!

I give him a 10 on the execution!

No so good on the entrance, so a 5

Glacier Fly Over

We flew in a small plane that held 8 passengers but there were only 6 of us so Chip sat by one window and I sat by another. It was so exciting when the engine revved up and we knew we were on our way. Boy it sure doesn't take long for the plane to get lift off. Maybe 45 seconds from "hit the throttle to off the water". From our vantage point at 3100ft. we could see the massive green tundra, numerous lakes and civilation. As we passed over the Kenai River you could see it snake its way from the Cook Inlet through Kenia then Soldotna and just keep going and going. At the mouth of the river where salt water meets fresh water, the locals were dip netting for salmon. Of course you could not see them fishing but we knew what they were doing because yesterday (Wednesday) we were down there and watched as, what seemed like 100's of boats, each with 2 to 4 people onboard, were dip netting for their subsistance limit of salmon. Each Alaskan Residence gets a subsistance license, allowing them to go to the river with this huge net and dip it in the river trying to catch the salmon as they swim upstream, hence the name "dip netting". We heard they are allowed 200 fish a day but that sounds excessive. I will have to check that one out! Anyway, back to our trip! The flight took about 25 minutes in length. We passed over the Cook Inlet from east to west. As we passed over the west bank of the inlet I was amazed to see houses on the edges of what looked like milky rivers that wound all over the ground like chocolate syurp on an ice cream sunday. The landing on the lake was smoother than a huge 747 on a landing strip, amazing. The pilot pulled the float plane up and put the pontoons right on the tundra. Ryan, one of the guides got out of the plane to get his boat for the "bear viewer's only" group of 2. This mother and daughter were from Germany on their fist trip to Alaska. I was surprised to see as Ryan walked across, what looked like soggy grass, it gave under his feet. Invision a suspension bridge bouncing under every step, that is what it looked like, and he didn't get wet. That was weird. Shortly after Ryan took his charges, our guide pulled up to the side pontoon of the plane. Rodney, a salty looking character with a New England style accent, was our guide for the day (I think I heard him say he was from Maine). Also in our boat were 2 young ladies from Cooper Landing, Alaska,(about 50 miles away), Shelby (27) and Gylda (37). It didn't take us long to get to the "fishing hole" once Rodney put gas in the little 4 stroke outboard. In his rush to get to the fishing hole before other boats he guaged his fuel wrong. No harm, No foul, we still go there and were the second boat in line to fish. As we pulled up the area where we would be fishing I was surprised to see other boats there and lined up in 2 neat and orderly lines, like they were buying tickets to a movie, one right behind the other. It was then that we learned each boat had 45 minutes at the front of the line to fish the salmon that were there waiting to move upstream. It was a little surprised that the fish could even get up that stream with all the boats fishing the area, the bears that were feeding on them and how small the stream was. But evidently they do or there would not be any fish here now trying to get there like the ones before them. (like shooting fish in a barrel). Each boat had our 45 minutes in the fishing hole once you got to the front position. It was not long after we got in line that we got to see our first bear. It was a small Black Bear and it appeared to be young by the way it fished. It chased a salmon all over the river rocks before it finally was able to latch on to it and start eating. This little guy had not even finished its catch when it must have sensed another bear arriving. It took off headed for the tundra and left its fish. It took a little while but another larger Black Bear did come down. All in all I think we saw 4 or 5 bears all within 50 to 75 feet. The best one of the day was a large Grizzly Bear and it really put on a show. It came lumbering in and headed right for the deep water where the fish were resting for their exhausting trip of the river. We watched as it swam with it face in the water looking for fish and scoop up the salmon with its huge paw, like it was picking berries. It meandered around the edge of the river and "fishing hole" eatting fish every chance it got. The bear went into the tundra and then came back, this time settling on a huge rock eyeing the water. It stood on the rock next to the water for a few seconds then jumped! Chip had the camera at the ready and got a great shot of the bear just before and after it hit the water. YAY, I was so excited. THAT was worth the entire cost of the trip right there! Once our boat limited out of salmon we headed to see some waterfalls that were not very far away. It was very pretty. I think maybe the prettiest falls we have seen so far. Ryan who had fished while his group of 2 watched the bears had gone before us and had cooked up some salmon. Chip ate some and I tasted it. it actually was pretty good! We were there about 20 minutes or so and still had some time to kill before the plane picked us up so Rodney took us to a cove he had found one time while he was out there exploring. It was a decent size cove, glassy with high rocks on one end and low lying tundra on the other. The water was an emerald green and reflected the surrounding terrain. It was very pretty and offered solitude, if that was what you were looking for. We headed back to the plane that had arrived just before we did and boarded it for our return trip. I was surprise when that wasn't the end! The last leg of our trip was to fly over a glacier. It was so exciting, the pilot flew over the glacier then banked the plane right and headed towards its outer edge. Making a sweeping turn over the massive ice. You could really see the turquoise blue color caused by the suns rays on the glacier and the crevasses caused by the melting ice.

THAT was amazing!

What an awesome ending to a perfect day