It was opening weekend for the Seaview Cafe, which just may be my favorite spot in Alaska. Live music was happening, so we made Hope our destination for the afternoon. Once there, we discovered one of the best things about off-season travel: free camping! The Porcupine Campground at the end of the Hope Road was gated open, but the fee station not yet installed. "No fees, no services," a sign announced. We were pleasantly surprised to find the outhouses unlocked and stocked with TP, but we had to supply our own water and trash disposal. No big deal.
We had the top popped in no time, changed into bike clothes, and immediately discovered that my bike had no pedals installed. I poached the pedals from my fatbike to put on my mountain bike last week in anticipation of summer, which apparently is canceled this year. So we switched to hiking clothes and headed up Hope Point trail to get some nice views of the Kenai mountains and Turnagain Arm, then walked to the Seaview for beers and music. We got a little drunk, danced a lot, and stumbled giggling back to camp where we passed out before dark (midnight?).
The best part of the week was having no agenda, sleeping as late as we wanted, sometimes starting a hike or ride late in the evening with no concern for darkness. The trees are finally budding, turning the landscape a bright, spring green. Wildlife is abundant, especially bird life--we must have seen hundreds of bald eagles. Finding a campsite was never a problem, although finding stores and restaurants open was (TripAdvisor update: there is no fish for sale in Homer!). We were so self-contained that it didn't matter. We explored nooks and crannies we had never been to before--Captain Cook State Park has great beach riding, there's free camping at a lovely beach at the mouth of the Kasilof River, and we watched bald eagles for half an hour at Deep Creek.
We camped across the road from the Time Bandit (Deadliest Catch, anyone?) on the Homer Spit and watched otters mating in the harbor. We drove back north and biked up the road to Tustamina Lake (the largest lake on the Kenai Peninsula), inflated our packrafts and floated the Kasilof River back to the truck. Along the way, we saw Arctic terns, bald eagles, mergansers, and a grizzly sow with two cubs. Angling toward home, we stopped in Cooper Landing to ride to Russian River Falls and continued up the trail until the wind and mud strongly encouraged a turn-back. On a whim, we walked down to the popular fishing area on the Russian River and promptly saw a black bear across the river. We watched him for ten minutes or so as he played, foraged for food, stood up and looked around (did he suspect we were there even though we were downwind?). We found more free camping at Portage, which also advertised supremely miserable weather (40 degrees and raining when we woke up).
We had a true Alaska moment when we were riding up the road to Tustamina Lake and encountered two moose who were less than enthusiastic about our presence. We hadn't seen a car since we left the highway six miles earlier, but a truck came up behind us, and the female passenger rolled her window down and asked if we'd like them to drive on the moose side while we rode on the safe side until we were past. Only the conversation was like this: "Would you like us to....?" "Yes, please!" then a wave and a nod once we were safely past the angry moose.
In a nutshell, off-season travel is the best: no crowds, no traffic, only a tiny bit of road construction, and a couple of mosquitos.
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