A Farewell to Russ

We started out Russ' last day in Alaska much like we started his first. We woke up at a decent time and headed out to hike the Turnagain Arm trail once more. This was after Russ brought us to Fred Meyer and stocked us up on food. He bought us more food than Katie and I have bought on our own the entire trip! We were sure to get nothing that was perishable since Katie and I have figured out that we are horrible at keeping our cooler properly iced. After packing CJ full of our food, we enjoyed a bagel, compliments of Russ, on the way to the trail head. We were hiking a new part of the Turnagain Arm trail this time. We started from McHugh Creek, which is virtually where we hiked to on the first day, and headed east along the trail toward Rainbow Creek. This would be an 8.4 mile hike round trip. Russ was again giddy to see bears as we

began to hike up the trail, he even equipped himself with bear mace that could be easily accessed from his front pouch. The first leg of the hike was straight up hill. Within minutes both Russ and Katie were doubting whether this trail was a good idea or not. I was a little ahead of them both and hiking a little fast. I reached the top of one hill and turned to wait for the others when I spotted a black bear directly in front of me about 30 ft. away. I quickly jumped back with the others and Russ, instead of pulling out his bear mace to have at the ready, reached for his camera and started inching forward to get a better shot. We watched the bear for maybe a minute, before he scampered off down a side trail. We were all thrilled and shocked at the same time. I was

really excited to see a bear, but a little freaked out at how close we got before we even noticed him. We kept on going on the trail which soon opened up into a cliff face offering beautiful views of the Turnagain Arm. It was low tide, so there was no hope of seeing whales, but we knew that on our return trip, the tide would have come in and we could hopefully get a look at some Belugas. The portion of the trail we were on offered 3 or so such lookouts that stretched right over Beluga Point, so our hopes were high, though none of us thought that it would be realistic. We

kept walking on and watched as the terrain around us changed multiple times, from cliff face, to birch forest, to river valleys full of giant berry plants. The trail was gorgeous and seemingly not often hiked; we didn't see a single person on the trail during our whole hike. After a bit we saw a hawk fly right across our path and land in a tree nearby. We watched the hawk for a minute when Katie heard something walking close to the path. We waited for a moment and decided it was definitely a bear. We never got a good look at him, but we would see the bushes moving and could hear something big trudging along. Katie was a little scared and Russ wasn't interested in waiting for the bear to show his face, so we marched on down the path. About another half mile down the road we had our third bear encounter of the day as Russ spotted another black bear about 100 ft. away a little off the trail. This one was far enough away where even I reached for

the camera and tried to snap a shot before he took off. I failed however and just ended up with a black smudge backed by a field of green. By this time we were right around the 3 mile mark and Russ wanted to turn around. Katie and I outvoted him and we kept on going. The reason Russ wanted to turn around was because the last mile of the trail was much like the first, straight downhill. Well in the world of hiking, what goes down must come up, and Russ was not interested in repeating the one mile climb. We made the decent in hope of there being a nice waterfall to view at Rainbow Creek. When we got to the bottom, we were disappointed that all we saw was another river valley with overgrown bushes covering the water. We turned around and made the hike back to the top. It wasn't as bad as fear had made it and we were all at the top again in about 20 minutes. We kept hiking onward, taking our time and keeping our eyes peeled for bears, though we didn't see any on our return journey. When we got to the area of the cliff face however, we noticed that the tide had come in. We also were aware that there were numerous

cars and people standing outside pointing into the water. We looked out and to our surprise and excitement there was Beluga whales swimming all around near the shore. We all took a spot near the edge and sat down and watched the Belugas swim and surface for about 15 minutes. Eventually, we left, hoping that we could make it down to the trail, back to the car, and over to

Beluga point before the whales moved on. As fate would have it, we were not fast enough. We got down the path and over to Beluga point, but we didn't see any whales. We got out of the car and walked around for a bit, but really didn't see anything. We thought that maybe the whales had moved further down the arm, so we hopped in CJ and took a drive down the coast. We only drove about 10 minutes before we turned around. We realized that the tide had not come in this far yet and since we hadn't had any sign of the whales yet, we figured that we had the best views already from the trail and decided we could move on. As we drove, we spotted the Belugas a couple more times, stopping twice, but they never stayed up near the surface long enough for us to get a good photo of them. It was still amazing and watching Beluga whales was something that I never even dreamed of doing while in Alaska, so we were very fortunate. But Russ wasn't satisfied yet, he wanted to see another moose. He had read about the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail, the same trail that we had taken on the first night after he arrived, and found out that it is one of the best places to see moose in Anchorage. He decided that we would go to one end of the trail and walk for 15 minutes then turn around, if we didn't see a moose, oh well, but Russ had a feeling that luck was on his side today, so we went. It was about 3:30 p.m. by this point and since today was another beautiful day, I didn't have much hope for seeing a moose on the trail. We walked for 15 minutes and didn't see a thing. We were walking slow and numerous bike riders had passed us which we figured did not help our chances either. We turned around, sad we had not seen a moose, but overall content with the day's 3 bears and Beluga whales. As we walked back Russ was in front, pretty far ahead, when Katie and I heard something next to us rustling in the trees. You guessed it! It was a moose! We yelled at Russ to stop and turn

around. We were all really excited and surprised to be this close to a moose! It was a male but he must have only been a year or 2 old because all he had for antlers was one spike on his right side.

As we stood in amazement and snapped photos, bike riders flew by us seeing the moose but not giving it a second glance. Again they treated it much like we would a squirrel, unsurprised and unimpressed by it. After we all took pictures with the moose and got as close as was comfortable, we headed back to the car, counting the day as an unrivaled success. We drove back to the hotel where Russ showered up before his flight and then we went out to dinner. Russ and I had our hearts set on getting some Alaskan king crab for dinner, so we went to one of the reported best seafood and overall restaurants in town, Humpy's. The place was awesome, and apparently had been featured on Man vs. Food, as you could order the challenge if you wanted for $125 bucks. Honestly, it didn't seem impossible, but if you completed it, all you got was a T-shirt. You would still have to pay for the meal and everything. We decided that it was not worth it and both ordered meals with some king crab legs in them. This was my first crab leg experience and it was delicious! I can see now why those Deadliest Catch guys make such a fuss about roping them in. They are tasty! After we ate until our hearts were content, it was time to drop Russ off at the airport. We had about an hour left before he had to be there, but he was ready to go and get on his way. We dropped him off and headed back to the hotel, which he purchased for us an extra night, and spent the evening watching TV and relaxing after our amazing day.

A special "thank you" to Russ for being part of our Alaskan Adventure and helping us make the most out of our experience here. We would not have done nearly half of the things that we got to do without him and we are eternally grateful for it all. We had an amazing time sharing these past days with him and wish that he could have stayed longer. Thanks again for showing us Alaska and giving us the idea and means to even come this far. We will be forever in your debt for giving and sharing with us so many unforgettable experiences. Thank you from the bottom of our heats - Katie and Ryan