Alaska 2013: Cooper Landing and Girdwood (Day 6)

The next morning (Sunday, June 30), I was in for an unpleasant surprise when I realized I could barely move my body out of bed. Every muscle seemed to ache and seize up. It normally takes my body a day or two to feel sore after physical activity, and the brutal hike two days earlier was just starting to leave its mark.

Jared was sore, too, but not to the same extent. This was by far the worst I had ever felt after exerting myself, and my body didn't fully recover until nearly a week later. Despite all of that, I would still do the Harding Icefield trail again...probably. No, definitely. No pain no gain, right?

Thankfully, the next two days were transition days for us to make our way up to Denali, so it didn't matter that I looked (and felt) like a lurching zombie. We packed up the car and said our goodbyes to Seward and the lovely Alaska Creekside Cabins.

We booked a bed and breakfast in Girdwood for Sunday evening to break up the long drive to Denali. Girdwood is only a couple of hours north of Seward (and just southeast of Anchorage), so we had the entire day to leisurely explore. We made several stops on our way out of Seward, including a stop at the Bear Creek fishing weir to view salmon swimming upstream.

A fishing weir is an obstruction in a body of water (like a river) that hinders the passage of fish. At this particular weir, the Cook Inlet Aquaculture Association monitors the migrating salmon. June and July is prime season for spawning sockeye salmon, and we saw loads of fish making their way up the creek.

We also read that the creek is a great place to see American Dippers, one of our nemesis birds. We tried very hard to find a Dipper last summer in Colorado, but had no luck. Dippers are nondescript gray birds that feed in fast moving streams, like Bear Creek, by bobbing up and down in the water (or "dipping"). Within a minute or two of stopping at the creek, a Dipper landed on a rock right in front of us! We were not very prepared to take a photo at that moment, but we did manage to take a few before it flew away.

 American Dipper

We continued to make our way north and took a slight detour to Cooper Landing, which is on the edge of the Kenai River.

We decided to take a short excursion down a dirt road to look for birds and wildlife.

We saw a moose and a few good birds, including two Pacific Loons "dancing" together (a behavior pairs exhibit during mating season), several Bohemian Waxwings, and Boreal Chickadees.

 Pacific Loons dancing

 Pacific Loon

 Bohemian Waxwing

Boreal Chickadee

Later in the day, I saw a pair of bald eagles free falling together, another fascinating type of courtship behavior. It happened so quickly, I didn't have time to get a photo or video, but it was amazing.

We eventually made it into Girdwood around dinner time. After checking into our b&b, we went to the Girdwood Laundry Mall, which claims to be "voted the #1 Laundromat in America by Coin-Op Magazine."

It was a nice place with lots of artwork and friendly locals. We started a load of laundry and grabbed a yummy deep dish pizza from the restaurant next door (called Chair 5).