Monday, July 18, 2011

Captain Cook State Park

We are here at this park because I made John come here! The day dawned bright, clear and warm, for Alaska. We hitched up the Jeep for the 74 mile drive back up to the towns of Soldatna and Kenai. We stopped to take pictures of two volcanoes on the far shore. One is Illiamna and the other is the Redoubt.


July 18, 2011 July 18, 2011

We were in hopes that things had settled down a bit from the weekend's frantic dip netting on the Kenai River. NOT! We pulled into a county campground with over 170 sites and only found one empty. We both shuddered at the thought of camping with all those people, noise and commotion so we elected to move on. As we pulled out of the campground there were over 20 cars and RV's waiting in line to go in.

We found a quiet place to pull off the road, ate lunch and made a few phone calls. All the campgrounds in this area were full except this one state park which dead ends 28 miles from town. That's when I made the decision to camp here. It's right on Cook's Inlet, next to Stormy Lake and Swanson River. The inlet is not the prettiest at this point but the mountains lining the far shore are beautiful! The tide was out so we were able to walk on the rocky beach where we met a couple from Montana who had been fishing on the Kenai River. They had caught some salmon but said it was work to find a spot not filled with people. Sounds like opening day at Bennet Springs!

After supper we explored the park, did some walking and then built a nice fire as we watched the sun starting to set into the mountains (it's just now 10:30 here).

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