Alaska, the last frontier

How does one describe the natural beauty, the remoteness and the awe of kayaking in the wilderness of Alaska.All through the trip I was looking for the words and came up empty. So maybe by describing our adventure some of the majesty of the place will shine through, even the photographs can only capture a small part of the  experience.

Getting kitted out with drysuites, booties, gumboots for shore, kayaks and then getting all that gear into the kayaks takes a whole morning if not more.

Eventually we set out from Whittier into the great outdoors, on a cold rainy day

The landscape is harsh, steep rocks  and forests, waterfalls every few hundred meters and very few beaches to stop at.We managed about 17km to our first campsite at Decision Point State marine park.

Tarps go up whenever we stop for a break because of the incessant rain.They provide a good shelter and allow us to prepare and eat our food in relative dry comfort. Did I say dry? in that rainy environment there is no such thing as dry, the wet gets into everything and drybags are relative. At the end of the day we set up the tarps again and then put up our tents under them and then change into dry clothes and then get wet again.

Umbrellas can be useful in this rainy place

Water water everywhere and lots of it to drink. Keeping our supply of fresh water was never a problem
but we only took from the waterfalls that didn`t have a long trip through the forest in order to keep the potential for contamination as small as possible.

We were surrounded by snow capped mountains cloudy grey skies and mist for most of the first few days, nevertheless the scenery was breathtaking in all directions.

To be continued..