It’s a rare moment during the busy Alaskan summer when the stars align and two friends end up with a day off together. You have to make the most of it. So when it so happened back in June, my buddy Jordan and I commandeered a couple of packrafts from True North Kayak Adventures and hit the trail to the lake at the base of Grewingk Glacier, Alaska.
It might be late April but the snow is still falling here in Homer, Alaska. My wife and I drove 3,000 miles to get here from Newport, Oregon, where I worked on a crab boat for the winter and she worked at a local shop. I thought we’d lucked out and completely missed the Alaskan winter, but here’s it’s frosty grasp reaching up to remind us we’re living near the top of the world.
Life doesn’t stop at the end of the road in Homer, Alaska.
Across Kachemak Bay several small towns eek out an existence in rural enclaves wedged inbetween steep mountain terrain and tranquil bays.
Go ahead, call me a slacker — it’s true. I only posted one single blog post in 2017, and even that was a link to some freelance work I squeezed in between fishing trips.
I don’t regret it.
I was burned out. I was lazy. I didn’t want to put the time and energy into writing blog posts or editing photos. Hell, I didn’t even feel like carrying around my camera most days, or at all, really. And that’s a new level of lazy, especially when I’ve had the opportunity to explore a beautiful and exotic place like Southcentral Alaska. Screw it, I needed a break.
And now I’m back at it, refreshed and rejuvenated and in between fishing seasons. So here’s an update from a year living in Homer, Alaska:
Fresh off a six-month trek around South America, my wife and I decided to dive into our next “crazy adventure.” We packed up a trailer in Atlanta and hit the road for Homer, AK, a small town quite literally at the end of the road near the southern tip of the Kenai Peninsula.
Before we left, we didn’t have a place to live or jobs lined up. But the appeal of life in this outdoor paradise in the summer—which thaws the rugged winter landscape and opens up a wide range of adventures, from hiking to rock climbing, and of course fishing—seemed worth the risk…