Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula (Photo Essay)
Kenai Peninsula - Anchorage to Homer and beyond
This article appears in Globerovers December 2017
Alaska has a surface area of roughly 1.718 million km² which is unfathomable to most of us, but certainly bigger than you ever imagined. You know California is big! Well, you could fit California into Alaska four times! You also know that Texas is bigger than California. Guess what? You could fit Texas into Alaska twice! Alaska is bigger than Texas, California, and Montana combined! Rhode Island is America’s smallest state and can fit into Alaska 425 times. From north to south, Alaska measures 2,285 kilometres, the distance from Denver City to Mexico City. That’s far!
Now that we realise how big Alaska is, we should also know that most of Alaska has no roadways and only 20% of Alaska’s roads are paved. Due to a lack of roads, much of Alaska is practically unreachable but you can charter a seaplane to many areas as Alaska has about 3 million lakes larger than 81,000 m² each.
Lets start by exploring Alaska by car and stay on the road from Anchorage up north to the rugged Denali National Park where we will find Alaska’s highest peak (6,190 m), Mount Denali (formerly known as Mount McKinley). We then head south along the rugged Kenai Fjords National Park with its many glaciers all the way down to the Homer Spit on the southern tip of the Kenai Peninsula. We board a small boat to Kachemak Bay State Park to check out Halibut Cove and then travel further southwest to the remote Seldovia Village.
Near Whittier, Alaska
Near Whittier, Alaska
Bald Eagle near Whittier, Alaska
Exit Glacier near Seward, Alaska
Holgate Glacier, Kenai Fjords National Park near Seward, Alaska
Bear Glacier, in the Kenai Mountains in Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska from the air, flying Seattle to Tokyo
Steller sea lions, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska
Moose near Homer, Alaska
Seldovia near Homer, Alaska
Halibut Cove, near Homer, Alaska
Bird Rookery, Black-footed Kittiwake (front), Common Murre (back), Kachemak Bay, Homer, Alaska
Near Homer, Alaska
Steller sea lions, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska
Mt. Redoubt Volcano & Cook Inlet, Ninilchik, Alaska
Mt. Redoubt Volcano & Cook Inlet, Ninilchik, Alaska
Sunset over Cook Inlet from Ninilchik, Alaska