September 21, 2013

A weekend in Homer and Kachemak Bay State Park.

Matt and I have always wanted to go camping in Kachemak Bay State Park, which is a 400,000 acre park in and around Kachemak Bay, Alaska. A couple months ago, we decided to rent a state park cabin in the area for one night. We made a long weekend out of the trip, staying in Soldotna on Thursday night and Homer on Friday night prior to staying in the cabin on Saturday night.

On the way to Homer, we stopped at the Anchor River so Matt could fly fish.

 
I read my book and Rio slept while we watched him fish.

In Homer, we rented a cabin at Spruce Acres Cabins and RV Park. The place was very pleasant and the owners, Clare and Peter, were very welcoming. Upon arriving and checking in to our cabin, Peter gave us six fresh eggs from his chickens. We ate them for breakfast Saturday morning! 

After breakfast on Saturday morning, we visited the Homer Farmer's Market...


...and purchased fresh brewed coffee and snap peas.

 

We checked out the Alaska Islands and Ocean Visitor Center, which is dedicated to understanding and conserving the marine environment. It was pretty neat and a nice way to pass some time before our boat ride out to Kachemak Bay State Park.

Kachemak Bay State Park was the first legislatively designated State Park in the Alaska State Park system. What makes Kachemak Bay unique is that there is no road access to most areas of the park, so most visitors fly in or travel to the area by a boat from Homer. We reserved a water taxi over to our cabin with Ashore Water Taxi Tours...our captain was very nice and promised he would pick us up the next morning. :-)

Kachemak Bay is considered a critical habitat area due to the biodiversity of the area...wildlife in the park include sea otters, sea lions and whales, moose, black bears and a large number of sea and land birds. 
Kachemak Bay State Park is mostly wild land; however, there are a few park service cabins and campgrounds. The park service cabins can be rented throughout the summer and winter. Matt and I rented the Halibut Cove Lagoon West cabin during our overnight in Kachemak Bay State Park. 

Halibut Cove is a sensus designated place in the Kenai Peninsula Borough, Alaska. About 35 people live in the area year round and it is home to one of the only floating United States post offices. Halibut Cove is a very popular tourist destination for fisherman and has a number of lodges and cabins.

We arrived to our cabin in early afternoon and quickly organized our items inside. The cabin was very nice.

We went for a hike around the area but we were turned off by the large amount of fresh bear scat on the trails. We ended up hiking for about 3 or 4 miles and as soon as it became dusk, headed back for the cabin.

Matt heating some water for tea with our camp stove... 

 We wore our rain boots the entire time. It was VERY wet from all the rain the area had received over the past three or four weeks.

The temperature was in the low 40s at night, but we stayed quite warm in the cabin thanks to the wood stove inside. Matt did a great job tending the fire.

In the morning, the tide was out, so we walked on the beach. The view was beautiful...and the weather was very nice.



You can see the stairs up to our cabin in the background. I ran these stairs in the morning for my workout. There were 40...I went up and down them 5 times. It was painful.


 Rio enjoyed playing in the water...









On Sunday, our water taxi picked us up and took us back to the Homer boat harbor where we had parked the truck. 
We met some friends for coffee and then headed home. It was a great weekend.