Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
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The Long and Winding Trail
IT'S BEEN A LOUSY WINTER
up here. It rained right through October and November, flood-
ing the Kenai Peninsula and washing out the Sterling Highway in two places. It didn't
snow until December 10 , and then not much, and it had mostly melted off by January,
when they were playing golf in Palmer. In February the World Championship Sled Dog
Races were cancelled due to lack of snow. So was the cross-country skiing Tour of Anchor-
age, and the cross-country skiing national championships. The newspaper ran a story that
had some gardeners planting seeds, a full three months before Memorial Day, which is
when we normally start our gardens in Southcentral Alaska. In March the Iditarod start got
moved 400 miles north from Anchorage to Fairbanks, where there isn't any snow either,
and then in the middle of the race the route had to be changed again because the rivers wer-
en't frozen. We had a four-day windstorm that clocked 109 miles an hour to force a weath-
er shutdown on Ted Stevens International Airport for the first time in its history.
I haven't been cross-country skiing or ice skating once this winter. This week I finally
said the hell with it and took my bicycle down from the garage ceiling. If it's not going to
act like winter, I might as well pretend like it's spring. As Garrison Keillor says, “There
comes a time when you must stand up to reality and deny it.”
Where am I going on my bike? That's easy. The Coastal Trail. Wanna go for a ride?
Let's begin at Fish Creek, down the hill from downtown Anchorage. The banks of this
glacial creek are made of gray glacial mud, but that is no deterrent to the guys in chest
waders standing shoulder to shoulder, beating the water for the elusive king salmon. We go
up the creek to the pedestrian walkway and look down. Those are the salmon that got away.
We go past the Alaska Railroad depot, up the hill to Second Avenue, where the official
trail begins. When Knik Arm appears on our right, we stop and get out the binoculars we
