Tag Archives: Kenai
Potter Section House
Chugach State Park:
The Potter Section House State Historical Site is now home to the Chugach State Park visitor center. The building was built in 1929, and was used to house section workers for this part of the Alaska Railroad. Originally, there were four section houses along the Anchorage section of the railroad. Their use was discontinued in 1978, and the Potter House is the last remaining of the four. It was listed on National Register of Historic Places in 1985.
A rotary snowplow that once cleared the tracks along Turnagain Arm is also on display at Potter House. The railroad car behind the snowplow, is home to the Kenai Visitor Center. Both visitor centers have been closed due to the pandemic, and remain closed.
The section along Turnagain Arm is notorious for avalanche, although today the avalanches are planned events. Back in the day, the rotary plow revolutionized track clearing. The plow’s steel teeth cut through even the most packed snow, as well as debris from an avalanche, and the occasional frozen moose. The snow was launched from the chute hundreds of feet off the track. Two steam engines pushed the plow, with a crew of seven.
This particular rotary plow was retired in 1985, in favor of track mounted bulldozers. The Alaska Railroad still maintains one rotary snowplow in reserve.
Chugach State Park, just outside of Anchorage, covers 495,204 acres. It is the third largest state park in the United States, and the second largest in Alaska. It is truly, one of Alaska’s many gems.
Alaskan Heat Dome
A huge upper-level high pressure has parked itself over much of southern Alaska; Graphic credit: TropicalTidbits.com
Record breaking temps hit the southern part of Alaska on July 4th. A large high pressure dome has planted itself over the state, and is moving very slowly north and east. Several communities in the southern part of the state have seen all time record high temperature records broken. Fairbanks probably won’t be seeing any all time records broken, but we are going to see temps in the upper 80’s within a day or two as the high pressure moves into our area. Just what we need with all the fires around the area.
Broken records:
Anchorage Merrill Field: 90F
King Salmon: 89F
Kenai: 89F
Illiamna: 86F
These are all-time record highs for our coastal areas; The Anchorage Bowl had never recorded 90 degrees before. When one thinks of King Salmon, you picture wet, rainy, cool weather as you fish for salmon. The coast could be breaking records for the next 5-6 days, as the high pressure takes its time moving out of the area.
Kenai River Kings
Salmon fishing the Kenai River
The salmon reports continue to be bad. Alaska Fish & Game shut down king salmon fishing on the famed Kenai River. It had been down to catch & release on the Kenai, but now even that is closed. The latest closure has the entire river shut down for the remainder of June, at that time the lower portion of the Kenai would open, but the upper river would remain closed.
An extremely poor return of adult kings to the river prompted the closing. As of 17 June, only 2182 kings had swam past the Fish & Game’s sonar counter.
This is the second major closing of salmon fisheries in as many weeks.
The Kenai River
The Kenai
While in Anchorage, we took a side trip down to the Kenai Peninsula. It was a beautiful drive. The swans seemed to be floating in every puddle. Both trumpeter and tundra swans were migrating through, and their numbers were in the hundreds.
Autumn is a perfect time to visit the Kenai. Very little tourist action is going on this time of year, with absolutely no combat fishing. Although, that also means that almost nothing was open.
Kenai Lake near Cooper Landing
The Sterling Highway as it snakes its way through the Kenai Peninsula
Creative Commons
Circle to Circle is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.Like the Stories & Photos? Help Keep the Rover Rolling.
