Summary - a very enjoyable trip!
1. The main goal of coming here is to see the largest bear. We were too early for the main salmon run. Saw many grizzlies, none very large, none catching fish. Saw a few baby grizzlies, extremely cute. Bald Eagle is common.
2. Flowers were very good, especially on Heiman Mountain. ~2-3 weeks too early for fireweed (everywhere), ~1 week too late for lupine. Profusion of various asters and Partridge Foot.
3. Fishing is a major pass time here. Many road accessible creeks. I'm terrible at it. Caught 0.
4. Got sunburned (heat wave? + long sun exposure). Too hazy (forest fire on Kenai Peninsular).
5. Packing: I brought too much warm clothing and rain protection. Headlamp is totally unnecessary as the sun only sets for ~6 hours, and even then, the sky is bright enough to make out your surroundings. Bugs were not bad. Never used bug spray, did use head net morning and dusk around camp.
6. Drove ~170 miles (including repeated spots). Gas ~$3.85/gallon. All the roads are on the northeast of the island. Kodiak NWR occupies most of the land, but inaccessible other than pricey boat/plane.
7. Food price is about 1/3 higher than mainland.
7/4, Thursday. My flights for
Kodiak to/from Portland have long layovers at Anchorage. I bought the ticket about 3 months ago with only 25k miles. The flight into Anchorage is always spectacular with glaciers, peaks, fjords gliding under. Not sure why Alaska Airline booked me on Ravn Air, as it also flies to Kodiak. These small airlines have their gates outside of security, odd, but easy. Ravn checked in my backpack for free.
Another surprise is the temperature forecast: Anchorage is 10°F warmer than Seattle during this trip. Thankfully, Kodiak is slightly cooler. However, it turned out to be too warm. Maybe due to this
Swan Lake Fire. I shall say we are lucky with the weather: sunny all 5 days. I left my umbrella and pack cover behind in my office. However, umbrella would be nice to have.
Flying over Kenai Peninsula again, this time in a smaller plane (Dash 8-100), a bit lower, much louder, the view is again spectacular. So many frozen rivers. Saw some forest fire smoke. When we landed on the emerald island, Kodiak, most people in the one room terminal were wearing flip-flops. No snow here. Felt like Hawaii without the palm trees.
Budget-rent-a-car has only 5 cars, Avis about 13. The cheapest car runs $65/day + tax. Our car looks quite beat-up with over 77K miles.
Checked out downtown, drank a beer by the harbor with many boats. There's a whale sculpture made by plastic trash. You would think people here were meticulously keeping their island clean. No. Throughout our trip, we found trash everywhere.
After finding where tomorrow's bear-watching office is, we headed to Sargent Creek and Russian Creek to look for bears (I read someone's comment online). Didn't see any (every time). But saw people fishing at Russian Creek. So gave it a try. I'm just hopelessly bad. My partner hooked 2 small fish, one got away.
The scenery of Woman's Bay is quite pretty. 2 bald eagles waited for potential fish scrap. More gulls near the water edge. Large flat area, covered with grass, some pea flowers, and silverweed.
Dinner is fish soup with whatever leftover veggies from my fridge. Only salt. Not bad. Already 10pm. Still bright outside.
7/5, Friday. 8am
Sea Hawk bear viewing flight was cancelled due to heavy fog. We were instructed to be available nearby. Went to Russian River again, but didn't catch any fish. We were called back for a possible 10am departure. But fog thickened again. Now all the clients (including the neighbor Andrew Air) were hanging out at the pier, fitted with hip waders (I got a man's size 6). A bald eagle waiting on the lamppost, a sea otter scratching his back on the dock.
At noon, finally we took off. 4 paying customers. Jo Murphy, the guide, spoke occasionally during the one hour flight, about the landmarks (on the way back, she fell asleep). She said that we were going to
Katmai instead of
Kodiak NWR, is that the refuge allows bear hunting, so bears are not as easy to observe here on the island. We were told that the only evergreen on the island is
Sitka Spruce, and deer and elk were introduced, failed moose planting.
The flight is quite scenic, but very loud. We were all wearing a big ear muffler with a speaking mike. We flew over Raspberry Strait, with many sea otters, to the north side of the island - all sunny. Then over emptiness of
Shelikof Strait, where Roland, the pilot, reported seeing whales last week, towards
Katmai National Park and Preserve. We landed in
Hallo Bay, at the foot of glacier clad volcanoes. Breathtaking.
First bear we saw was digging clams, out on the sand flat. Tide was coming in, and she was having hard time abandoning potential clam bed.
The next was a mom with 3 new born cubs. They are just adorable. They are my favorite. We watched them from different angles for a long time, staying fairly close.
Then we saw a female bear running across the river to chase another female away, because her mate looked at that girl, when she came to the shore to drink. I didn't know bears get this jealous. We saw multiple single males, a mom with 2 one-year-old cubs. All of them look cuddly. The grassy shore has many yellow
silverweed and some purple iris. Jo showed us the two types of grass bears like to eat. We also saw a grey wolf, some moose footprints.
Time flies. In about 3 hours, we walked slowly from the north of the bay to the south, where Roland waited for us. Once onboard the plane, we were given a picnic lunch (a sandwich, a cookie with M&M, and Twix), and a bottle of chilled soft drink. 4pm, I was hungry.
Drove to Fossil Beach for the night. Winding road, sometimes have good view of the coast. Google Map pointed to a road that's locked by the
space shuttle facility. Need to follow the sign, and take the gravel road to the right. It's a short but pretty bad. There was a family gathering to the right of the road, with a large picnic canopy and 2 tents. We camped to the left, by the pond that's suspiciously warm. Lots of
Seaside Ragwort (look like balsamroot with wrong leaves), some lupines. Plenty of trash!
7/6, Saturday. Heavy fog. One
Golden Crown Sparrow kept singing his 3 notes. There are really a lot of fossil here. Quite interesting. We also picked some mussel and seaweed, made a tasty lunch. The mussels are small, but fat for their size.
Tired of waiting for the fog to lift, I collected some trash, we drove off ~2pm. I didn't want to drink the water from the "nuclear pond". Stopped at American River to filter water.
First hike is
Heitman Mountain, my favorite. It's strenuous due to the heat. We started around 1pm. The first mile is bushy, rutted at times. Quite a few people crowded the small landing of Heiman Lake. Followed a lake side boot track, bushwhacking to another spot, where my partner went for a swim. No place to sit, I tried to go up the slope and hope to get to the north end of the lake. However, bushwhacking up the hill is difficult, I abandoned going down to the lake, just continued on the trail, and waited under a small tree - not much shade.
Once the trail gets out of the thick bush, the view is quite nice. You can see the coast line, the lake, and tons of flowers. Notably
Kamchatka Rhododendron, bright fuchsia. Lots of
Partridge Foot, yellow paintbrush (never saw red ones on the island), arnica, aster.
The last mile is just a delight, a ridge walk with great views all-around and flowers under your feet: snowy peaks of the interior and blue shoreline.
At the very top, there're two cairns, and a rock painted blue written "I cannot believe nobody bothered to put me up". Only at the saddle, the trail was faint. It had tons of flowers, a little muddy, but may make a good camp. Back at the lake around 9pm. No more people. Went for a swim. Refreshing. The air cooled a bit, but still warm. I underestimated the heat. 3L water was not enough for 2 people for this 8.7 mile hike.
Camped near American River, on the coast. Very pretty. There was one other car. No tent. There's a small pond here too. Not the cleanest. I didn't use the water here. Ate a late dinner with mosquito headnet on ~11pm. Bug time.
7/7, Sunday. Bugs in the morning. Around 9-10am, they dissipated. Filed water again at American River. This time 4L. Tried a bit fishing too. No luck.
Hiked
Old Women's Mountain near the airport. There's, again, no trailhead sign. This trail is well troden. Wide like a logging road (seems you can access here from the west side in a jeep). Lots of Cow Pasnip. You want long sleeve and long pants. Its oil causes skin rash. Lots of salmonberry too, which I snacked on, even though not my favorite. After the first mile, the view opens up. There's an American flag on top of the first hill. Again a long ridge walk, not as spectacular as yesterday, still very pretty: broad with views all around, enough flowers at your footstep. It might be better in a couple of weeks, as I saw so many fireweeds still budding. At various points, you can see the airport very well. Near the flat top, you could see the lake below. Headed down for a wash. The lake is smaller, but has dirt/sand bottom, so my feet don't hurt. There are two families with toddlers and a baby in carrier at the east end of the lake. After a good rest, we headed back to the car. I believe we did less than 6 miles, but close.
Went to downtown to restock beer. Then to
Fort Abercrombie State Park. On the way, stop by Miller Bay for lunch. There're picnic tables in the shade. However, quite a bit of trash.
The historic museum at the fort is worth the $5 donation. It's very small, inside the former ammunition hill. The volunteer there turned on whichever apparatus you are interested in. For example, you can type morse code on this gadget, dress in army outfit and gas mask, play with the old telephone switch. There's a photo of the underground nuclear test chamber on
Amchitka island.
Two guns with mount blasted broken. The coastal view is nice. Walked the trails and to Gertrude Lake, not worth a photo. There're military structures here and there. A few vault toilets. There's a large campground in the park, not sure if it has portable water.
Drove all the way north to Anton Larsen Bay. The road turns to gravel right at the golf course. The Larsen Pass is so flat, that I couldn't determin where it is exactly. There's a very large parking lot, pressumably at the pass. Looks dry. Saw a campground north of the pass. Looks depressing. At the bay, there's a boat launch, seems quite popular: lots of cars. Continued the drive to the road end. A few cars parked there. There's a trailhead, and a small boatlaunch. The bay looks more like a lake: surrounded by green islands.
We decided to drive back to the esturay to camp. However, on the way, saw a mom bear with 3 cubs there. I don't think I want to sleep in their home. The cubs put on a good show, fighting with each other. The scenary is also very pretty. Good view of Pyramid Mountain which I plan to hike tomorrow morning, too warm for today.
Back to the end of the spur road. Settled in an campsite in the woods by the small boat lauch, with a fire ring, and log to sit on. Walked to Small Creek down the short rutted mud road, is a nice meadow. A few wooden crates making good seats, quite a few trash scattered about and in the big fire pile. Why people think that they can burn their beer cans? We cooked dinner there. Some mosquitoes. Not too bad.
7/8, Monday. Same weather: warm and hazy. We rose earlier, so to hike in the cooler morning and allow enough time to pack for the airport.
Pyramid Moutain trailhead has a large parking lot. There's a trail sign here, but not at the trailhead, but quite a few steps in. It's really a warning sign stating that it's "undevelopped". There's also a strange iron structure. After the first 5 minutes of easy and open trail, it gets steep, a little bushy.
Then it reaches a nice meadow. The grade is gentle here, and meadow continues for ~0.5 miles.
The last 1/4 mile is straight up. Needs hands at times. The good thing is that the trail is on the west side of the mountain, so in the shade in the morning. The rocky top also has plenty of flowers, and views to both sides of the island. On a clear day, you ought to see the glaciated peaks on Kenai. Too hazy today. On the way down, saw a group of hunters in the meadow. Until then, we were completely alone. Near the trailhead, saw 2 small parties coming up the trail. Back to the car ~11:15am.
Now back to downtown. Inquired about local restaurants at Discover Kodiak. Saw an audobun hiking list posted here. They meet regularly outside of this office. Visited the Kodiak NWR Vistor Center. As many visitors as employees. The guy I talked to was very nice. He took out a flower book and looked for the 3 flowers on my phone. Clean restroom. A relief of the island. Went to Henry's for lunch, a bar recommended by the guy at Discover Kodiak. Food is so-so. Service is friendly. Still have a couple of hours to waste, so went to Russian Lake again to try fishing.
My flight is at 7:30pm. The small waiting area gets crowded when a plane arrives, and deserted otherwise. My connection in Anchorage is long, so I fell asleep near the gate, and missed my flight. I actually saw the plane taxi-ing out of the gate. The Alaska Airline gate agent was very nice, helped me re-book on the next flight, but in 4.5 hours. By the time I arrived at Portland, it was almost noon! Otherwise, all is good. I took ~400 photos. In the end, kept half.
7/27, Saturday. Rain forecast 50% before 2pm. So we met late, at 8:30am at Green Lake P&R. We didn't leave until 20 minutes later after realizing that the 5th guy went to the wrong P&R. Very cloudy when we arrived at Sunrise. Filled water, used restroom. Eric, the organizer, inquired the ranger about the snow condition to Burroughs. We were told to bring traction device and ice axe, which is totally unnecessary. Boots are good enough. Only tiny snow patches, easy to walk on.
Frozen Lake still had a little bit of snow on. Quite pretty. Instead of waiting at the crowded junction, Elyse and I headed to Fremont Lookout. I ran back to the junction when I saw Eric and Justin below, so they didn't have to wait. Elyse continued to the lookout. Eric was getting over some illness, so he was very slow.
Justin and I waited at 2nd Burrough for the rest. Great view here. Clouds moved in and out, made Rainier a bit mystic. There's this big round seating dome, quite interesting. Elyse arrived before Eric.
After another long rest so Eric had time to recuperate, we headed forward (down to the saddle) and continued to the 3rd Burrough. All the while, the scenery is excellent. However, open terrain. I had to hike quite a bit off trail for a bio break. There was some snow here (over 7000'). But the slope is gentle, totally easy. 
At 3rd Burrough (7828'), so close to Rainier, the view is grand. We wandered around the rocky, but flat top. Cannot continue much further, precipitous drops, very jagged. Look down for Wonderland Trail going over the river created by Winthrop Glacier, now dark and dusty. By the time Eric arrived, Rainier was obscured by the clouds. Some yellow and deep blue (littleflower penstemon.
After coming back to 2nd Burrough, we took to Shadow Lake. Eventually the cloud cleared. More flowers on this stretch. Quite a bit of heather (both white and pink). Can see the green lake that hugs Glacier Basin trail. No snow on this trail. 
Shadow Lake has an backcountry camping area with an outhouse. Low enough to be very green. Nice flowers. More people.
