Alaska Day 19, Tutka Bay Lodge to Winterlake Lodge

                                Polar Plunge

Day 19: Tutka Bay Lodge to Winterlake Lodge

Weather Report: Another great day, in the low 70s at Winterlake Lodge

Quote of the Day:  It’s a great day for flying

It’s a Covid world: THB and DB are one of two couples at Winterlake Lodge. There are families of 4 and 5, they get their own tables, so the two couples are sharing a table. They had Covid and have been vaccinated. Nobody here is wearing masks.

Department of Technology: THB is posting from the Winterlake Lodge dining room, just downstairs from the office where the wifi signal is the strongest (there is no wifi in the cabins). Moving pretty quickly until something strange happens: THB has a reoccurrence of the pic loading illness: they are back to loading in reverse order. Hmmmmm….turn your screens upside down and see if that works. GOOD LUCK!

Department of Geology: Small earthquake at 9:45 this morning at Tutka Bay…nobody jumps up and down and runs around like chickens on the loose except for the chickens that are always on the loose. Ed. note: That’s because it was the dryer on spin cycle, not an earthquake.

 Department of Oh What the Hell: And, DB and THB sign up for another heli-activity, this time a float down the river. Our last day for activities...this one has not been pre-paid.

Another great breakfast, this time THB and DB sub pancakes for eggs. Goes great with the yogurt and fruit (bananas cooked in for DB). Hang out until 10:30 when it is time for our flight from lodge to lodge, this time in another 4 seater that seems expansive. This time DB rejects the co-pilot seat and sits in the last row with THB.

It's movie magic: how did THB take this pic if he is in the 2nd row?

THB and DB relax in the later afternoon, catching up on our reading. Dinner with the young and pregnant.

 

rib-eye on mushroom polenta

Halibut with great cracker

Mini-tacos lamb on beet tortillas 

Pics from around the lodge:

Iditarod: our cabin

The main lodge

Another way to avoid the mosquitoes: kayaking in singles in the afternoon. No bugs out on the water! And, THB has worked up a sweat and takes the polar plunge…YEEE HAH! Ed. note: Yeah, THB, u da man…except the lake is about 65 degrees and instead of frozen it is refreshing. Way to go, big guy.

The dowel on the right is a bear lock, good enough to fool THB

The lodge is on the Iditarod course and has retired dogs on site and mushing dogs up on a nearby glacier. Some guy spends the “night” up there the day before guests select visiting the dogs. In our case, THB and DB will cast our fate and take a helicopter ride up to trek on the glacier. That’s one way to escape the mosquitoes.

This property has a huge main lodge area and 5 small cabins, all with water, electricity and a gas stove. And a mosquito net covering the bed.  During the short walk from the lodge to our cabin, it is clear that mosquitos are present.

Lunch at 1pm and we share a table with a young couple from New Orleans (originally from Texas and probably moving back in a few years when her job assignment in NoLa ends). We find out at dinner that she is 4 months pregnant (DB had already guessed).

 

More pics from the Lodge:

The pilot announces it is a great day for flying. THB agrees heartily until with about 5 minutes to landing when the plane has one quick jolt (is the dryer switching cycles) and in no time were landing on the lake.

This may be the glacier we trek on tomorrow:

This is not a river full of ice,  it is full of white sand

Volcano

Another volcano

The plane has come from Anchorage with supplies

Helicopter lands on the deck at Tutka Bay

Ground crew

Alaska Day 18: Tutka Lake Lodge

 

                                      DB continues to channel her inner Joel

 

Day 18: Tutka Bay Lodge

Weather Report: Lunch on the deck weather

Quote of the Day:  Hey, I’m from the Bay Area also, do you know Vallejo?

It’s a Covid world: New couple arrives from Winterlake Lodge (our next and last stop on this trip). She is clearly 7 or 8 months pregnant. Hmmmm…mystery cleared up: They were booked for last year and of course got postponed.

 

THB and DB are up early and decide to go to the main lodge building and sit upstairs until breakfast. OOOOPS, the 16-year-old Miramonte student has been up there for 3 hours taking an on-line course (or two?  Or three?). So we sit downstairs and listen in on phone calls made by the couple departing this morning. Maybe we should have gone back to our cabin.

Breakfast at a table by ourselves. That’s because last night after dinner we asked to dine the next night by ourselves and that message got through so much that it means we are having all three meals by ourselves today. And it is lovely…a quiet meal with a very interesting person! We always knew the steady group activities of the first two weeks would wear us down.

Mini-blueberry muffins...all hat and no cattle?

 

THB and DB go out at 9am with M for a lovely kayak. The water is very flat, no wind, easy paddling and a close-up view of the otters with babies.

Otter with baby; THB has never seen this in the Elkhorn Slough

Lunch on the deck! Salmon on barley rice and dessert delivered by the pastry chef, Jackie. THB and DB have a nice discussion about her background; she starts off with “do you know Vallejo?” (THB and DB do) and from their quickly discusses how she got to Tutka Lake Lodge. She now seems around 24, not 15, and started cooking right out of high school. Chocolate rice pudding is excellent, eaten too fast to remember to take a pic.

Our afternoon hike with M is a short boat ride away. About a half mile into the ride THB sees something fly by the window heading for the water. A stunning blue bird...what was that, THB asks...as the boat makes a U-turn to see what just happened (who sez THB has bad eyes!)

Who new windex bottles could fly?

Uphill on a trail for about 15 minutes, levelling out and down to Tutka Lake. Return with a brief stop in a marshy meadow, moose heaven (sorry, no close encounters with mooses).

 

The visitor's center at the trailhead

Small smudges of sticky glue on meadow floor turns out to be a carnivorous plant

 

A day lily about to bloom, and here is the result below

mushroom, first of its type seen on the trip

DB goes for her second massage (THB donates his to the cause) and a lovely  dinner outside.

Halibut crudo with gnocchi...THB almost forgot to take a pic

Warm bread and butter

 

lamb with gnocchi, lovely with the pinot noir

Scallops

cornbread, honey dots, honey ice cream, unbelievable

After dinner THB and DB and a few others (20-year-old and the 8 year-old), M leads us over to the Widgen. It has along back-story, basically the folly of a local guy 20 years ago: hauling a boat into a small inlet and converting it to a “residence” of sorts. The owners of Tutka Lake Lodge bought it and an adjacent house and converted the boat to…to…to what? It has no running water (there’s a nearby outhouse), putting in electricity and a 2^nd and 3^rd story, and divvying up the space to contain one large “meeting” space and smaller rooms.

 

So what is this monstrosity now? Pre-Covid it was a cooking school (with water hauled in) Now it is a staff residence with great wifi. The staff uses Lodge facilities to take showers and wash up.

 

It basically left THB speechless. M and the other staff member on the tour (assigned to the 8-year old) seemed really pleased with their accommodations.