Exploring Skilak Lake

Another sunny day and we eventually headed out to take a scenic drive on the Skilak Lake Loop Rd. Driving south on the Sterling Highway through Cooper Landing there are dozens of cabins, restaurants, and guides/outfitters. We stopped at the Kenai Wildlife refuge Visitor Center and got some of our wildlife questions answered and picked up a book of fishing regulations. Then we were off ….

We turned left onto the gravel road to the Skilak Lake. Hopefully we’ll be able to fish if we can find a place that’s comfortable and open. This is a large habitat for brown bear (grizzly) so we are being very careful. First stop was Jims Landing day use area on the Kenai River, but the parking lot was completely full. We walked along the river fence but there wasn’t much activity so we headed out again. The color of the river is brilliant turquoise and its phenomenal. Hidden Lake was further down the road and after navigating the gravel washboards we stopped at an overlook. Every new spot is more pristine and amazing than the last.

Skilak Lake is very large and has several campgrounds which we checked out. After a while we laughed about turning a 19 mile drive into an all day adventure - we’re good at that. Still not finding a place to fish - eh - very frustrating. We moved on to the upper part of Skilak which is beautiful. The temperature had gotten warmer now and Ohmer Lake was our next stop. We meandered along the beach, and watched some boats. Maybe we’ll put ours in tomorrow depending on the weather. It’s been pretty windy. Now we wish we had gotten kayaks instead of the pontoon boat…. We’d be in the water by now. As we continued on Ken said “look”… a bear crossed the road about 200 yards ahead. He was a good size one. The last turnoff was Botteninthnin Lake and we parked in hopes of seeing some loons or grebes. None there so we had a snack and started back.

We stopped again at the Russian River and watched for a while. We tried to set up a guided fishing trip using our Alaska Saver Coupon for a local outfitter. They told us they were only doing full day trips for $650 (for 2) - no thanks. They said we could do a “walk in trip” on the river at 2:30am for just a little less…sounded shifty so we decided to wait.

Hopefully tomorrow will be nicer. We had sausage & peppers for dinner. It clouded up this evening and its cool and windy. Ken saw a moose walk through the camp across from us. There’s also a little black bear that has been terrorizing the bear box at 4am with no luck. The tenters down the way heard him. I don’t think I’d be tenting up here!

It was a good day.

Photos: Kenai River, Skilak Lake Road, Skilak Lake Overview, Botteninthnin Lake