Awesome Adventures in Alaska: Another AK Bucket List Item

Okay, so maybe my bucket list isn't full of hard to reach goals and places to visit, but it IS full of things that I would regret I didn't do if I ever leave Alaska without doing them. And this is another thing on that list: Kayaking on Eklutna Lake.

I've always wanted to go kayaking on Eklutna Lake. I've walked along it, hiked up to great views of it, and walked on it (during winter), and each experience has been quite different from the others. But until now I had not gotten to kayak on it. There is a company that offers bike and kayak rentals at the lake (there’s a great path to bike along around the lake), and a friend had a Groupon for a kayak rental. It worked out with our schedules that we could both go on the same day, so despite the rain and low clouds, we went out on the lake for a few hours. It was beautiful… trees were starting to change, and the water is a very pretty aqua color. It was a lot of work to kayak with the wind, but counter-intuitively it was actually easier to steer going into the wind on our way back to the landing. It really didn't rain on us until the very end of our time out there, so it worked out very well. I’ll have to do this again on a sunny day… I know that’ll be another different experience, too.

Given that we were out on a big (and up to 200' deep) lake, it was raining, and I'm clumsy at inconvenient times, I did not bring my SLR camera on this trip. I did have my phone though, and got a few photos with it along the way (and kept it in a waterproof case the rest of the time!).