Have a little of Hope and a Bore Tide, Aug 9, 2010

Even though it was windy and rainy this morning, we headed off on our original plans for today, visit the town of Hope about 35 miles away.  About half way there the weather changed into a nice day.

  Here is the Social Hall in Hope.

Some folks were fishing on Resurrection Creek, the lucky fisherman in the middle of the photo with a plastic bag, just caught a salmon.  Also saw him smash the salmon’s head to kill it.

We enjoyed ourselves at the small museum, the two docents inside were eager to help us with our questions.

  This Dodge 60’s era truck definitely has seen better days.  We checked and it had current Alaska tags on it.  I bet the tire on the front helps as a moose guard too!  You can see this truck is parked in the museum side parking area in the above photo.

One of the docents at the Museum was very proud to show us this 55 gal drum stove with an oven built into the side.  He had rescued this stove from a demolished cabin of a friend.  He related the coffee sure was good made on this stove.

This was taken inside their one room school house, probably a 12’x12’, an old miners cabin converted into a school house.  The chair you see in the middle bottom of the photo was made from dynamite boxes.  Don’t know if the bear skin rug was part of the school furnishings or not?

 

These enormous nasturtiums were growing in the museum area.  Look at those leaves!  Largest I have ever seen.

Found the Hope Cemetery and another reserved sign.  Evidently cemeteries are very popular.

Our second cemetery visit, Sunrise, was a little further off the beaten path, the docents had given us directions.  Go to mile marker 8, you will see this steep road going down hill, but if you keep going past the guard rail and see a newly shingled house then you have gone too far, turn around.   So we followed these directions and ended up walking about 5-7 minutes down this road and found the Sunrise Cemetery.  I was glad we did not drive down, as we came upon numerous huge puddles, probably would have gotten stuck in the Explorer.

Here are five graves of miners from a 1901 avalanche.  Check out the link above for Sunrise, interesting information.

The Bore Tide was late today by about an hour.  According to the time table we had from the visitor center, it was to arrive about 4:30, but was closer to 5:30 when you could see it.  The Bore Tide is what you see coming in from the right hand side with the pointed point.  Thanks Roscoe and Carole for the heads up about the Bore Tide.

“A bore tide is the large forming wall of water that surges into Turnagain Arm as the tides are beginning to refill the Arm.  As the incoming tide begins to flow from Cook Inlet into the Arm, it is immediately held back by the channel-eroded banks of the silt ‘mud flats’ that are exposed during each low tide.  The water literally hesitates, but behind it is the inexorable force of the incoming tide.  Gradually, making virtually no headway against the friction of the mud, the water builds up in height until finally the sheer weight of it suddenly propels it forward as a single wave as much as six feet.”  Today’s bore tide was perhaps 1-2 feet, there was also a strong headwind blowing against the tide, I think that was the reason it was so late.

Today I have made another collage, guess where I found these mushrooms, in the cemeteries.  I know, TMI…

Tomorrow, back to Palmer/Wasilla area to stock up on supplies, then on to Talkeetna, Denali NP and Fairbanks.