Paddle, Paddle2, & Birch Lakes - 6/14/2013

We’d hoped to find one of the three sites open at the Rainbow Lake campground 15.5 miles north of Sterling yesterday but no luck so we picked one of the four sites at the Swanson River Landing (orange circle, top left corner) and made ourselves to home without any neighbors.

Todd Communications prints some wonderful Road and Recreation Maps including the one for the Northwestern Portion of the Kenai Peninsula that have been very helpful for finding our way on the back roads.  They’re $4.95 and available at the big box stores in Anchorage, REI in Anchorage, and likely lots of other places.

On Friday we drove about 10 miles east of our camp to the east entrance of the Swan Lake Canoe Route where we paddled and portaged to Birch Lake. We were the first party to enter there in the past four days.

On the outbound legs, BJ paddled bow and the grandson kept an eye on Turk. Beautiful, and calm, but lots of mosquitoes, especially at the landings.

We did spot a few campsites, but certainly not all of those that the guidebook suggested would be there.

On the return trip, the grandson paddled bow

while I stayed in the stern for the whole trip. Not a bad picture considering it was an over the head, behind the back shot by the duffer in the middle!

The portage at the north west end of Birch was muddy, but still fairly solid. The others, including the Birch end of the Teal portage, were in very good condition.

The grandson enjoyed checking everything out. Playing in the water, even when you’re staying dry, is always a good use of time.