Backpacking to Grewingk Glacier Lake at Kachemak State Park in Alaska!

How often can you say you're camping on a beach, on a lake, with a glacier across the way? We're currently hanging out literally just above a glacial river. If you missed our last video, we spent the last couple days driving from the Anchorage area down here to Homer, Alaska, which is on the Kenai Peninsula, making some gorgeous stops along the way and enjoying a bit of what this beautiful town has to offer. And one of the top things to do in Homer, it's not actually in Homer, but across the water, Kachemak Bay State Park. This was Alaska's first state park and has 400,000 acres of mountains, glaciers, forests, and ocean. For the next 24 hours, we're going to go backpacking in the state park and since it's only accessible by boat or plane, we're taking a boat to get there. There's a handful of taxi services in Homer that will take you across Kachemak Bay to various spots. We're going with Kachemak Bay Adventures. Cost $81 round trip per adult and dogs are free, so Kona's coming with us. This is going to be Kona's first ever boat ride, so we'll see how this goes. We made it to shore and the ride over here was pretty smooth, minus the fact that Kona threw up a little bit, so that was fun. But tonight we're going to be camping at Grewink Lake, which is home to Grewink Glacier and there are a couple different ways you can get there, but we got dropped off at the Saddle Trailhead and I believe it's around two miles or less to actually get to the lake, so we're going to hit the trail and as you can probably tell, the weather is not very nice today. You should have been able to see like mountains the whole ride out here. Our ride was just clouds basically the entire time, so we're hoping that this trip is not a total bust and that the weather will clear a bit. We made it and you can see stuff! Yes! Oh man, I thought it was going to be completely fogged over. I'm so glad we can see something. Back there is the Grewink Glacier, which is 13 miles long and when it's a clear day you can see quite a bit more of it than that, but what's so neat is look at all of these ice chunks just floating in the lake. It's like icebergs everywhere. Check out our home for the night, nice and flat, tucked off into the woods, but more importantly, check out the lake, the view of the glacier. Oh yeah! You can come out here just as a day trip, but as soon as we learned that you can camp out here, we knew we had to do it. How often can you say you're camping on a beach, on a lake, with a glacier across the way? You can't beat that. Just as we finished setting up our tent, the best thing happened. The clouds are parting and you can start to see some of the insane mountain peaks that are behind the glacier. They're just so sharp and jagged. You can see more of the glacier. I'm so happy! We have been in Alaska for over a month now. We have yet to see a bear, but we hear there are a lot of bears in this area, so we're eating dinner tonight far away from our tent just so we don't have any good smelling smells for the bears at the tent, and tonight I'm having my go-to, one of my go-to's, the chicken coconut curry. It's probably in the 40s out right now. It's very chilly. Sorry to everyone who's suffering through like 100 degree heat in the lower 48, but it's kind of a cold night and that feels so good. I love this meal. I could eat this even at home. I say that every time, but it's true. And I'm trying something new tonight. Katherine ran into REI the other day and I told her, just pick two of them that you think I'd like, surprise me, and she picked beef stroganoff, which I was super excited about because it's one of my favorite things. Haven't had it in a long time, so I'm super excited for this. Oh yeah, there's even a bear box out here for extra bear protection. When we first got to the boat and I saw that you couldn't see any of the mountains across the water, I thought this was going to be a horrible idea and a complete waste of $160, and even though we can't see all the views, what we can see is super beautiful and it's so peaceful out here. It's just us on this entire beach, us and a bunch of really loud seagulls, but we still have about 18 and a half hours until the boat comes to get us tomorrow, so there's plenty of time for more views to emerge, so we'll see what tomorrow brings. We're about to go to sleep and we took one last look outside and almost all of the clouds have completely cleared away. You can see all the mountains surrounding the lake for the first time today. It is gorgeous. We're just going to cross our fingers it's still like that in the morning. The sun is out! We woke up to such a beautiful morning. The sun is out right now. We haven't seen the sun in a couple days. Most of the mountains are out. Last night my sleeping pad popped, so I slept on the rock hard ground, so I didn't sleep the best, but we have a very full cup of coffee and we're gonna go on an adventure soon. It's hot. There's a unique feature you can hike to out here, but we're gonna keep it a secret until we get to it, but we have about a three mile hike one way to get out to it. All right y'all, we made it and it's a tram! This thing right here takes you over the river to the other side and the coolest part is you actually move it yourself. You use your hands to pull these ropes to get across. We've seen these trams on trails in Washington and I believe Canada has some, but we've never done one of these before and we are so excited. It's so swingy. Oh gosh, we're leaving. Better get in before I go. All aboard. Keep your hands and feet inside the cart please. It's kind of doing it on its own right now. I think it's gravity. I feel like I want to ride at Disney. This is so fun. We're currently hanging out literally just above a glacial river. This is so awesome. This is the workout part of it here, pulling yourself up to the other side. We're back on solid land at least for now until we have to go back across and Kona's very happy about it. She was definitely nervous, but we made sure she was super secure so she couldn't fall out and she was never in danger, but man that was so fun. Alright, there's people waiting so we're gonna head back. It's my first time trying this. Going warp speed. Every hike needs one of these. These are so fun. This is getting really hard. Thank you. There is a trail you can continue on after crossing the river on the tram, but we're running a little bit low on time and we still have to get back to camp, pack up, eat something, and then hike back down to where the boat will pick us up in a little bit. Another new meal for me this time for lunch. Beef pasta marinara. Oh yeah. I thought I put too much water in there, but I think I put the right perfect amount. The meat's not all the way kind of crunchy, but it tastes really good. We are heading back to the boat and as we mentioned yesterday, there are a couple different ways you can get out to the lake. We think the most traditional way is to have a boat take you to Glacier Spit and then you hike the Groenk Lake Trail out here and then you hike the Saddle Trail back out. The Saddle Trail is the one that we took in yesterday, but since we had an afternoon drop-off and also an afternoon pickup, the conditions are better for them to just drop us off and pick us up at the Saddle Trail. So we're going back out the same way we came. That felt like such an Alaskan adventure. That's the type of trip we had been dreaming of ever since we started planning to come here to Alaska. Going out to a place that you have to take a boat to get out there, camping on a lake, across from a glacier, surrounded by mountains, that was just such a blast. And now we're going to celebrate our first successful Alaska backpacking trip with a couple scoops of gelato. We came to Carmen's Gelato on the Spit and the owner Carmen actually studied gelato making in Italy, so it looks like the real deal. And I got this dulce de leche with Alaskan sea salt and then an espresso one. I read online they like slow cook the dulce de leche for five days or something like that. It is, oh, it is rich and creamy. Espresso one's so good too. I also got the dulce de leche over here, but this flavor is the Thai coconut. Look at all those flecks of coconut in there. That's mega coconut flavor. They taste like they're kind of toasted a little bit. Oh man, are we in Italy or are we in Alaska? I can't remember. Where am I? And now to devour these after hiking 10 miles before they melt. Cheers to more Alaskan adventures. We have had the best time the last few days here on the Kenai Peninsula. We are just loving it out here and thankfully our time on the peninsula is not over yet. We're actually going to be heading across the peninsula to Seward next to check out another national park here in Alaska, Kenai Fjords. We came to Carmen's Gelato on the Spit and I just spit as I said that. Beef pasta marinara, a new meal for Adam. We'll eat crumbies for Adam. Happy day. And it's so peaceful out here. All we can hear are all the seagulls just like, I can't, why did I try to do that?