Marathon Mountain

Seward, Alaska is home to Marathon Mountain.  Each July 4th weekend, a marathon is held to the top of the mountain.  If you look closely at the photo below you will see the foot track left from this year's marathon.  I can't imagine running up that hill.  I am told even little kids make the run, though many of them don't make it to the top.

We saw an article about the event in the Anchorage newspaper on the weekend of the 4th.  A 68 year old woman was making the run in memory of her son who was killed in military service.   She and another woman had been making practice runs to get in shape for the big event.

Seward is in full gear for the tourist season.  The season is short but they make the most of it.  We are staying in one of the several municipal campgrounds.  It isn't a fancy place but it has a view many pay thousands a week to have.  It cost us 15 bucks a day without services.  They have full hookup sites for $30.00 also.  The campground has been packed all week.  Most of the campers are Alaskans who are here for the salmon run.  There are many campers from the lower 48 and Canada also.  There are even a few of us Floridians here.  We have the special honor of having traveled the farthest to get here.

One of the municipal campgrounds.

Seward makes use of every square foot of vacant ground for camping.  They even lined the ball field for overflow campsites.  This is a money making deal for the city.   It also provides a place for hundreds of visitors to stay who spend lots of money in the shops and restaurants.  The city even runs a free shuttle service using school buses.  You can get anywhere around town just by hoping on one of the buses as it passes by.

Our beautiful view from our motor home.  My beautiful wife too.

Seward is also a stopping place for cruise ships.  They dump a couple of thousand tourists on the streets a couple of times a week.  This is a busy little place.

All the fishing charters are filled for days in advance.  The fish are running strong now.  Hundreds of large red salmon (sockeye) are being brought in everyday.  We stopped at the dock and bought ourselves a nice fresh salmon fillet for dinner.  We would like to go out on a boat but we have a very small freezer and can't put much in it.  We are saving the space for halibut fishing in Homer.  I made a reservation for us on the 20th.  We figure we can pack 40 to 50 pounds of fish in our freezer.  We will take it to a packing house where they vacuum pack it and flash freeze it for you.  If we have more than we can take, they will ship it home for you but it is very expensive to do that.  Fresh halibut sells for $24.95 per pound at the dock.  No wonder we don't see it in the fish market at home.

Fishing is not a pastime to Alaskans.  They are stocking up on the bounty this land provides.  Residents have special privileges nonresidents don't have.  They have personal use and subsistence fishing rules that grants them special methods and limits so they can stock up their home freezers.  Our neighbors are from Anchorage.  They are headed up to the mouth of the Kenai River to dip net salmon.  They are allowed 35 salmon for the primary fisherman and 10 salmon for each family member.  The salmon are so think they can just dip them out of the water, filling their limit in no time.  Nonresidents are welcome to observie.  We may go there just to watch.

Tomorrow we will leave this beautiful place and head towards Soldotna.  The red salmon run has begun up there on the Kenai and Russian rivers.  We will go observe some "combat fishing" as it is called here.  I don't know if I will get in on it or not.  They tell me many people are impaled with fishhooks every year.
Elbow to elbow fishing doesn't sound like a good time to me.  But we will see.  If the fish are running fast and furious and people are pulling in their limits, I just might venture into the waters.