By Zach Peirce

I left Logan Airport in Boston at 8:00 a.m. From there, it was one stop in Seattle and straight to Anchorage. I would be spending the next 3 months in Cooper Landing, Alaska, on the banks of the Kenai River. I arrived in Anchorage around 5:00 and came to find out that the hotel I had booked for the night no longer existed. Great start to the trip! Luckily, I was able to book a room at a Holiday Inn.

That night, I remember looking at the clock that read 11:00 p.m., and there was still sunlight coming through the window—I thought that was the coolest thing. After going in and out of sleep because the sun’s in your eyes at 1:00 a.m., it got old very quickly.

The next morning, I packed up what I had and waited for the shuttle back to the airport. The shuttle was about 15 minutes late, which almost made me miss my shuttle to Cooper Landing. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case, and I made it to my ride on time.

The ride from Anchorage to Cooper Landing was unlike any road I’d ever been on. Glaciers in sight, snow-capped mountains everywhere, and if you’re lucky going by the cliffs, there’s potential to see Dall sheep or mountain goats just outside of Anchorage. It was low tide in Cook Inlet—you could walk on the sand for a mile, it looked like!

I was dropped off at the Wildman’s store in Cooper Landing and called the Kenai Cache for a ride to the shop. As we drove over the Kenai River, I had never seen water that looked like it reflected a clear blue sky. I was told it’s the glacial silt that comes off the mountains that gives the river that color. Twenty-plus-inch rainbows are commonly caught out of this river, not to mention the world-famous sockeye salmon run it gets every year.

We pulled up to the shop and I was given a small tour of the place and was shown where I’d be sleeping for the next 3 months. We walked out back to a cluster of what looked like raised garden sheds. I opened the door to my shack—the floor probably had never been cleaned, there were twin beds on each wall, and one window by the door. The only thing that popped into my head was “Alaska Livin’.”

That night I would meet the guides Scott, Sam, Blake, and James, who all had a few seasons under their belts guiding on the Kenai and knew the upper river well. I would also meet two of my coworkers in the shop, Steele and Bay. We were all welcomed to Cooper Landing with a moose sighting right in front of the shop!

My roommate Joe would arrive the next night, which I’ll admit I wasn’t looking forward to—sharing a garden shed with someone else. I already took up what felt like ¾ of the space! The next couple of days, we were in the shop putting product on the shelves before opening day on the upper river, which is June 11.

On one of the last days before opening day, we had finished early and decided we wanted to fish. We knew we couldn’t fish the river just yet, but we had heard of a couple of hiking trails that led to a couple of alpine ponds with Arctic Grayling in them. Bay and Steele had never fly fished before, so it would be a good opportunity for them to learn.

We got a ride to the trailhead by the guides who were already on their way to float the lower section of the Kenai. During the ride, we asked one of them what the hike was going to be like, and without hesitation, he said, “Three miles… straight up.”

After we got dropped off and started hiking, we quickly found out he wasn’t lying. We took frequent breaks, hoping that every turn would show us the pond. Our calves burned the whole way up, and the frequent bear scat wasn’t giving us an easy feeling either. We talked loudly so anything that was in the woods would hear us and scoot before we surprised it.

About halfway up, we passed a hiker carrying a spin rod. We asked him how the fishing was, and he said there are a lot of little fish, but he got some nice ones near the beaver huts. We thanked him for the info and kept going.

As we kept walking, we could start to hear a stream trickle behind some brush. We felt like we were getting close. Sure enough, just around the next bend, the mountains spread apart and in the middle was a pond.

All of us were relieved that we didn’t have to hike anymore, but we wanted to get fishing. We took the hiker’s advice and made our way to the closest beaver hut. As we got closer, we could see little dimples on the surface. I think at that moment we knew the hike was well worth it.

Grayling are a lot like small stream brook trout—if you can’t catch them on a dry fly, then what’s the point really? Luckily, we didn’t have that problem. Bay and Steele got their first taste of fly fishing. Joe and I gave them pointers while also tying into a couple of little grayling.

No cast was a bad cast. There were fish everywhere. I was using a foam ant fly, and they couldn’t resist the small V it would make on the surface. Oftentimes, they would miss the fly and try to eat 3–4 more times on the same retrieve!

After we all caught our fair share of grayling, we decided it was time to start heading down the trail. The only problem was we had no way of getting a ride back to the shop, which was seven miles down the road. Cell service wasn’t very dependable, so when we got to the bottom of the trail, we started walking down the road, sticking our thumbs out.

Most of the cars just kept on driving, which is what we expected. I think we were all expecting at any moment for a bear or moose to pop out and cross the road also.

Luckily, before that happened, a silver truck pulled over and asked where we were headed. He only had 3 seats open, so I opted to sit in the bed of the truck. On the ride back to the shop, Steele apologized to the driver because we had been sweating all day and probably didn’t smell very good. The driver replied, “That’s alright, sorry if I smell like weed!”

I couldn’t hear any of this in the back. I just remember looking at the mountains, the river, and the trees of Chugach National Wildlife Refuge and thinking, “If we have more days like this, it’s gonna be one hell of an Alaskan summer.”

Right after we got dropped off at the shop, the sky opened up and started pouring rain for about ten minutes. We sat in the bar watching the rain, thankful for the stoned man in the truck for giving us a ride.