Bike the Russian Lakes Trail, with Two Spare Bike Tubes.

By Sean Zumwalt

Photos Courtesy of:
Vince Stewart
Suzanne Weist
Casey King
Whitney Froehlich

The Barber Cabin lies in the Eastern Kenai Peninsula of South-Eastern Alaska, and can be accessed by driving to one of my favorite places, Cooper Landing. The headwaters of Alaska’s famous Kenai River offers some of the best fishing and rafting in the state. Cooper Landing is a quaint town, yet it is filled with plenty of adventures and memories I’ve made there. Thanks to Vince and Suz, they booked the Barber Cabin for this particular weekend. Vince and I met the day before we left to talk about logistics and what we expected to get out of this trip. We narrowed it down to: biking the Russian Lakes trail, hunting grouse, and fishing.

 

DAY 1

I had everything packed after my meeting with Vince so I could start making my way down to Cooper Landing after work on Friday. Vince had to pick up Suz early Friday morning from the airport and they were going to spend the rest of the day packing. They were planning on leaving around 2 in the afternoon.

I was able to leave Anchorage around 4:45 P.M., and shortly after, I get a call from Vince,

“Hey, where are you?”

Assuming they had already left, I said, “I’m headed out of town now, just coming up on Bird Ridge.”

“Suz and I just got done packing and we still need to go to the store.”

“Alright, I can take my time getting there.”

A few hours later, and a few bathroom breaks along the way, I arrived at the Russian Lakes Trail Head. I thought about waiting for Vince and Suz, but it was going to get dark soon. My head lamp was packed away deep somewhere in my bag and I only had one light accessible on my bike. The trail was mostly flat with some areas of slight elevation.

There are elements of intrinsic beauty in the simplification of a house built on the log cabin idea.    Gustav Stickly

Upon arriving, I unpacked my things and laid them out on one of the top bunks. Luckily, I still had enough light in the cabin to do so. By the time the sun had finally set, I lit some candles and attempted to start a fire in the wood stove. The Barber Cabin has a uniqueness which makes it special, and its perception valuable. However, it should not be shared alone. Luckily, someone had left behind a recent edition of Backpacker’s Magazine, and I was able to stay occupied while I waited for Vince and Suz.

While staring out the window, I could see a glare of light in the distance. “That must be them,” I thought. I stepped outside and yelled as loud as I could, “Vince! Suz!” A faint reply back, “Hi Sean!.” As time went by, I could finally hear their bear bells ringing and their conversation. When they arrived, I was relieved to have company.

We stayed up late, making certain the fire in the wood stove would last us the whole night as the crisp Autumn air would slowly creep into the cabin. After Vince and Suz unpacked all of their things, we had some music playing and talked about the recent events happening around the world, discussed politics, and shared funny stories to procure a jovial spirit before bed.

DAY 2

It was early in the morning, I’m not certain what time it was. I heard the door shut and Vince quietly telling Suz that there were a lot of fish jumping in the lake. I fell back asleep, and apparently so did Vince and Suz. We didn’t get out of bed until it was close to noon. Brunch consisted of bacon and eggs with a tad of Siracha, and a tortilla. I ended up cooking all of the bacon I had brought. Suz cooked a majority of the eggs she brought,  and Vince berated Suz and me for not saving enough bacon and eggs for the next morning because we were expecting our friends, Whitney and Casey, to arrive at some point that day. Luckily I had brought two of Leah’s famous breakfast scones she had baked earlier in the week for the next morning.

After brunch, Vince wanted to make an attempt to throw his fishing line in the water. Suz volunteered to wash dishes and I filled up water bottles. Looking across the lake, Vince thought he saw a bear or a moose. When it started moving, we noticed it was a large grizzly bear. It bellowed a short, loud, huffing noise, and would run in and out of the lake as if it were distraught. The show lasted for a good ten minutes until the bear ran out of sight. We thought maybe she was searching for her cub.

 

 

It was close to one o’clock in the afternoon and Vince and I started to prepare for our twenty-one mile bike ride on the Russian Lakes Trail. The only preparation Vince had forgotten to do before he left Anchorage was to purchase another bike tube, but he did bring a patch kit. I felt comfortable with just having a patch kit, but I also knew Vince was notorious for getting flat tires. Two weeks before this we did a bike trip and he had gotten two flats in a four mile stretch. Oh well, we’ll just spend some time patching a flat if that was the case. Suz was going to spend her time taking the boat out on the lake to fish and await the arrival of Casey and Whitney.

Vince and I rode our bikes out to the parking lot where we had parked our vehicles. Along the way, Vince asked if I had my car keys, which I did. Apparently, he forgot his. He needed to get into his car to get the .22 for grouse hunting, but since we were committed already, we did not turn around. So, there would be no grouse hunting this trip. We put the bikes in the truck and started driving to the main road. Along the way, we saw Casey and Whitney driving in. We stopped, rolled down the window, and told them where we were going. The trail head we were heading to starts at the end of Snug Harbor Road, about twenty miles away. By the time we got there and started our bike ride, it was close to 2 P.M.

The trail started with some nice rolling down hills, with a few muddy spots and large puddles of water. I was riding a fat tire bike, which felt like a monster truck going through the swampy sections. Some of the hills required us to dismount and walk our bikes. Not too many roots or large rocks. We saw a few folks along the way. There were two hunters heading the other direction on bikes with bike trailers.

After some thrilling downhill descents, we’ve finally come to the Upper Russian Lake, which is the half way point along the trail. I was behind Vince, and when I approached him, he pointed down at his back tire. It was flat. We took out the patch kit and started to go to work on it. After the patch was put on, we pumped some air into the tube and the patch didn’t hold. So, we tried again, and we got the same result. Maybe the glue needs more time to dry, we thought. Instead of sitting around and waiting for the glue to dry, Vince insisted we walk with our bikes to cover more ground. After a half hour of walking, we tried again and it didn’t work. We decided to use different patches with a new layer of glue. We started walking again and decided to wait an hour.

Our last hope remained in the hour that had passed and we attempted one more time to inflate the tube. With a little bit of air, it looked promising. We put the tube in the tire and back on the bike. We then continued to inflate until we heard a hissing noise from inside the tire. Our patch kit had failed again. Vince became frustrated. He then mentioned he read about someone who got a flat tire and didn’t have anything to fix it so they stuffed grass into the tire to act as a tube. Vince was willing, so that’s what we did. I grabbed ground moss, which was soft and I reckoned it would be a decent barrier between the tire and the wheel. When we were done, the wheel felt like it weighed ten pounds. We installed the wheel back on the bike and gave it a try. It seemed to be working for the most part, but Vince said it felt like he was riding in sand. It was probably close to seven o’clock and it was starting to get dark. Luckily, I had a light on my bike and we utilized it the rest of the way out. Vince apologized to me for having to walk most of the time, but how could I be angry with him? He was already going through a lot of suffering and he needed encouragement. Vince reminded me of Frodo, in Lord of the Rings, and I was Sam. “And yet their wills did not yield, and they struggled on.” 
– J.R.R. Tolkien

At one point, Vince stopped and looked back at me. He looked exhausted. He asked if he could have some of the cheese that I had brought for a snack. He cut off a large portion and had some sausage meat to go with it. I also offered him the beer I brought for him, which was meant to be more of a victory beer, not a replenishing agent. We got back on the bikes and rode a little further listening to tunes from Vince’s outdoor speaker. After a while, Vince turned to me and said, “that was the best beer I’ve ever had.” He looked a lot better after we stopped for a snack. After continuously riding downhill and dismounting the bikes to walk uphill, we finally made it to the Barber Cabin cutoff. We walked the rest of the way to the cabin and could finally see lights from a distance. Suz greeted us at the door. We’re finally done!, was the thought that kept running through my head. I’m sure Vince felt the same. We learned a few lessons that day. Vince swore he will always carry two extra sets of tubes.

“Why not seize the pleasure at once? — How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!”
―Jane Austen

While Vince and I were on the trail, the girls had managed to head across the lake to collect wood and bring it back to the cabin. This was no easy feat. This was a gesture Vince and I are most thankful for. If it wasn’t for them, we would have had a very uncomfortable sleep that night.

Suz leading the way

Vince and I changed into clean clothes and dinner consisted of Fettuccine Alfredo, Gold Fish Crackers, and Oreos. We talked about our adventures that day and then played a dice game, Left Center Right. The MVP of the game happened to be Whitney, winning 3 games? I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt and say she won 4 games.

The girls were the first to go to sleep while Vince and I had some more celebrating to do. Vince was still hungry so he had some more fettuccine and added the leftover sausage we had from our bike trip. Maddie, Casey’s dog, was staring at Vince while he was eating and I instigated  he should feed her because she was probably hungry. Vince gave her a few bites and a few slices of cheese. We then proceeded to bed.

Throughout the night, Vince would kindly get out of bed and add more wood to the fire. During one of his quests, he stepped in Maddie’s poop, or so he thought; but it happened to be vomit, and we all heard about it.

Poor Maddie. Bouncing back after being betrayed by Vince.

Day 3

The rain drops on the roof of the cabin woke me up. It was right before noon and people started making conversation. We started packing as we casually ate breakfast and started cleaning up the cabin. I went to wash out dishes from the night before and filled up water bottles. Casey and Whitney were just about all packed up and were heading out before us. Vince, Suz, and I wanted to stick around and do a little bit of fishing.

After Vince, Suz, and I took the boat to the mouth of the lake to fish and had no luck, we decided to try fishing out of the boat in the middle of the lake. I asked Vince and Suz if we should have taken our stuff out of the cabin in case the new renters come through. Vince was sure he had the cabin booked for Sunday night as well. A moment later, a lady’s voice from the dock yelled, “Excuse me, is that your stuff in the cabin!? Would you mind if we moved it out on the deck so we could move our stuff in!?” We rushed back to shore and removed our things. This was our sign it was time for us to head back home.

On our way back to Anchorage, we stopped at the Girdwood Brewery. This is when we received a group text and found out why Maddie was sick the night before:

(There may have been others who witnessed Vince giving Maddie food but they will be left unnamed)