Homer to Tern Lake, AK

September 30, 2025

Today I will travel from Homer to Wasilla – northeast of Anchorage. I chose to overshoot Anchorage because I will be driving up to Denali National Park tomorrow and I wanted to shorten that drive.

I am going to break up the posts for today into three parts: Homer to Tern Lake (where Hwy 1 meets Hwy 9, which comes up from Seward), Tern Lake to just south of Anchorage, and from that point the rest of the way to Wasilla.

I had missed out on the Northern Lights the first night I spent in Homer. I was awake again shortly after midnight and went outside. This time I used my smartphone camera to look at the sky, as I had been told it is more sensitive to the wavelengths of the Lights and will show things the unaided eye may not see.

Still no luck. Perhaps they showed up later, but at night I try to sleep as much as I can so I didn’t venture out again.

After daylight I drove a “mountain” route of backroads out to the highway because I wanted to try and spot some moose or other animals in more secluded areas where they would more likely be. No luck.

When I got out to the highway I stopped at the viewpoint which had the best view of the two volcanoes over in Lake Clark National Park, on the other side of the Cook Inlet. I have already posted pictures of them but the viewing conditions were a little better, and I had the morning sun rising behind me as I looked west.

This is Mount Iliamna:

And this is Mount Redoubt:

When I got further to where the large moose was located it had indeed shed it’s human-added apparel.

When I got to the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge I saw this sign which some people apparently didn’t agree with.

These are from a rest area within the Refuge which show some of the damage a wildfire had done.

I finally got to Tern Lake, which is where the road I was on met the road which had taken me to Seward and Whittier. The photos I posted from the lake previously were plagued by low clouds but today was mostly clear.