Turnagain Arm

South of Anchorage is a waterway dubbed Turnagain Arm by Captain Cook as he had to turn again and again navigating it. Today we travel along this arm, around the bend to the Kenai, and all the way down to the town of Homer.
Along its northern bank runs a road and a rail line. In winter, sea water, its salinity lowered at the surface by in-flowing river run-off and direct precipitation, freezes into a slushy mixture which ebbs and flows with the rather extreme tides of the northern latitudes.
Waterfalls cascade down toward the road from the mountains above. In winter, when those falls are frozen solid, people can often be seen climbing them.
In the distance, snow covered mountains peek through the mist.
As we progress toward the place where Turnagain Arm ends and the road swings around to connect with the Kenai Peninsula, the sky clears to reveal brightly lit mountains in the distance.
This snow-frosted tree "snag" marked our passage from the turnagain arm to the pass cut by Alaska Highway 1 down into the Kenai.