Some final pictures from last weekends camping trip to Red Peak Lake. Mostly pictures of Mike S and the scenery. It's a seriously beautiful place. On the Kodiak Archipelago you only get granite peaks and cliffs right next to old growth spruce forest on North Afognak. It is kind of a unique setting for the archipelago. It make you feel like you are in Montana or Wyoming instead of Kodiak. But Montana does not have the ocean in the far distance!
Patrick
On last weekend's trip to Red Peak Lake I took very few pictures of our camp. This is ironic because the camp setting was spectacular - one of my most beautiful camps ever. But the setting was also hard to capture. There were trees all around and a lake with high mountains all around. I never did get a good picture!
In what has become a tradition every evening we had our usual roasted veggies on the wood stove. All the veggies are from my garden too. This year we added potatoes to the mix and it worked well. I also got a new and much larger lightweight frying pan with a lid that seals. I think it makes better roasted vegetables than I make in my oven at home!
Patrick
Yesterday Stuey and I hiked the Near Island trails with the dogs and Elias and finished the Adjust Your Altitude Foothills edition. So now we have finished both editions of the AYA Challenge - we climbed all 7 peaks and did the 6 foothills. All done!
On Near Island we walked all the trails from the North end to the South end and then back to the car. It took more than 1 1/2 hours. I usually associate Near Island with short, quick hikes so I was kind of surprised - that's a serious hike.
Patrick
I spent a long weekend hunting on North Afognak with Mike S. We hunted hard but did not see a single buck. So it was really more of a hiking trip, and we did a lot of hiking. We hiked maybe 20 miles and climbed around 6K vertical. And we were looking for deer the whole time. We spotted just 15 does and 5 fawns. That's pretty bad numbers for deer.
Due to the harsh winter we had not expected great hunting. We knew going in that the deer on the northwest corner of the island had fared worst than on other parts of the island. We chose to hunt there because of the spectacular setting and the chance to explore a new area. And the place certainly lived up to our highest expectations.
The landscape was drop dead gorgeous with huge granite peaks, cliffs, and old growth spruce forest. The lake was totally pristine with no fish and incredibly clear water.
More to come in future posts!
Patrick
These pictures of Nora on the go are from last week. Mostly when mountain biking we have been sticking to the alpine areas on Pillar Mountain. But one day we went down the backside trail. At about 1100 vertical it is the longest continuous downhill trail on Kodiak (that I know of anyway). At the bottom you end up on the road near the Pillar Creek Hatchery and then have to bike back up hill and then over Russian Ridge to get back to the car on the other side. At the Pillar Mountain gate Nora waited while I peddled back up the mountain to get the car.
Nora really like the long downhill!
Patrick
