Camping by the lake

 

Our first camp by the lake

Nothing like a base camp right beside a lake.  Better yet a camp with a woodstove.  Since we did minimal moving we could have a pretty cushy camp and a woodstove to return to every night after a day of hunting.  If we got wet we could dry off everything by the woodstove.

We also had some pretty cold weather and very hard frosts at night.  Even some spitting snow.  There are still lots of spawning red salmon along the lakeshore and at night we could hear the bears chasing the fish.  But they were shy bears and generally stayed pretty hidden during the day.  We'd see them cruising the lakeshore in the distance but never up close.

Halfway through the trip we used a river raft to carry all our gear to a new camp.  We had basically hunted all the mountains near the first camp and moved to the second camp to access new hunting grounds.  Also there were goats near the second camp.  

My only issue with the second camp was that after we had set up the teepee and had moved in I discovered that a bear had been chomping on fish right where I was sleeping.  My area always smelled of fish and I even found a few fish head bones - disgusting!  But it was a soft flat spot and very protected from the wind - the very reasons why the bear probably chose to lie there and chomp on a fish. He/she probably took a nap in the sunshine after eating the fish - exactly where I curled up to sleep a few days or maybe hours later.

Patrick

we moved a couple of miles to a second camp

our raft filled with gear for the camp move