Stuey's New Blog

Stuey now has his own blog and has already put up 2 posts.  And I had a hard time convincing him that he should wait a bit before posting a third.  He named the blog 'Stuey's Paradise' and the link is
stueysparadise.blogspot.com
You can also find a link on this blog's sidebar in the 'blog list'.

He plans to write about his adventures and take lots of walks so he can take pictures and write about them.  Yesterday we took our cameras and the dogs to Abercrombie and I took this picture of Stuey taking a picture.  He posted the picture he is taking on his blog.

So be sure to check out his blog!  He asks just about every hour on the hour, 'how many people have looked at my blog'. I think he might swoon if he gets a comment.  Patrick

Riding the mighty Buskin

Yesterday Jeremy C and I took our kids on a float trip down the Buskin River.  Highlights included seeing a bear, shooting wave trains that actually threw water back over the bow, and a picnic on a small island.

When we arrived at the 'beaver pond' where we launched the rafts I mistook a dark culvert for a bear.  And then, ironically, a bear swam to the spot, pulled herself out of the water, and stood on top of the culvert!  Wow.  The kids LOVED watching the bear until she wandered off into the brush.  We waited a while for her to get clear before we launched the rafts.  Note if you look closely at the bear photo below you can see that it is a momma bear.

At the start of the trip Stuey was a tad bit grumpy and would give the 'thumbs down' whenever we tried to include him in a picture.  But he perked up after the first set of rapids.  And at the end he was severely disappointment that we did not run the river for a second time. Patrick

The female half of the party at our island picnic spot

Stuey paddling - rapids ahead!

When I drove up I thought the culvert was a bear and then a REAL bear showed up

The culvert in perspective - kids at play before the float (waiting for the bear to bugger off)

A 'group selfie'

Stuey's Afognak Post

 

Stuey is starting his own blog - to be linked from here in the near future.  This is to be his first post.  He typed out the story all by himself on his manual typewriter.  Proud Dad.

Here is the link to Stuey's blog.  It is called Stuey's Paradise and is found at stueysparadise.blogspot.com

 

 

 

 

Full Moon Over the Gulf

 Tonight when Nora, Stuey and I went on our drive we noticed it was a full moon and decided to drive up to the top of Pillar Mountain to get a look at it.  It was a stunning view.  I tried to capture it with my point-and-shoot camera and failed.  The moon was shining on the water and way off in the distance you could see fog on the water.  Boats out on the gulf showed up as little dots of light.  WOW!  Patrick

Packing meat in adverse conditions

Headlamps on the first packout with meat

Hiking in search of elk with camping gear we never got to use

It was a quick hunt with very little hiking and no camping, but there was one activity that we engaged in quite a bit - packing out meat.  Of the 36 hours spent on the hunt 4 or 5 of them were spent carrying meat.  And both meat pack-outs were epic adventures in their own right.  More memorable in many ways than those of past years.

For the first elk we shot it so late in the day that we finished butchering it by headlamp in the dark, and then had to carry it a mile and half to the ocean.  A storm was brewing and it was spitting rain.  The first part was through a very thick patch of salmonberries with the occasional alder to get tangled up in.  Then there was a steep side hill through tall grass, and, finally, a slippery muddy cliff down to the beach.  All the while I could see the headlamps of my co-packers bobbing and weaving through the brush, and not much else except the grass and ground in the immediate cone of light cast by my headlamp.  Every once in a while I'd bump up into Brooks and Philip conferring together on their GPSs as they did the route finding for the beach.

Everyone else was carrying a quarter (either a front or back leg) while I was carrying what we call the 'kibbles and bits' - the ribs, backstraps, neck, tenderloins, and heart.  It weighed far more than I expected and slid all down into a ball at the bottom of my back.  And then blood oozed out and ran down my legs.  Still, it wasn't all that long of a pack-out and the terrain was not all that bad.

The next day the pack out was truly brutal - some of the worst bushwhacking I can ever remember as part of a pack-out. Over a 1000 feet vertical of salmonberry and alder HELL and 2 miles total to the beach.  It was very steep and at times it was raining pretty hard.  My pack was not very well balanced and every once in a while it would swing to one side or the other and I'd fall over from the unbalanced weight.  By the time we got to the beach we were all walking like old men.  Patrick

Wicky for adversity

Scenes from the boat

The elk hunt was so short that there really aren't all that many photos documenting the trip.  And there are none of the scenic high alpine or forest photos we usually capture on our long hikes.  Practically the whole hunt took place on the boat or was spent packing out meat.  There was actually very little time spent hunting.  Not that we are complaining - in years past we have hunted hard for an entire week and not seen an elk.  We are thankful for elk in the freezer.  Patrick

Leaving Kodiak in the last of the sunny weather

Check out the elk 'eagle-eye' Philip spotted near the center of photo - his point-and-shoot has a pretty good zoom too!

Negotiating the slough at half tide

Flats Float Video

I recently finished making a video of our float trip on Kodiak's south end.  I made it primarily for Mike, Ray and I so it is pretty long.  It's not short, quick and pithy like Philip's elk hunt video, but it does show what our trip was really like.  And best of all there is even a clip of Mike reading poetry aloud by the woodstove in the teepee.

https://youtu.be/FlWZMLc8Dkw