Man Camp 2008 (Deer hunting you sick freaks!)

2008 Man camp opened with the usual 7 hour trip to Deep Lake in far NE Washington State. Vince and I endured hour upon hour of tall tales from Dave, who is temporarily (so he says anyways) living on the public dole. The Obama-Biden 2008 bumper sticker on his truck probably tells the true story . Once again, Vince explained that his wife would be pleased if he didn't return with freezer meat. Talk about foreshadowing... Upon arrival at the cabin, I made the customary mistake of taking the bed in the loft. At first glance it doesn't seem like a bad choice, until the woodstove warms up... When it's warmed up to a mere 85 or so downstairs it's "two degrees less than lava" in the loft. And it doesn't help when Dave gets up at 2 am and "stokes it til it glows". Nothing like waking up lying on top of my sleeping bag, in a puddle of sweat. Pretty picture, huh? So anyways, the next day started fairly uneventfully, as we slept in til the crack of dawn. Now, we know that morning is the best time to ambush a deer (or so all the experts say). However, in eleven years (I think) of hunting whitetails in the area, we've only bagged one in the morning. All the rest from noon to dark... We confirmed that we still had permission to hunt some private property and set up around 3pm for the evening hunt. I saw nothing but does. Vince and Dave saw a few small bucks in a different direction sparring (actually seeing one getting knocked to the ground and getting back up to fight). After about 45 minutes with light failing, Dave put the stalk on them, across the open field but they spooked and flew across the fence and into the puckerbrush. (I can hear the deer talking about it right now... Hey dude, there's a disfigured troll coming this way... Whoa! There's something you don't see every day! I'm outta here!) Day two dawned wet. Now this is eastern Washington, the dry side of the state, right? Well, it poured all day. Once again we set up for the evening hunt. I sat in the loft of the barn with a view of the upper field and Dave to my left along the far fenceline. Soon after setting up, I saw a doe and another deer in the field some distance in front of me. One was bedded down while the doe fed. Eventually another doe came into the field. The bedded deer ( a spike) stood up and they all began feeding towards me. Since they were feeding towards me and there was plenty of light left, I waited, hoping something bigger might come into the field.


Eventually, they got to within 100 yards of me and suddenly freaked and took off to the right. One doe flew over the fence and was gone, while the spike and other doe stopped, staring over towards Dave's area (found out later that two bucks had come out in front of him). Then the spike laid down again. A few minutes later, I heard a rifle shot from Dave's direction. I looked over that direction and saw a couple of deer standing around wondering what the heck that was. My spike stood up, and I decided to take it. I pressed the trigger, only to hear the proverbial loudest sound in a gunfight... "click". "Uh, I know I put a round in the chamber..." Racked that one out, put another in, and pressed... Boom! A Brown and White pile on the ground at 185 yards! Another shot from Dave, and I saw deer scattering. It was then that I made my error as I said, "I got mine." Wouldn't have been bad except Vince was there to change the intent and meaning of my innocent statement. Of course it instantly became the "it's all about me" trip. Even after I went over to help Dave look for a trail (Did I mention he missed by a wide margin? "Canadian officials are searching for the source of two artillery rounds which struck a church steeple in downtown Kamploops this evening...") Sure, it wasn't his fault, it was the new gizmo on his scope... Whatever Dave... As I walked over to check my deer, Vince was already there and says to me, "I thought you said you shot the spike?" I did... "Uh, you shot the doe..." What? "It's ok man, it's camp meat..." A couple of seconds ( and a foul word or two) later I saw the antlers. I shall not forgive him anytime soon. Anyways, I got mine! Vince ( the cold blooded one)
did a fine job of frying up my deer heart for dinner. By the way, I'd be happy to help anyone with disposal of elk or deer heart they might have lying around!

So, the next morning we got Dave's scope dialed in while Vince torched piles of garbage, processed wood products, and endangered wolf carcasses on his property...(hope the Ecology Department and Fish and Game don't hear about that Vince!) It was only off about three feet high at 20 yards. I still don't know how he missed at 60 yards! Nothing much happened that day after that. Sure we went hunting, but nothing eventful happened. Oh wait, my camera fell out of the truck and no longer works. Yea! So, not many photos from the rest of the trip.... Oh, and then there was the "Sleepy Vince" incident in the middle of the field... Thursday at about noon, it started snowing. We set up again, and as luck would have it, a suicidal 1X2 buck stepped in front of Dave. Dave managed to put it down at about a yard with the butt of his rifle... Ok, really about 185 yards. He was actually aiming at a fawn about 10 yards away, missed, and the stray round struck this poor bastard in the ass. Died of blood loss from a punctured hemorrhoid...Hey, wait a second, where's Dave's blaze orange? Boy, it'd be a shame if Fish & Game saw that, huh? Ya, I know, you took it off before the photo... Whatever... Oh yeah, that loud "click"? A light primer strike... weird.

Can you tell we had a good time?

We survived

Dad tells me that people have become concerned about our status. Seems that life in general intruded upon my posts. Good news. We all made it back to the good ol USA! Oh sure, there were a few minutes of doubt as Janae searched for her missing ID as we approached the Sumas, WA border crossing (Found literally a mile from the crossing). But all ended well.

When last I blogged, we were in Seward enjoying the good life of playing on the beach, fishing, and just relaxing. We stayed there for about a week and a half before the kids were ready to leave, shortly after the Kenai Fjords cruise. Hey, they couldn't access the internet for the whole time we were there! So we moved out, heading through Palmer and back up towards Tok, where we had previously watched the 4th of July parade. (If you drive to and from Alaska, Tok is the town you must pass through both directions.) We stayed two nights in the Sourdough Campground there, having a great time, enjoying their evening entertainment. Colton and I enjoyed the pancake toss, both getting our pancake in the bucket and earning a free breakfast in the campground's restaurant. We then continued out of Alaska and back into the Yukon. We stayed the next evening in Haines Junction. The mosquitos in the campground were rather fierce, and I was the only one to venture outside to hook-up, and later to get to the Wi-Fi hotspot in the laundry room. That was enough, we enjoyed mosquito bites for several days just from the couple of times I quickly opened and closed the door. I actually saw a couple of people walking around with mosquito nets over their heads... We had cable TV here, and oddly enough there were a couple of Seattle stations on their cable. That was just weird being that far away from home and watching the local news.

Anyway we continued retracing our path along the AlCan until we reached the Cassiar highway (Hwy 37 I think?) We then headed south and back into British Columbia. Once again we were on a pretty desolate route. No power poles and very few vehicles or people. Our first evening on the Cassiar we stayed at a campground on Joe Irwin Lake. Once again, no power, only generators for the campground's use. We got a site right on the lakeshore. Everyone had a great time sitting around the campfire and taking a paddleboat out on the lake. The next day we stopped at Dease Lake for food and groceries and I spoke with a NWCMP Officer who was in plain clothes fueling up his Expedition. He was going to get new tires on his work rig... Seven hour trip to Whitehorse to get tires! We steadily worked our way down the Cassiar to the cut-off road to Stewart, BC and Hyder, AK.















What's so special about Hyder, Alaska you might ask? Well, how about a National forest Service site which has a raised deck walkway along Fish Creek? Where you can watch Brown Bears feeding on salmon mere feet away? Pretty cool, eh? Unfortunately, the salmon hadn't really come in, and in the morning we saw only eagles, no bears. We continued up the gravel road to the Salmon Glacier, which was quite a sight.














Eventually, we turned around and stopped again at Fish Creek. After a few minutes, a juvenile brown bear walked out of the brush downstream of us and began walking up toward us. It was pretty cool, watching this young guy being really paranoid, afraid that an older bear might show up and chase him away. Unfortunately, that was it for the bears, and we headed home. Although, it's really not that far to go back up to Stewart and Hyder again some time, hopefully when there are more bears present. The rest of the trip back was relatively uneventful, as we were traveling through much more civilized areas. We were very happy to see the relatively low gas prices once back in the good ol' US of A. Quite the trip, and we would highly recommend it if you get the chance...

Kenai Fjords National Park

As I mentioned in my last post, we also visited the park using an alternative method of travel. We took a 6 hour cruise from Seward into the park. The cruise included salmon dinner. At about 2:30pm, we embarked along with about 80 other people on our cruise. We motored along at about 24 knots into a strong headwind as we left the area of Seward, heading out of Resurrection Bay. Not much time was spent outside as it was a bit cool in those conditions. We learned that during WWII, fortifications had been built in the cliffs at the entrance to the bay. They have been abandoned, but we could still see the pilings for the dock that had served the fortifications. We also learned that the entire town and port of Whittier, AK had been built as a top secret port in case Seward was damaged or captured (Seward was the only ice free port at the time). Now, this tour operation was indeed an operation. They had at least six tour boats, a couple of hotels, and a resort on Fox Island, near the entrance to Resurrection Bay. We stopped there to pick up dinner supplies and then headed back toward the park. We saw an amazing number of animals of all types. We saw Puffins, gulls, Stellar Sea Lions, Eagles, Humpback Whales, Dahl Porpoises, Eagles, Sea Otters, Harbor Seals, and much to Mikee's delight Orcas. She had told us that this was the one animal she really wanted to see. Lucky day I guess, as we actually saw many Orcas throughout the cruise. The captain was great about getting right in close to the animals, and at the same time giving them their space. it was amazing how close to some of the islands and rock outcroppings we were able to get. Eventually, after a quick trip on the open ocean, we headed up Aialik Bay towards the Aialik Glacier. We first past by Holgate Arm, and could see the Holgate Glacier at the end. At about this time, the crew began serving dinner on the lower deck of the boat. Being on the second deck, we were served last, just as we came in view of the Aialik Glacier. The two good sized pieces of salmon were great, as I wolfed them down and ran outside to see the glacier. We passed by many icebergs as we pushed up the bay to the glacier itself. The captain parked us in front of it and shut the engines down. We spent about 20 minutes there, listening to the groaning, creaking, and cracking of the nearly mile wide glacier. We did see some small calving events as pieces of ice fell into the bay. We also saw black bears alongside the glacier, and harbor seals in the water around it.

This trip was great, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. If you are ever in Anchorage, do yourself a favor and check out Kenai Fjords Tours. Get on the train to Seward and take the tour! Only $129 per adult and includes salmon dinner. We had good luck on our Alaska trip in that the weather was great everytime we went on a sightseeing trip. We had mostly sunny and clear conditions, and the temperature was comfortable. The kids had a great time despite the initial protests from Dakota and Colton (the resident homebody). They got lots of great photos. This pretty much completed our list of things to do in Seward, which we enjoyed very much. We had made it pretty much our home away from home for a week and a half. It was time to begin heading south.

Exit Glacier

While in Seward, we visited the Kenai Fjords National Park by car. We drive a few miles out of Seeward to the Exit Glacier. We learned that it was thusly named by a party exploring the Ice Field (which shall remain nameless as I've temporarily forgotten the name), when they determined that this glacier was a prudent exit from the icefield. Now it makes sense... It was a fairly easy 3/4 mile hike from the parking lot, up to within 50 feet or so of the glacier.

However, our boat cruise to the National Park was much better. In my next post...

Seward, AK

Ughhh... I just spent about an hour composing a large post only to lose it before I could publish it. Anyway, we've been in Seward for four nights so far.

While staying in Cantwell, AK we went to Denali National Park. It was all I could do to convince Janae and the kids to spend 9 hours on a shuttle bus tour. Luckily it was as great as I'd been told. At Denali, you can only drive 15 miles in on the 90 mile road into the park. Any further and only tour and shuttle buses are allowed. We took the shuttle to Eilson Visitor Center at mile 66. We saw many great vistas and lots of animals. If you should go, be sure to bring your binoculars, food, water, and a camera with a good lens (lenses). We had a good driver who was great about providing information and stopping for animals. We spent 3 days in Cantwell before moving on.

Our next day, last thursday we ended up in Anchorage. Janae needed to pick up some supplies at the VA Hospital there. Knowing the VA, I figured we'd be looking to stay in Anchorage. The boys and I camped the afternoon in the parking lot, and when Janae was finally done we stayed in an RV Park downtown near Ship Creek. Ship Creek is renowned for it's salmon fishing. Alas, that night and the next day no one including me caught anything. Not much to say about the Rv park, barely enough space between sites to put slides out. Saturday morning, we headed for Seward.

What a drive. Just over a hundred miles took us all day. Too many great sights at turnouts. Turnagain Arm and the Chugach Mountains rising from the shore were spectacular. I've been using a bunch of superlatives in this blog! Amazing. Eventually, we reached Seward on the edge of Ressurection Bay. I had been told that you have to stay at the Municipal Campground on the waterfront. It is wonderful. We are pulled into our site with a paved walkway going past in front of it. On the other side is about 10 feet of grass with our firepit. Past that is the rocky beach and Ressurection Bay. On the day we arrived (and most since) we've had sea otters playing in our front yard. Across the bay (as well as behind us) are the Chugach Mountains. We don't want to leave... Although the salmon fishing is poor according to the locals, we've been doing ok. On the other side of the bay at Spring Creek we've been casting into the bay catching lots of Chum (Dog) Salmon. Yesterday Janae caught her first salmon, a little Chum hen. I've been catching Reds (Sockeye) at Seward Lagoon Creek. Lotsa fun. I had to take this morning off as my hands are blistered and cut from fishing so much. I'm gonna post this now with no photos and update later as it's about time to head back to the creek for more reds... See ya soon.

Arrived at Denali

We arrived this evening in the area of Denali National Park. We got here late after stopping at a lake for some fishing and late lunch. I set everyone up to fish, and while they fished made lunch for everyone. I then took Colton's pole, which he had abandoned in boredom, and caught a fish (trout) on my fourth cast using a spinner. I think I irritated everyone else as they had caught none. I then made it worse by releasing the fish. I set up my pole with a bobber and salmon eggs and caught another one in a couple of minutes. I got it to shore and it released itself, falling off the hook and flopping back into the water. I don't think I made any friends among the other non-catching fisherpersons. Anyway, we'll be riding the shuttle bus into the park for some hiking tomorrow. We're staying in an RV park about 27 miles south of the park. Talk to you soon...

Fairbanks

We've been enjoying the last few days in North Pole. We've managed to go see some sights, do some shopping, and just relax and rest. Yesterday afternoon the kids and I canoed down the river in the center of town. Sunday evening, we enjoyed a salmon, prime rib, halibut, cod, and side dishes meal in town. I washed the Saturn, what a mess that was. We've been staying at the Santaland RV Park, and I'm afraid that Colton has become somewhat attached to the two reindeer they have here. It's still been in the eighties everyday, with thunderstorms every day. Again, not what I expected. It is cloudy as I type this morning. We will be packing up and heading toward Denali Park in a little bit. Forgot to mention that we spent some time fishing, and caught some trout. Hopefully some Arctic Grayling next, and then maybe some Pink Salmon...