The Good Life

Spring has finally arrived and given way to summer. The ice is gone, temperatures are on the rise, and the sun has been brave enough to show itself on occasion. The quiet stillness of the early morning is often shattered with the roaring whine of an aircraft departing the bay or the airstrip.  This brief interruption of solitude is brought courtesy of yours truly, unleashing 300 ear shattering horses on the pristine Alaskan wilderness.

Take-Off Run

On the Move

Landing

Peaceful Beaver

Dark Side of the Moon

Here are a few pictures of the Lunar Eclipse from the night of Dec 20 as seen from our back deck here in Alaska.










Blood Moon

Near Life Experience

The highlight of guiding with the float-plane this summer was being able to bring my son along with me on a trip to Twin Lakes to see and explore the famed cabin of Dick Proeneke. Dick built his cabin almost entirely with materials from the surrounding landscape, and built purely by hand. The weather was perfect and the fall colors were awesome.

Hillside above Twin Lakes


Some of the hand tools used


The Cabin


Cache or Credit?


Father & Son


Coleson's shot


Cozy

A Guide to Marine Life

With the acquisition of my float rating, I have the opportunity to guide for the lodge with the float-plane. This can mean flying down to Katmai or Funnel Creek to do bear viewing, or just "lake hopping" in search of some good fishing and beautiful scenery.

Bears at Katmai


Anticipation


Lucky


Leftovers


Glad to not be on the menu


Fan Creek on Lake Kontrashibuna


Fishing at Fan Creek


The Creek's View


Fishing at Kijik Lake

Sweet Hitch-hiker

Every year a group of people led by John Branson, traverse a portion of the Lake Clark National Park. John is the park historian and often follows ancient trail routes used long ago. This year Bran was able to participate (she was prevented from going last year due to injury from a clam digging expedition). So this morning at 7:30am she climbed into a float plane and away they all went. This trek is only two days, but not a leisurely stroll by any means. They took minimal gear, packs weighing under 15lbs, no tent, and the food looks more like snacks than real meals. They will hike until midnight, then grab a few hours rest and head out the next morning hoping to make the rendezvous for a ride home. Check out Bran's Blog in the next couple of days for a report on her trip.

Part of the Group


Boarding the Plane


Off They Go

Falling In

One of the nearby mountains is named "Holy Mountain". It has several large bowl depressions that look like God took his fingers and pressed down to make the bowls. These bowls also are great to ski. Most years there is enough snow cover to take snow-machines to the top of the mountain, but this years extremely low snow fall made it impossible to even get to the mountain on snowmachine. That is where a ski-plane comes in handy, plenty of snow on top (or so we thought), plenty of adventure to get there.
The plan was to pile all three of us in the plane, fly up to Lake Kontrashibuna, drop our extra gas and one person. The remaining skier would ride to the top and bail out, Leo (the pilot) would then go check the landing zone for pickup and finally go back, get the last skier and drop them off at the top. The plan ended up working great. I was beginning to wonder if maybe we should have checked out the pickup spot before being abandoned on the top of the mountain, but as it turned out, there was nothing to worry about. We got two good runs in, one from each side of the bowl, watched the plane trigger several small avalanches while taking off, and enjoyed some awesome scenery.
Upon returning home I was informed that my youngest daughter was quite distraught about her Papa skiing Holy Mountain, "I don't want Papa to fall in the holes!"

The Mountain




The Bowls


The Top


Making Tracks


Leo and I on the way up


Getting Dropped Off


Our "Lift Ticket"


At the Top


Waiting for a Lift


Headed Home, Holy Mountain in the background

The Old Man Down the Road

As Spring tries to emerge from what has turned out to be a rather mild winter in both temperature and snowfall, we find the ever increasing amount of daylight being offered to us a welcomed change to the blanket of darkness that is at the heart of an Alaskan winter. We decided to take advantage of this new daylight by hiking up to see Tanalian Falls. After dropping the kids off at AWANA, we had an hour and a half to get there and back. We made it back just in time to greet the kids as they came out of the church.

The trail home


Tanalian Falls


Bran and I

Ice Road Truckers meets Mad Max

It is already the middle of March and only now do we finally have good enough ice and semi-adequate snow cover in the woods to get firewood. With spring now quickly approaching and the weather being highly unpredictable we need to get as much wood cut and hauled from up the lake as quickly as possible. The little Nissan truck can hold the equivalent of two snowmachine sled loads so it was the obvious choice to try first. It is only two wheel drive, so with chains as required equipment, and speed giving the ability to persevere through deepening snow drifts, off I drove, pedal down. The vehicle required constant correction to maneuver the truck around the deepest parts of the snowdrifts as the rear wheels were almost constantly spinning on either glare ice or powdered snow. Add a stiff cross wind into the equation and it was quite a ride, sashaying back and forth, trying to impact the snowdrifts straight-on rather than sideways, and keeping the speed up to punch through the drifts with and explosive plume of powder. Most of the time my windshield is covered in snow and since the windshield wipers don't work I am driving with the window rolled down and my head out to be able to see.
This system worked quite well for awhile, the poor little truck however, happened to be missing the inner fender-well on the left-hand side, and why not? it doesn't have a bumper, working headlights, or half a rear window either. The missing fender-well is not a big deal, except this is where the air intake was and soon the air filter and the intake hose were clogged with snow. Evidently when this unusual phenomenon happens it creates enough suction from the throttle body to suck engine oil into the throttle body. This results in a giant cloud of blue smoke (burning oil) and a complete loss of engine power. So, there I sit, exactly halfway from nowhere, cleaning snow from the air filter and disconnecting the hose from the fender inlet. As luck would have it, the truck started, once again allowing me to rocket across the frozen lake with a rhythmic spray of powder with each drift I conquered.
On occasion a snow drift will have a hard enough center to actually drive the truck on top of without sinking into the snow. This is desirable unless you are traveling at a high rate of speed with a load of fresh cut logs on the back, then it becomes a launch pad. Murphy's law comes into full force and the heaviest, largest log you spent the better of 5 minutes wrestling up on the truck, jettisons itself off with a complete disregard for the impending pain and agony you will now endure loading it again. To make matters worse, I realize only to late that the seemingly small snowdrift the truck came to rest in is actually another larger drift with a hard center of which the truck is now high-centered on. Lucky for me I have a load of sticks to use to dig myself out with........

One of the other wood haulers (using a snowmachine) eventually came along and we went back to get the tractor and pushed it out of the drift. Needless to say, I quickly switched to the snowmachine and sled.

1990 something Nissan whatchamacallit


Me and My Ride

Ice

Temperatures have dropped and stayed low consistently enough to freeze the entire surface of Lake Clark. This has two distinct advantages, no large ominous formations of ice fog enveloping the lake and our community, and now we can ice fish.
The ice fishing gear I had taken with me and stored for 12 years in Kansas could now see some use once again. (Not that there was no ice fishing in Kansas, just that I never was inclined to try it in Kansas) A few hours of dedication on a Saturday and we had a tasty meal of Whitefish for supper.

Checkin ice depth


Walking on Water


Working Smarter, Not Harder


Sis with Mrs. Owens


Waiting patiently


Rewards


Papa's helper