Sunday, September 30, 2012

Bonanza Hike 9/29


A wheeler, rifle, chainsaw kind of morning starting pre-dawn cruising in the morning chill, down to neighbor's to pick up Tim R and his dog Halo.  We cut a cord and then some for Emily of White Spruce.  Came back to the Yurt with some Spruce Hens to find Avery packed lunches for our hike.  We motored up to Sam's driveway then began hiking.   
Still green and plants about
Owen finally got his smoked rainbow smelt that he caught in Bristol Bay back in July.  It was smoked, frozen and had many adventures until it finally arrived in Kennicott to be fried then carried up the mountain and eaten for hiking energy.

above the trees and green

we didn't think we would ever make it

our route up with Tim and Owen climbing

Mt. Clouds

Quintessential Kennicrap 

lets get way up on the mountain, then rummage around on broken boards and rusty nails. 

The old buildings have held up pretty well. Amazing how that got so much so high on the mountain.

Owen on the ridge above upper McCarthy Creek, with Nikolai Ridge behind him.   Snowing and  blowing and he  was comfortable and warm. Makes me wonder how he'll do in the warmer weather of our travels. 
Elizabeth didn't go with because of her broken toe, (which is healing quickly).  However, a fine dinner and hot hot tub awaited our return.   


Monday, September 24, 2012

September 23

First time to Jumbo Mine bunkhouse



A cloudy, but surprisingly warm day.




Watched a Griz on the way up




The old dozer @ 90 degrees






Views of MXY and the glacier toe. Lots of glacial changes visible, including new lakes at toe.





I've been framed!








the bunk house





Owen, Avery and Liam





Pushky seeds everywhere

Saturday, September 22, 2012

September 22


A day without school. Both children wanted to do a "shop" day.




Avery built a cardboard model of the house she is designing





Owen built a knife.













Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Avery's hunt






Drive to Delta Junction.





Lyn and Avery sighting in Lyns gun.


Getting the canoes ready for the hunt.


Hunting on the beautiful tundra.

Blueberries

Lowbush cranberries
Yummy!!!

Funnest hunting partner in the world.



Still art of the tundra(turds included!!)

We saw more then 40
Trumpeter swans on 1 lake.

This fish had 20 snails in it's stomach.

Howard caught a fish for dinner. YUM!

Me canoeing back to the car but still
 no caribou.
Boo-Hoo

Mt. Sanford
Drive back to Chitna.



In Chitna next morning caught
11 beautiful fish. 

        We had an awesome trip even
        though we didn't get a caribou.

                                                                                   
A piece from Avery's journal about our hunting trip.
About the last days of our trip.
                                                                                                                                           


                                                                                                                                              Sept.17,2012                                                                                               
School House at the Yurt 9:10pm
Clouds in the north and east blue sky in the south and west.

  We finished our caribou hunt on the 13th, Grandpa's birthday. We got up, had a late breakfast, then packed up the canoes. We started paddling back towards the car at 11:30. We searched for caribou on either side of the lake but saw none. We soon landed at the portage where we had to haul everything about 300 yards to another lake. Charlie, our friend, and dad hauled everything across the portage, while Lyn and I looked for caribou but we only saw a porcupine. Though, Charlie saw a moose with a baby. He and Lyn had a moose permit but it was only for males and this was a female. After that we packed up the canoes again and set out. Soon we reached the end of the lake without seeing a single caribou. We docked then we loaded everything up,after that we put one canoe on the roof of our Subaru the other in side the car deflated. Lyn and Charlie wanted to go quickly because they had friends they were meeting, but we went slowly because there was a canoe on the roof.

  There are places on the road were you can hunt. So we looked whenever we were in one of those sections for caribou. On the last one of these sections, we were driving along, we saw a red car stopped up ahead. I looked at what they were looking at. It was a caribou. We stopped 100 yards further down the road and went in the woods, we couldn't see the caribou because now we were out of the tundra so you couldn't see more then 20 yards ahed of you because of all spruce trees. We decided to go back in the car because caribou are more scared of humans then cars. Then we turned around to go back to see the caribou just then 3 caribou crossed the road right where we had just been facing. We turned around as quickly as we could. We surched for the caribou for an hour. Then it started to get late so we decided to go. Later a lady told us that people had seen them go back and forth all day acrouse the road. It was geting late so we didn't go back and look for the caribou. That night we stayed at the Golden Spruce motel. The next morning we got up early and went dip netting. The first place we went to had no fish so we went to a different fishing spot and caught 11 fish. After that we left to meet mom and owen at chitnas snack store then we went to Glennallens visitor centor to meet our home school teacher after that dad and mom put the right geer in the right car couse mom was going to mary land to sell her mom and dads house wile we were going home. We got home a fue days ago and un packed our trip.
IT'S GOOD TO BE HOME.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

September 18th





Homeschooling today.  This evening's
project to get these silver salmon
out of the smoker and then can them up.