Flying in the Mountains

Dad and I got up today and headed down to the airport.  The sun was shining and we were going flying.  One of the Civil Air Patrol members has a Cesna 172 and he is nice enough to let my dad use it.  He has put a lot of work into this plane and it shows.

We took off and immediately the town of Valdez was below us.

We took off up into the pass following the Richardson highway.  Up through the mountains through the pass on our way to Chitna.

We were going to take a look at a couple of planes that are for sale that were parked at the Chitna airport.  It was a quick flight over numerous glaciers, lakes, and rivers.  It was a gorgeous day to be up in the air.  We landed in Chitna and took a look at the two planes.  One was a Piper Colt and the other was a Cesna 150.  Both are fairly small planes with their only real use being learning how to fly or basic commuting from airport to airport.  These aren’t planes you are going to fly a moose out of the woods in or pus skies on and go land up in the mountains.

While we were at the airport we spotted a fish wheel in action so I ventured down to take a look.  I did get some video, but my camera was in my pocket when a fish was actually caught.

[QUICKTIME http://bbryson.com/bill/files/2007/08/fish_wheel.mov 320 260]

After a little exploring we hopped back in the plane headed back for Valdez.  We took a little different rout home this time following the copper river.  We took a little side trip over to get a closer look at an amazing waterfall.  This video doesn’t do it justice.  The amount of water cascading over the edge was amazing.

[QUICKTIME http://bbryson.com/bill/files/2007/08/waterfall.mov 320 260]

We ended up ducking off the copper river down a side valley that took us right back down the canyon into town.   A very nice trip.

I am now sitting in the Anchorage airport waiting for my midnight flight to Minneapolis.  I will be back up in Cook tomorrow afternoon.

No Halibut and Robbed of Shrimp

We went back out on the water today in search of big shrimp and and small halibut.  It was an aboslutly beautfiul day outside.  Blue sky over mountains surrounding the sea.

Our first mission to soak some herring in about 200 feet of water.  The crazy thing was we were only a couple hundred yards off shore and we were already in pretty deep water.  We fished and fished and fished for about 3 hours with a few nibbles here and there.

Without any luck on the halibut end of things we decided to head over to try our luck with the shrimp.  We found our orange buoy floating just off shore.  We started pulling up the 400 feet of line with a pot puller and it came to a halt.  The pots were stuck on the bottom.  Uh-oh…  We pulled and pulled and were only gaining in inches.  The fuse on the pot puller burned out and we were attempting things by hand.  I secured the line while dad went in search of a new fuse.  With a new fuse installed the pot puller  was up and running again which freed up our hands to coil the massive amounts of line.  The pot puller was able to free the ocean floors grip on our shrimp pots and they were soon heading for the surface.  Our first pot empty  :(.  We had five down.  The next pot had 2 measly shrimp inside.  As the third pot came into view we suddenly realized what was causing our misfortune in the shrimping business.

Thats right an octopus was in our pot.  We think he was swimming along and found the shrimp buffet.  Now we can only assume how this went down but we believe it went something like this…..

[QUICKTIME http://bbryson.com/bill/files/2007/08/octostory.mov 320 260]

So when we pulled the pot out of the water here is what we got.

We got him out of the pot and put him in a bucket.  It wasn’t long before he was trying to make is break for freedom.

We took a look at him for a little while and then let him go.

[QUICKTIME http://bbryson.com/bill/files/2007/08/octofree.mov 320 260]

Even though he cleaned out a few of our pots we were able to take some shrimp home.  Here is what one of them looked like.

It was a fun day on the water even though we weren’t very successful with our endevors.  Tomorrow it sounds like my dad and I are going to go do a little flying if the weather cooperates. Then I will be on my way back to Minnesota leaving Valdez around 9:30 PM.

Boating Around

Well after a nights rest in a real bed, I was up and moving around 9 in the morning. Dad and I unloaded the truck from our stellar hunting trip and then headed out on the sound. The small boat harbor was pretty quiet being a Monday and all. It really is fun to walk the docks and look at all the different boats.

We were quickly out on the water with only a couple of tasks on hand. We brought with us 10 cans of cat food and 5 shrimp pots. “Dropping shrimp pots” being the first thing on the list. We skimmed across the calm water with mountain in every direction.

We went about 9 miles out towards the narrows and dropped our shrimp pots in about 350 feet of water. We will be checking them tomorrow with high hopes of some tasty morsels.

Our other goal for the day was to make a meager attempt at catching a halibut. We tried a spot near where we dropped the shrimp pots knowing that the best halibut fishing is yet another two to four hours boat ride out of Valdez. So we knew were weren’t going to have much luck. We found a nice spot and pulled out the tools of the trade for catching halibut. Here is what the majority of the equipment looks like that most widely used for reeling in the titanic sized fish.

Notice the knife in there for a little perspective on the size of things. To these hooks one usually attaches a whole herring. Here is what it the whole rig looks like before you drop it overboard in about 150 feet of water.

So we drop the line to the bottom and jig until we have a bite. I had some nibbles, but none were confident enough to take the big bite. Tomorrow we plan to head out with a little more serious attitude on the whole halibut catching subject. I hope to have an update tomorrow with pictures of the big flounder.

While we were sitting there jigging our lines up and down the clouds started to linger around the edges of some of the mountains that drop into the ocean. It was a beautiful day to be out on the water.

After a little over an hour of letting our bait soak that the bottom of the ocean we decided to head back. On the way we passed one of the many oil tankers and its two escorts on their way out to the open ocean. The two tug boats follow the big guy out 80 miles through the narrows ensuring we won’t have another mishap like the exxon valdez in 89.

On a side note, there is another poll up on the right side of my blog.  So if you have a second let me know what you think.

Moose Hunting aka. Camping :(

Well once again my dad and I were skunked on yet another moose hunt.  I don’t think we were meant to go this year.  We probably should start this story from the beginning.

It all started last Wednesday evening.  I flew into Valdez at approximately 9:45 P.M.  My dad and I were scheduled to leave Valdez the next morning at approximately 10:30 A.M.  Well….  at 4:00 P.M. we were finally on the road hoping to leave the dreary clouds and chilling rain behind for a trip into the wilds of interior Alaska.  Our destination our old hunting grounds located just outside Northway, AK.  The 300 mile drive though started a bit late was going quite well until about 60 miles outside of Tok.  We were cruising down the road chatting about the hunt to come when our trusty truck started to make a terrible racket.  We pulled off to the side of the road to inspect this new melody ringing in our ears.  With a little inspection we noticed that our muffler had become disconnected from the exhaust pipe rendering it inoperable which in turn left our poor truck un-muffled.  We embarrassingly made our noisy way the rest of the way into Tok.   We stopped over at a friends place there in town and quickly borrowed a couple of “L brackets” a hose clamp and 4 rivets.  The plan to reattach the exhaust pipe to the muffler just enough to finish our trip.  Mind you this was all occurring around 10:00 P.M.  After about 15 minutes under the truck Dad had the two pieces attached to each other once again.  Not really in the correct position, but attached non the less.

We were back on the road a little after 11:45 P.M.  with merely an hour between us and our destination.  The rest of the drive was uneventful landing us at the “trail head” a little after 1:00 A.M.  We promptly reclined the seats pulled a blanket out of the back seat and fell fast asleep.

The next morning we were awaken by four 4-wheelers buzzing up to the truck.  One of the gentlemen stepped over to my window which I promptly rolled down.  The four men were appropriately dressed all in camo and wearing helmets.  Once he removed his helmet he informed us that he and his comrades were part of the US Military and were out to check on their seismograph equipment located in the area.  Now I’m not positive about this, but I believe the equipment is used to listen for possible Russian underground nuclear tests.  Their hops is to pick up the vibrations of the blasts.  The gentlemen asked us to please not shoot them when we headed back on our hunt.  You see there happen to be a few people out there that when hunting will shoot at any movement in the brush or noise that they hear without checking to see what it is first.  I assured him that we always make sure what we are shooting at is indeed a moose since that is all we really had a license to hunt anyway.  He’s just lucky that the season for men in camo hasn’t opened up yet.  😉  j/k.

Well that got us up and moving for the day.  We unloaded our two rigs off the trailer and loaded up all of our gear.  Dad had his 6-wheeler and I was borrowing Dan Eide’s 4-wheeler.  Once loaded up we were ready to hit the trail.

The trail was good at first.  We were working our way up a hill.  As we crested the top of the hill we knew we had some tough trail ahead of us.

There is an area that had some very large boulders embedded into the trail making the precise maneuvering of our machines a must.  I did take a second to snap this photo of the valley off to one side of the trail.

So on our way we went, through the rocks and down the other side of the mountain.   On our decent into the valley we were to be hunting in I looked up and saw the lakes we were to be glassing over (looking at through binoculars) for the next few days.  In the edge of one of the lakes was….  You guessed it a moose!!  I hopped up on top of the 4-wheeler with my binoculars and took a closer look.  Well after further review it turned out to be a cow moose, which in case you didn’t know is not legal to hunt.  Bulls only in Alaska, but they are always good to have around because just like humans there are usually a few boys chasing the girls around.  So we continued on down into the valley.  We were about 8 miles back into the woods and a mere mile from camp when my 4-wheeler decided it didn’t want to run anymore.  After futile attempts to bring it back to life we decided we had better get it back out to the trailer.  We weren’t sure how easy it would be to get it back over those pesky rocks and back up over the mountain top.  So we hooked up some tow ropes and back we went.

The return trip went quite well and after we made it back safely to the truck agreed that we probably should have stayed in and continued the hunt.  Odds are though that if we had stayed in for the hunt we would have had a terrible time getting the machine out.  So we headed into Northway to refuel the 6-wheeler.  Our new plan was to head over to another easier trail known locally as “The Paradise Trail”.  This trail is about 20 miles from the Canadian border.  We loaded up all of our gear onto the 6-wheeler and with me on top of the load we headed back on attempt number two.  We weren’t 300 feet into the trail when we looked up and saw a beautiful rainbow ahead of us.

Dad snapped this photo of me on top of the 6-wheeler with the rainbow in the background.

So if you know what makes rainbows then you know what lied ahead of us.  We came upon the steady downpour only a short time later.  It was a good thing we had rain gear on and all of our gear either in dry bags or waterproof boxes cause it really came down.  On a brighter note on the ride we noticed fresh moose tracks in the mud headed in the same direction as us.  So we had high hopes of still achieving our goal.  We drove back in about two miles and set up camp on a side hill overlooking a valley with a few lakes interspersed throughout.

We set up camp, changed into some dry clothes, heated up some water for tea and apple cider and began glassing the flats.  We spent the afternoon hunkering under a tarp to avoid the occasional short bursts of rain and kept a weary eye out for the illustrious big game we were so hoping to find.  For dinner that evening we dined on freeze dried “Chilly Mac with Beef”, pilot bread crackers, and more tea and apple cider.  When it was no longer safe to be shooting a gun due to the lac of light we snuggled down into our sleeping bags resisting the urge to roll down hill.  You see our tent wasn’t exactly on a flat spot.  We were scouting from a side hill so thats where our tent ended up being set up at.

Now when moose hunting it is necessary to wake up wicked early to catch those moose our getting a drink or moving around.  They seem to like to do most of their moving in the morning or evening times.  Well the next morning (Saturday) we were NOT good moose hunters being that we drug ourselves out of bed at 9:00 AM.  We spent the next day glassing the flats and shooting the breeze.  Unfortunately that was the only shooting we’d be doing on this trip.   At about 2:00 in the afternoon I placed my binoculars in front of my eyes for yet another look across the flats.  I had scanned about half way across when at the very far end of the valley I catch a flash.   I look closer inspecting what caught my eye.  Something white.  Not just something white two somethings white side by side.  YES!!! It has to be the rack of a ginormous bull moose.  I say “Dad I see a moose”  he grabs his binoculars and after some telling him where in relation to some landmarks this huge moose is he locks onto the sight.  We continue to watch intently hoping to get a better idea of what we are looking at.  At this point all we can see is the huge rack.  Usually you can see the dark siloutte of the moose’s body along with the antlers.  All of a sudden the two white somethings separate.  Wait a minute…..  No moose can do that.  So now we are a bit confused.  Could it be two other hunters loading up their rig or cleaning a kill?  What is it.  We continue to watch for about a half an hour until I realize what we have been watching for such a long time.  What I thought was the white flash of the bone antlers of a moose was actually two swans swimming next to each other on a body of water obstructed from our view by the overgrowth of bushes at the waters edge.  Deflated we sink back into our chairs and go on shooting the breeze.  For lunch we had MRE’s (Meals Ready to Eat) used prodominatly by the US military during times of war.  These are full meals in a pouch.  Everything from the main course down to desert and a few sides.  Well Dad was eating an older version.  Believe it or not they have come a long way over the years.  I had Beef teriyaki with rice and dad had a re hydrated pork patty.  Mine came with a little bottle of Tobasco and since dad’s didn’t look very appetizing I offered to flavor up his dinner a bit for him.  Well after removing the top and attempting to apply a couple of drops to a bit on his fork I wasn’t having any luck.  So I poked into the hole at the top of the bottle with my knife hopping to dislodge whatever was blocking the hole.  I tried to shake some on again without any luck.  So  I shook a bit harder and all of a sudden the dam broke loose and not one, not two, not three, but about 15 drops of Tobasco found its way onto the grayish piece of meat.  Here is what ensued after that.

[QUICKTIME http://bbryson.com/bill/files/2007/08/tobasco.mov 320 260]

Before we headed to bed this evening I snapped this picture of dusk over the flats.

And then this picture of a tree silhouetted against the skyline.

The next day I woke up early to catch those elusive moose out and about.  As I clambered out of the tent I looked across the valley to find the whole basin full of fog.  I wouldn’t be seeing any moose until the sun decided to peak over the mountain and burn off the dense condensation hovering over the ground like a thick blanket of white cotton candy.  So I went back to bed.  When we got back up the fog had melted away and revealed not one stinking moose.  The dew all about did highlight some smaller beauties though.

So a bit discouraged we packed up camp and headed back to Valdez to spend some quality time with my mom.  The weekend was fun.  It was nice to be out in the woods hanging out with my dad, but I wouldn’t call it a hunting trip.  It was more like a camping trip with high powered rifles.

Valdez…

Well, I left Unalakleet in kind of a rush this afternoon.  I was helping Damon rearrange the studio.  I hope it will provide a more streamlined work environment for the student broadcasters.  Time slipped away as it usually does on a day you fly and I found myself running out of the building to a waiting car for a ride to the airport.

The flight was pretty non eventful and got me to Anchorage around 5:00 P.M.  I met up with Jared and Tonya and we went out for burgers at Red Robins.  It was nice to chit chat with them and then it was back to the airport for my short flight into Valdez.  My mom and dad were waiting to pick me up which was very nice.  We grabbed my luggage and off to home we went.

My grandparents and aunt and uncle and their kids are up from Minnesota.  So I had a nice welcome home crew waiting for me.  It has been a while since I’ve seen all of them so it was nice to sit around and catch up a bit.

We kind of celebrated my grandma’s birthday as the evening drew to an end.  Here she is opening her present.

The evening all of a sudden was really late and time for bed.  Dad and I are heading over to Northway to hopefully chase a moose around.  The weather there has been in the 60’s which isn’t exactly the weather we want.  The moose start to move around more once it starts getting colder.  So even though the forecast is calling for similar temperatures we are hoping for a sudden cold snap.

I’ll have pictures of that trip when I get back on the 28th or 29th.

Stebbins and Back Again….

Well this morning one of the St. Michael school staff members Steve gave me a ride on the 13 mile road between St. Michael and Stebbins.  I was done shooting where I was and it was time to head off to a different village.  It is interesting to go right from one school to the next.  Seeing how people do things differently and how the kids behave in the different environments.  I think that the students in St. Michael will really respond well to having a new facility to learn in starting next fall.  Dan Eide on of my teachers from Valdez High School is now the principal there which I think will be a nice change for the St. Michael school.   I think he is very good at what he does.  Students look up to him and strive to achieve the expectations he puts out for them.  I am excited to see how things will be changing there over the course of the year.   Stebbins on the other hand has what looks like a brand new school.  The student population appears to be a bit bigger and having the space available in their building is very nice.  I shot some video on the drive into town.  The Stebbins Native Tribe owns a reindeer heard that grazes on the land between the two communities.  I was able to get some video of the coral they have set up for round up which is where they remove the antlers from the animals which they then sell to people in the Asian countries.  I was also able to get a few shots from the road looking down on the village.  Once I arrived at the school I went from class to class filming in each.  I probably won’t use very much of it, but it will be nice to show perspective teachers what it might look like to run a class in the Stebbins school.  I also shot the store, the post office, the clinic, some scenes from around town, the beach, and the cliffs just outside of town.  Ben Dolgner a teacher who just moved to Stebbins from Little Diomede was kind enough to loan me he 4-wheeler.  I took it out and road up on top of one of the mountains just outside of town.  Damon Hargraves the person that replaced me in BSSD’s district office told me that it would be a great place to get a nice look down onto the village with the bluffs in the background and the ocean out front.  He was right.  It was a beautiful ride up to the top.  A little bumpy for sure going across the tundra, but really worth it.

I spent the rest of the day shooting around town and in the school before I hopped on Hagelands 207 and flew back to Unalakleet.  On the flight back we flew by a rainbow.  I was able to shoot some video of it, so I am hoping to snag a still off there to post at a later date.

Tomorrow I will help Damon set up the studio and then fly to Valdez via Anchorage to meet up the the fam.  Then its off to Northway to hopefully chase down a moose.

St. Michael

I left Unalakleet this morning at 9:30 heading to St. Michael as the fist step in gathering video for my contract with BSSD.  As we stepped into the little tail dragging Cesna 207 I notice my pilots shirt.

I thought it was kind of funny.  The flight over was beautiful.  The sun was shimmering in the ocean and the green tundra jumping up out of the water.

Here is what St. Michael looks like from the air.  You can see the foundation of the new school being built.

[QUICKTIME http://bbryson.com/bill/files/2007/08/smk.mov 320 260]

I shot video all over town today.  One thing that amazed me was the store in town.  It has all kinds of fresh produce and even milk.  Very cool for a place that isn’t a regional hub.  After school was out Dan, Bonnie, Rocky (Dan’s dog) and I went down to the beach to look for sea glass, and to allow me to shoot a little more video.

It is amazing how much there is on the beach over here.  Apparently there used to be a floating Bar just outside of the village and when people would finish their bottles of beer they would chuck them into the ocean.  Well over time the broken pieces have been smoothed down and washed up on the shore.  In my 20 minutes of walking on the beach I found a whole pocket full of them.  It was a lot of fun and a nice view of town for the video.

After the walk we headed back to the house for some dinner.  Very tasty stew which reminds me how much I really like stew.  The sun setting this evening was very pretty.  Even though I didn’t have the best angle for a photo I snapped a couple anyway.  I’ll leave you with those to end this post.  I’m off to Stebbins by car tomorrow.  What a novel idea to travel from site to site in BSSD by car instead of plane.  🙂  An update on that adventure tomorrow.

Back to UNK

Well, I’ve been back in Unalakleet for almost a week now.  I’ve been doing some consulting work for the Bering Strait School District which kept me pretty busy all of last week.  Over the weekend however I had some time to do a little playing.  First off before I get started.  Many of you may have heard about the dead walrus’s washed up on shore between Unalakleet and Elim.  Well if you haven’t there are a reported 80 of them one being right out in front of the house I’m staying in.

All of them are missing their heads which leads many to believe they were being hunted/poached just for their ivory.  This is a very sad deal.  I truly do not have any problems with the hunting of marine mammals or any other animal for that matter as long as they are being used for food.  To just kill these huge animals for their ivory alone is just a shame.

So as you can probably guess its a bit smelly on the beach right now.  So back to the fun filled weekend.  Saturday morning Randy and his two kids Jamie and Kendra went up river to do a little salmon fishing.  I’ll post a little video hopefully tomorrow that I edited up last year showing what its like to go up river.

Fishing went pretty well.  It wasn’t as amazing as it usually is on the Unalakleet river since the water was pretty high making the silt level in the water to increase which makes the water very murky.  We were able to catch 12 salmon and two trout in our little trip which makes for some tasty dinner this winter.  I am looking forward to Erins delicious salmon chowder.

That evening Greg and Kim Johnson invited a few of us over for a BBQ at their house.  The weather was beautiful so spending time outside with freinds was very nice.  Greg cooked up all the food on the grill and we ate and visited throughout the evening.  On the way home from that social gathering I stopped by Vanessa Nasset’s place.  She had invited me over for dinner there as well as a few other friends from town.  I was able to catch up with her and her husband John, Conrad and Jasmine, and Jason and Deb.  It was fun to spend time with all of them.

Today Gary and I borrowed Kim and Greg’s car and headed out the road in search of some ripe blue berries.  It was so nice of Kim and Greg to let us borrow their vehicle.  It cuts down on the noise and the dust you normally encounter riding on a honda (4-wheeler) up the gravel road.  We found some berries.  Here is Gary picking way like crazy.

Aside from the tasty blue berries we had some spectacular views.  The sun was out and everything is green right now.  Its fun to be up on top of some of these ridges looking out over the valleys below.

We ran across some pretty fresh moose tracks while we were out but weren’t lucky enough to run into him.  Maybe since I missed the one today it will raise my chances for getting one on Friday or Saturday.

The only downside to being out in the countryside was the little bugs that kept flying into our noses, ears, and eyes and crawling all over us.  I didn’t notice them biting me until I looked down to find blood spots all over my legs.  Sneaky little guys.  So we retreated to the car with about a half a gallon of berries.

Tomorrow I may be flying to St. Michale to shoot some video.  If I do I will be able to spend a little time with Dan Eidie the principal out there.

More on that adventure to come.

Kickin It in the BWCA (Boundary Waters Canoe Area)

Last week Jim, Erin, and I packed up a few days worth of food and clothing, threw the canoe on the car and headed up to the BWCA.  Our jumping off point was the Moose River.  We were a little concerned about the water level.  In the fall there seems to be considerably less water than in the spring, so we weren’t exactly sure if we were going to be able to make it into Moose Lake which was our goal.

We started paddling on the first section of the river and things went really well.  The water level was high enough to clear most of the hidden rocks and lily pads.  After about 45 minutes of paddling we made it to the first portage.  A portage is where you carry your boat and gear between two bodies of water.  The fist portage was about 160 rods, a rod being 5 1/2 yards which made the portage about half a mile.

We made the little hike quite nicely getting all of our gear and the canoe over to the next portion of the river.  This one however didn’t have quite as much water to speak of.

We started paddling and soon were pushing and pulling the canoe through the ummm swamp.  Erins dad ended up almost losing his sandal a few times in the muck while trying to get the canoe pushed along.

It took us a long time to make our way through the shallow river and ended up at the second and final portage of our trip in.  This one was about 60 rods so it was a much quicker trip on land.  This dumped us on the edge of Big Moose Lake.

We set up our tents, did a little fishing, of course a some swimming.

The trip was very nice.  To be off the grid and relaxing with Erin and Jim.  I am looking forward to our next trip into the BWCA.