November 8, 2009 at 12:33 am
· Filed under Hiking
The crooked toe had a wild idea that it would be fun to hike up tall mountains and live to tell about it. In November I decided to go to Guadalupe Mountain National Park to hike up to he top of Guadalupe Peak, campout, and get my backpacking legs back. Guadalupe peak is the tallest point in Texas at about 9000 feet high. The camp site was located at about 8500 feet and the site was perfect with a great view of the horizons.
I got there about 2:00 pm on Friday. Checked in. Then I began to hike up the mountain. The total distance that I hiked was about 9 miles. 4 miles up, a mile around while I was up there and 4 miles back down. I ran into a fellow hiker that stated that the first mile is the hardest. They were not kidding. Straight up. Switchbacks all the way.
I got up there and I was tired. Set up camp and went to sleep.
The next morning, I got up hiked to the peak and then I hiked back down the mountain. I do not know what is worse, going up or down. I was tired when I got th the top, but my legs were aching coming back down.
I had a 40 lb backpack that had 24 hours worth of supplies. (Water and food) Plus, tent, sleeping bag, extra set of clothes.
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August 29, 2009 at 8:59 pm
· Filed under Alaska
Alternat Transportation
The crooked toe provided Transportation for Beth when she got tired. She was a true Trooper and wilderness goddess in the making, however she did get tired. We had to resort to alternate transportation when that happen. She made it well known that she was not walking anymore.
We travelled like this to the following places:
- Exit Glacier
- Lake Eklutna
- Eagle River Wildlife Refuge
The Crooked Toe plans on doing some hiking next year. Unfortunatly Beth will not be riding on my sholders.
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August 26, 2009 at 8:31 pm
· Filed under Alaska, Crooked Toe
This was an interesting building in Seldovia on the slew. My guess is that the coffee shop is only open when it is high tide.
The Seldovia Slew is only navigable when it is high tide. We were lucky that high tide came right before sunset. We had the booze cruise and went up the slew to look at the town and for wild life. The water is crystal clear so we were able to see straight down for 15 feet to the bottom of the ditch. We did not get stuck, but people have been stuck and needed to wait to the next high tide.
There were many building built right on the slew. It seems that is a desirable place to be; kind of like Boardwalk in Monopoly.
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August 26, 2009 at 3:54 am
· Filed under Alaska, Crooked Toe, Fishing
Carrie caught the tail end of this sunset, but I think it shows exactly what Seldovia, AK, is all about. We had a hard day of Halibut fishing, to come home to this view was a treat. We did not have the land of 24 sun, but we had about 15 hours of sun. It never really got dark the entire time we were there. The Sun would set, but we could always see some
light in the sky.
Not a time for Northern Light viewing.
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August 25, 2009 at 8:23 pm
· Filed under Crooked Toe, Fishing, Travel
Today we migrated the camp to Seldovia, Alaska. This little town is what they called off the road system. About 40% of Alaskans are off the road system. Everything we wanted to bring was packed onto the boat and Mark ferried us across the water from Homer to Seldovia. Once there we got checked in to our place and we went fishing for Halibut. Here is how the day progressed.
We got up at the crack of dawn in Moose Pass, AK. We got loaded in the cars. We drove all morning and got to Homer, AK, at 10:30 in time for one group to get on the ferry boat across. The other got marks boat loaded and we hauled ass over to Seldovia, AK. We got there and were on the water fishing by 2:00 PM. 8 hours later.
Once at the place known as the Chicken Hole, we dropped our lines and proceeded to catch fish. We had 5 people on the boat, so that is ten halibut. This is what I caught within the first 5 min.
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August 24, 2009 at 8:13 pm
· Filed under Alaska, Crooked Toe, Travel
Today we got up a little later and went out on a Salmon run again. We had to keep the fishing short as Carrie and Beth wanted to do a little exploring. We did manage to catch some salmon.
After we got all done, Carrie, Julie, Beth, Avery and I went to Thumb Cove for a little exploring. On the way into Thumb cove, we saw several Bold Eagles sitting in the trees looking over the seagulls. We also saw a Sea otter up close and personal. He was just swimming right up to the boat and he was smashing a shell against his rock and eating what was inside of it. We could see a little Waterfall in the distance, so we went to explore a little. Beth was having fun, but wanted to be carried all the time; most of the time she just rode on my shoulders, while I walked everywhere. Avery knew were to do so we just followed her around.
The sea life was more interesting than the land life. We got back on the boat to see the sea otter at work. We also saw some jelly fish emungulating around as well. There were two types of Jelly’s a Moon Jelly and some big red hairy looking ones.
Tomorrow we are going to go to Seldovia, AK and fish for some halibut. I am hoping for a fruitful run.
Clear Water and lots of wildlife
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August 24, 2009 at 4:43 am
· Filed under Crooked Toe, Fishing
Today the Crooked toe went fishing in Seward, Alaska. We went out to in Resurrection Bay and Day Harbor. Today we were fishing for Salmon and Rock Fish.
Salmon trolling was a good way to fish when they are biting, but there were times we sat in the boat waiting for the fish to bite and nothing. We ended up with 9 salmon for today. We also did some mooching as well. That is where we have several poles at about 15 feet deep and we have one pole that we have a very sweet piece of bait that went to the bottom and reeled in very fast so that the fish would follow them up and then they hit the poles that are set up around the boat. We got a couple of hits this time.
The Rock Fish Hole was the best. We got about 7 Rock Fish in about an hour. Several times as soon as the bait hit the right depth, there was a fish on. That was easy fishing.
More tomorrow.
Fish in Seward, AK
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August 23, 2009 at 9:27 pm
· Filed under Crooked Toe, Fishing, Travel
My brother has a cabin in Moose Pass, AK. Not the tranquil cabin on the side of a mountain, but the old post office building that was relocated on the lot new post office. The cabin was a bit messy, but we had a place to sleep and drop our gear. There is only one main street in Moose Pass and it has the Trail Lake Lodge at the beginning of it. That is where the one restaurant and bar is located. We gathered there to share dinner when we got finished with fishing.
The main attraction in Moose Pass is the fishing in Seward that is 30 minutes away.
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August 22, 2009 at 2:50 am
· Filed under Uncategorized
Today We did the 26 Glacier cruise. You read correctly, 26 Glaciers in four hours. We travelled to Whitter, AK. To get to Whitter, we travelled through a Wold War Two era tunnel that was only big enough for a single line of cars to go through. We waited our turn for the 10 inute ride through the longest tunnel in North America.
At Whitter we parked and boarded the ship and went on out 4 hour cruise. There were three places where we stopped to see the glaciers calf and watched the wild life. We did not see any major calffing, but we did see alot of seals and sea otters.
Then we went to Moose Pass to crash for the night. My brother has rented a place here for the summer. They have been coming up here for the last 8 weeks, fishing and boating. They have been catching fish all summer long and we are sure to get fish back to the lower 48 this summer.
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August 21, 2009 at 2:40 pm
· Filed under Crooked Toe, Travel
We left Austin at 12:47 pm and got to Anchorage at 7:00 pm AK time. Remember there is a 3 hour difference between Texas and Alaska. So it felt like 10:00 to us. Well, in order to get back on a good schedule, we stayed up till about 10:00 AK time – 1:00 am Texas time and then collapsed in bed. Mind you it still was light out side.
It was a long day, but we are glad to be in Alaska. Carrie and Beth have never been and we are going to try to do a lot of first with them. Today we are going to go to a Wild Life reserve to look for bears and moose. Then on a 26 glacier cruise. It was cool on the plan, the map showed that we were flying over Whitter, AK, that is where we are going to get on the cruise, we saw several of the glaciers we will be seeing today from the air.
We transfer to Moose Pass by the end of today. I will be working to set up the radio gear adn start making contacts. I hope propagation will allow me to make some good radio contacts in new places.
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