Moose season!

Last week we drove about 250 miles to this place..Healy. It's an archery only area that allows ATV use. Lots of moose, we saw lots of bulls, maybe one was legal. The snow fell while we were there. It wasn't much and may as well have been rain.

The only blood that was shed was grouse. Archery only area means for all animals, including these delicious little birds.
This is Mike Rebarchak and me cooking a grouse on top of a mountain. He just got done stalking a moose for several hours and had no food with him. I shot this bird while coming up the mountain to see if he was successful. He wasn't. I got to watch the whole stalk through my bino's. It was very cool to see, even though he didn't get the moose. He stepped out of the trees 50 yards from the bull, and it was looking right at him. It turned and ran away up the hill. This was the closest we got to success.
So, the next day we drove back home, 250 miles and 6 days later, nothing but grouse blood on our arrows. The day after we got home Jon invited me up to his house to try our luck again. And here you go. He got this mature 3x2 brow tine, 47 inch bull. He's legal because of the 3 brow tines. The story of the hunt goes like this:

I got to his house at 0715 am. We got to the area we wanted to hunt around 0745am. We heard and saw nothing all morning. Just after noon we started cow calling and scraping on a tree. Around one o'clock a cow came walking up and got within about 25 yards from us. That was cool in and of itself. Less than an hour later, I was facing away from Jon and he said, "Is that a dog?". I turned and looked at him and saw this monster's rack swaying in the sunshine in the same area that we saw the cow. I told him no that wasn't a dog, it's a big bull coming right toward us. He slowly made his way even closer and Jon shot him at around 25 yards. He ran about 70 yards down hill towards our truck, then collapsed. After our we stopped shaking from adrenalin, Jon said he was asking me if the noise he was hearing was a dog. So he never saw the bull until it was very close!This is about 10 o'clock, we're pooped and cold and very stinky. Eric found out we killed a moose and came right out to help us. A true friend. He brought Skittles.

Denali road trip

Last week we went on a road trip into the Denali National Park. This is a big deal in many ways. Every year, the state has a lottery and allows 4-5 hundred vehicles per day for three days to travel beyond the point on the road that is normally limited to tour bus use only. It's about 85 miles to the end of the road with a maximum speed limit of 35 mph. Long day! But there is plenty to see along the way. You can't look anywhere without being awed by God's creation. These pictures do not do it justice. Many people make the drive and never see Mt. McKinley. We were more fortunate than that. It was visible for us for about an hour and a half. In this picture you can see the highest point in North America, just over the top of Chase's head. In case you're wondering, it's cold. It would be bearable but the wind is blowing very hard here. Colt has a piece of jerky.

This is the same area, just close up so you can see the mountain better. We continued on the road that runs through the valley.

Throughout the trip, we saw an abundance of wild life. The most of which was bears. I think they're my favorite to watch. We saw about 12 bears. There's two above the road in this picture. They are heading for the gap between the SUV and the white car. It's a couple of juvenile brown bears. All the red colored bushes are blue berries. They were chowing down all over the hillside.

This is one of them when we were driving by. You can just see its back and head.

And here they are after they crossed below the road. They kept people pinned to the area for a while.
I'll have more photos on this trip later as I get them from the rest of the family that went with us.

Caterpillar lip...no more

He finally talked his mama into letting him shave his face. He needed it.

His hands were shaking when he started to shave. He did well and didn't cut himself at all. He needs to work on his shaving cream application though.
Looks like someone hit him with a pie.

These two clowns were yucking it up the hole time. I took them out for a few minutes and let them show off their tats. They got them at the Alaska Sate Fair. And the finished product. Nose, lips and ears all still in place.