We Ventured Out

We were afraid to go far from the house on Justice's first day of school. Today, we over came that fear. I arranged with my good friend Rob to take our wives up to my favorite ATV trail, Puritan Creek. I love it for it's grand views, the chance to see sheep, and the best blue berry patches I've come across in Alaska. We dropped our wives off about a mile in, gave them a pistol and told them if they picked enough berries, we'd give them a ride back out. They did well.

At this point, we've already spotted sheep. Rob grabbed his Swaro spotter and we discovered they were ewes and lambs. The saddle just above Rob's head is or destination. The sheep are in the gray rocks to the left of that. You'll just have to take my word for it, as they are but specks to the naked eye.

Fast forward, we are on top. We hiked up the ridge a bit to get a better angle on the sheep. We're now on the first point to the left of the saddle described in the picture above. The sheep are now 500 feet below us. We could be having lamb chops.

Cathy's tow was 4 quarts! Not bad for a couple hours work, although she says her back is hurting. I have to go find some Motrin for her. Enjoy the pictures.

Justice Started Kindergarten

Well, another parental milestone has come for us. Our last one to start kindergarten just left on the bus. It went well. He was ready to go, he was cold and shivering but he wanted to be like Colt, who didn't want to wear a sweatshirt.

And there he goes.

Colt's 8th Birthday

On Colt's birthday, Chase had to help out at a shotgun range as a trapper in Wasilla. So we planned our day around that. We started out at Wasilla Lake and tried our hand at trout fishing. There is a playground there and it took a bit to get beyond the equipment.

Colt fished for a while off and on. He almost got a small one to the bank, but it got away.

When he wasn't fishing, he was playing tag and wrestling with Justice. They just broke up from a dog pile here. It was pretty funny.

Cathy caught the biggest fish, both of them wanted to hold it, Justice always wants to touch their eyes. I don't understand that.

Meg found a dead dragon fly, so we had to take picture with that. She wanted to point out to Madeline and Zoie that she had new bands in the colors they chose.

Welcome to Wasilla! No, we didn't see Sarah.

After fishing, we went swimming at the Alaska Club. Their favorite thing was the whirlpool.

Hunt in Review

Eric and I started out in beautiful sunshine. We were pretty much blessed throughout the hunt with little rain. We stopped here to rest, snack and glass the mountains for potential legal rams. No sheep but some very nice caribou sheds. We stacked them and named the hill Caribou Point. Eric is clowning here, he's actually looking back towards the way we came in. Tomorrow, opening day.

First nights camp. We saw a few sheep here and there throughout the day. Nothing to change our direction. We saw a band of about 7-9 ewes and lambs on the ride further up, promising, but not too. When we woke in the morning, Eric spotted sheep on the other side of the valley we had just ascended, and we formed a plan that would ultimately unfold into a sheep hunters dream.

This is breakfast in my tent, a cup of coffee and some freeze dried scrambled eggs amongst the ambience of sweaty socks and a handkerchief drying from the ceiling. Ahh, the life.

This is my shot. I took this minutes after my ram went down. I'm waiting to see if he will emerge and I'll need a second shot. The white spot is two other rams that were waiting for marching orders from the alpha. Rams will form up in small bands, they spar over who is the baddest, then he calls the shots. If he doesn't like a situation, he leaves, and the others follow. When the patriarch is taken out, they will linger a while in confusion. This can be bad(for them) if there is another legal ram in the group.

Both of us with our caped out rams. This was taken from our campsite on our 2nd and 3rd nights.

This is the creek we had to hike out of. It's never real steep, but nearly every step has the potential to break or wrench your ankle, and it's 3 miles long. Then you have to walk through the woods. That has pitfalls of its own, but not nearly as bad or as long as the creek.

Sheep Hunt

Usually, I post in order occurrence, but I was so tired I just posted the finale for this hunt. This is my buddy Eric with me here. We field dressed and deboned the ram out right here. It had fallen about 200 ft down the side of the mountain to this point. So taking pretty, tasteful pictures just wasn't going to happen. It doesn't look bad but this is very steep, and while we were working, the rocks kept trying to slide out from under us.

This photo gives you an idea of what we had to climb out of with about 60 lbs a piece on our backs.

These packs are worth their weight in gold, and for a reason. This is meat, cape and horns.

The mountains in the background are the range I hunted last year. It rained most of the time we were here, threatened us but never poured on us. That would have made things much more difficult.

Kenai Float

I had an opportunity to do a float trip on the Kenai for some salmon. We didn't bring any fish home, but it was beautiful. For those of you who have visited us. This is just down stream from the bridge over the Kenai lake.

Look at that water!

Hope for Pinks

We went to hope for some pink salmon and found some sunshine! We also got into some pinks. The creek wasn't over run with salmon, but they were there. Here, you can see Colt, Chase and then Cathy. Colt did great! He caught lots of fish. Megan and Justice were here too. Meg caught some fish and Justice played in the mud.

Colt fished form the time we got there until we left. He loved it.

This is the only fish picture that came out clear. It's a silver! Awesome. It was the first fish caught and a huge bonus.