John, Eric and I went to clear creek for three days to try our luck (not the good kind) at king salmon fishing and bear hunting. This is what the foliage looked like near the creek. This is no trick photography, John's nearly six feet tall and he is standing up. When we first got there this was a little more than intimidating. Occasionally we'd find places where bear had been through it. As you walk towards the woods, the ferns stopped growing. You just had to get through them, it brought memories of dinosaur movies.
Not all of our luck was bad, Eric spent most of his time after kings. This wasn't his biggest, it probably weighs about 40-50 lbs. He was like a kid in a candy store. On the bank behind his left shoulder is the closest we came to getting a bear. We were walking down the trail near the creek and there were 4 brown bears in the trail ahead of us. By the time we got there, they were in the woods and gone. So close, and yet...
This is a visitor to our camp. It's a Bald Eagle eating on a king carcass. There were quite a few eagles around. I can watch them all day.
This is our camp site. That's the stump in the background by where the eagle was standing. John and I are making dinner, that's a king fillet in the foil. The bottle is a dessert wine that John and I found while we were hunting for bears (not wine). It was laying in a stream with the cork and foil cap still in place. So we decided to try it out. It was good, so we decided to cook some fish in it. And it was GOOD! Eric brought the foil, some butter and seasoning, John caught the fish and I found the wine. There is no "I" in team! Yes we made the bench we're sitting on. No, it's not as comfortable as it looks. The log on the side was pretty nice. It was rotten and was pretty soft.
All in all we had a pretty good time. This was probably our last time out with John. He's moving south next month. He'll be missed.
