Humpy's out of Hope

We decided to try our luck at the pink salmon in Hope, and it turned out to be one of the best family day trips we've had. To start with, look at the weather and view we were blessed with. Incredible. Hope is about 2 hrs from Anchorage. We're looking north-west in this picture and Anchorage is just over the end of the mountains in the distance. The creek is Resurection Creek. The big body of water in front of the mountains is Turnagain Arm.

This is the view up stream. Meg's got a snag and Colt is about to snag his brother, but he didn't. We had a black bear come out and snoop around the cleaning tables that are just out of this picture. They are behind the person farthest up stream. It sniffed around the tables for a while then carried a plastic bag off that someone had left on the table.

Colt is holding up his third fish here. I helped him with his first two fish so he'd get the hang of flippin'. He caught this one completely on his own to "limit out". He would not give up. He was shaking from being so cold, I tried to get him to take a break and warm up. He wouldn't do it, he was having fun and he wanted to catch that last fish. I was so happy for him, and proud.

Meg was a sort of veteran at flipping. She learned last year on the Russian, but she had a hard time here with the snags-rocks. She still did her part in filling the freezer.
Justice was opposed at first to hurting the fish. I told him we couldn't eat them unless we hurt them. He quickly got over that and wanted to string 'em all up. This one, being a fair hook, went on the stringer. When we got home at 0120 a.m., he woke up just enough to tell his mama, "I like going fishing", then he went back to sleep in her arms.
On the drive home, I had to pull over for another picture. We're about 6 miles from hope, 2 hrs from home. The truck heater was on high to thaw our bones, it got cold when the sun went below the mountains. The water here is the Turnagain Arm again. The mountains are the beloved Chugach. The flowers are Fireweed.

The one thing missing in these pictures is Chase. He was in Canada on a 300+ mile canoe trip down the Yukon. That's canoe miles! We missed him, but know he was on an unforgettable journey. I stated earlier that we got home at around 0120. My neighbor told me we had a brown bear in our drive way at midnight. Just missed it. And I still had fish to clean. Ah Alaska...