Life on wheels and the quest for a bear

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As we are heading off to the internet café to post this entry we received news of the terrible bombings in London. This is really disturbing news. We hope that you and all your loved ones are safe and unhurt.

We also hear that the Olympics has been awarded to London, well done on that!

Picking off from where we last left you, we met Carl’s parents in Anchorage,they had been to see the big trees in Yosemite California. The next morning we started with a good breakfast at Gwenie’s Great Alaskan Restaurant where they serve Reindeer sausage, grits, biscuits and coffee comes by the thermos. We were then all picked up by Great Alaskan Holidays in their red van to go and get what would be our mobile home for the next 12 days. Before we could drive away in our 29ft Winnebago Chalet RV (mobile home) we had to watch a 4 minute safety video which turned out to be a 45 minute instruction video on how to drive and operate your RV. Do not put gas in the water tank, do not put water in the gas tank, dealing with a 10 ft rear overhang when manoeuvring, making sure the vehicle is level so the fridge won’t break, how to dump the sewage(black water) and other water (grey water) and many other interesting things.

We were almost ready to start on our adventure into the unknown, all that was needed was to stock up with food and other sundries, not forgetting the wine and beer. We found the US supermarket experience somewhat overwhelming at times with the enormous range of brands and different products. With 4 shoppers, all with different ideas of what we should be eating, it’s remarkable that we managed to only end up with duplications on bottled tomato sauces.

All stocked up and no real plan; except that everyone (excluding Nicky) was supposed to be fishing the next day somewhere outside Anchorage, with a guy called Norm. We left the city limits and headed North towards the river we thought we were going to be fishing on. On route we saw our first and second moose, which we assumed to be females as they had no antlers.

Fishing with Norm was just a series of disasters, and if the run up to the charter was anything to go by we should have pulled out then and there. Carl tried to contact him several times on our trip with no luck (He was still fishing!). Finally Carl reached him when we had reached at a town called Willow (Willow is a one building town and was once the subject of a referendum for moving the capital from Juneau. Everyone wanted to move it to one of the two biggest cities in Alaska, Anchorage or Fairbanks, they couldn’t decide which so the politicians compromised on Willow as it is exactly half way between the two. Unsurprisingly the vote was a no.) and found out we had to go back almost 50 miles!

Eventually we arrived at Little Susitna State Campsite, rather shaken from the rocky road, which had caused the whole vehicle and its contents to reverberate with such force. This experience behind us, we decided to rule out travel on any dust roads for the rest of the trip. Safely parked in our spot we discovered that the camp was teaming with mosquitoes. It was liker a miniaturised version of “The Birds” with mosquitoes flying at our windows in a desperate attempt to get at us. Despite this, we enjoyed our first dinner, steak and mosquito burritos, in our new home.

04:45 the next morning the alarms went off for the intrepid fisherman to get out there and get some King Salmon, however, they were a little perturbed to discover it was pouring with rain. Nicky who had managed to ward off the Spitsbergen throat, had now come down with the dreaded cough and was definitely NOT going fishing.

When the party assembled Carl realised that although his parents had followed the get waterproof shoes and clothing instruction, their rain gear was well off the mark. With Nicky ill and a non-fisher, we were able to get Mom properly kitted out but Dad was definitely heading for a drenching. Surrounded by mosquitoes, who were not put off by the bucketing rain, we headed to the landing to find Kevin (Norm had suddenly decided to send someone else in his place). We asked around for Kevin and everyone was convinced that he had already left (oh if only it had been the case!). Hanging around, we were getting wetter and we were debating what to do, when Kevin appeared (he had been to drop off some other fishermen further up the river). After introductions, he told us that we would be going downstream as he had didn’t know upstream. Warning bells began ringing.

The rain had caused a massive swell in the river and the Little Su was no longer little, but a great muddy torrent. We headed off down the river in at high speed in a flat bottomed boat and Dad was already starting to shiver. After a wet and twisty ride of about 30 minutes we came to a spot where we would start fishing. We would be back trolling for king salmon. This involves letting out 25 feet of line with a brightly coloured diving lure on the end. You then hold your rod until something bites at which point you give it a good pull. Mom was fishing with a type of lure which, Kevin had told us he had never had any luck with but insisted she use anyway.

While we were being rapidly soaked, bouncing up and down on the muddy current holding our rods with speedboats rushing by. Carl recalled his instructions to Norm: “I’d like to go somewhere remote and do some clear water fishing from the river bank.” The fishing experience we had, could not be any further away from our request than Johannesburg is from Hawaii. If you would like to simulate our experience: get a hotel room near a major highway, tie a small dumbbell to a string and attach the other end to a broomstick, place a chair in the shower and turn on the cold water. Now sit in the chair and hold the non-dumbbell side of the broomstick keeping the weight off the ground and stay there for 6 hours. For a truly authentic experience, you could play a tape of elk hunting stories in the background, read in a Wisconsin accent. Needless to say we didn’t catch anything, not even a bite. However, Kevin did assure us that all the other guides on the river were much better and more experienced than him. Worst 380 dollars ever spent.

Fishless and soaked through we headed into Wasilla town, having decided that Mom and Dad needed real raingear if they were going to survive the rest of the trip. Kitted in new raingear, we headed to Denali (big national park with Mt McKinley - the highest peak in the US). The rain had still not ceased and the low cloud meant that even when the rain stopped for short periods we still could not see much scenery. After a 200 mile journey that took a lot less time than expected (the roads in the Last Frontier are very good) we arrived at Denali Grizzly Park where we did our first sewage dump. Nicky read the manual while Carl and Dad executed the instructions issued and Mom supervised. The site also had mains electricity and water hook ups, so we set those up as well. The site was in amongst the trees so we performed our first tight docking of our newly acquired 29-foot Winnebago Chalet. According to the plan, we were meant to be eating freshly caught salmon but it was not to be so we had pasta instead.

The next day we went to Denali Park headquarters to find out what we could do in the area. They were predicting partly cloudy weather (i.e. not raining all day) for 2 days time so we decided that would be the day we would take a bus into the park to go see Mt McKinley and hopefully some wildlife. A very different National park system to what we are used to - you can drive to a certain point in your car, but beyond that if you want to travel further into the park you need to go on a bus (unless of course you have a specila permit). You can hike and camp almost anywhere in the park (there are certain areas that are closed to all visitors) and this is probably the best way to see it as the road system is limited to one road which does not even go half way into the park. But the bus is an experience and if you ever go and you only have one day, take it all the way to Wonder Lake.

That afternoon we went to see the sled dog demonstration, where they introduce you to all the sled dogs that help the rangers patrol the park in the winter. During the summer these dogs get a well-deserved rest and act as ambassadors to the park, talking to all the visitors. As you can imagine Nicola really enjoyed meeting all the dogs and insisted on taking a photo of every single one. No motorised vehicles are allowed in the wilderness areas of Denali so in winter dogs are the mode transportation for the park rangers. The Dogs really love running with their sled and even in their holiday they are desperate to get in front of the sled as we noticed when they were choosing the dogs for our sled demo. They all wanted to be chosen and were trying their best to be noticed, some jumped on the roofs of their kennels, some ran frantically in circles and the all of them made as much noise as possible.

The next day Nicky used to get some really good coughing practice in and the rest of us went on a the three lakes hike, where we saw some moose tracks and three lakes.

Our Denali Bus ride day finally arrived and we were up early, as we had chosen the 6:30 bus. The first 30 miles we saw 2 hares, lots of trees and several toilet stops. However the weather was starting to look good and the bus driver thought we might even be able to see the Mountain. After the first 30 miles the terrain becomes permafrost which is much clearer and we began to see wildlife, dalls sheep (white pixels on the mountainside) some caribou, a wolf’s ears (two triangles in the bush) and our first grizzly bears. Although we did not get that close to the bears it was pretty exciting and Nicola must have taken at least 30 photos before they disappeared. Eventually we rounded a bend from which Mt McKinley is sometimes visible and it was. Our partly cloudy day had turned into a cloudless day. That is one big mountain, over 6000m!! It was dressed in shades of pastel pink and blue as it loomed over everything. We took a lot of pictures (digital is so cool). Photo-shoot over, we continued on to Fish Creek where we got off.

Fish Creek was pretty non descript but was sited in the middle of a ground squirrel colony that we spent the next half hour trying to photograph. They are really cute and stand on their back legs when they stop to look at you (they are quite a lot like meercats or prairie dogs). Soon after we began hiking Nicola started coughing, soon she was coughing so much she could hardly stand let alone hike so we trekked back and waited for the next bus to come and take her back to our 29 foot Winnebago Chalet that was docked in the main parking lot. The casualty safely aboard the next bus, the rest of us set off on a hike which Mom felt was the highlight of the trip, it really was beautiful and we managed to scale quite a large peak to get a panoramic view of the park. On route Carl stalked a ground squirrel by army crawling through the grass to get the ground squirrel photo in you see in this posting.

That night after lengthy discussions as to which direction we should be heading, as we now knew that dust roads were out, we decided to go north to Fairbanks and make a big loop back towards Anchorage possibly detouring to Valdez.

While in Fairbanks we refuelled and decided to check our tires. We found there was no way we could actually reach the valve for the outer back wheel (we had double back wheels), we also found that one of the tyres was completely flat. We pumped the flat but there was no way we could get the outer wheels gauged. At every gas station we visited for the rest of the trip, we would try and get the outer wheels checked but none had the required attachment to enable us to do it. When we returned the RV and asked about this they insisted that every gas station has one, even though we had asked at least 10 different attendants to help us with no avail.

We also visited the Fairbanks museum where there was a very big stuffed bear that looked like an oversized teddy, and the Large Animal Research centre where we where shown Musk Ox and Caribou by a Japanese student called Yumi.

After restocking our supplies, and shamefully buying salmon, we decided that we had had enough of Fairbanks so we continued south to North Pole, a town that gets lots of mail in December. We took the off-ramp for North Pole, decided that it sucked and got straight back on the Highway, after trying another gas station, and carried on. For the first 100 miles or so it was pretty flat and boring but as we approached the Alaskan Range the scenery became so awe inspiring that we kept stopping every few miles to get out and take it in. It was a really great drive behind the wheel of the 29-foot Winnebago Chalet and we kept crossing the path of the Trans Alaska Pipeline. This pipeline carries heated oil from the top of Alaska to the port of Valdez in the south and is protected by the FBI.

That evening we rolled into what was probably our best Campsite and had probably our best meal. Braaied (Barbequed) Red Salmon with Sweet Potatoes and Salad. This was washed down with a couple Moosehead lagers and some wine. When we first arrived the mosquitoes quickly set about draining us of our blood. Nicola wore her special netting hat that covers her whole head that she picked up for £2 in the bargain bucket at Blacks. Once we got the fire going they seemed to clear off but Nicola kept wearing her hat, as she liked it so much.

Next morning after finding out about morel Mushrooms (look like sponges, taste like used socks smell, 80 dollars a pound dry) from our friendly neighbours, we set off to dump our waste. Carl went about kicking the tires to check the pressure when he found we had a flat tire on the inside of the double wheels at the back!

After diligent observation of the Great Alaskan Holidays instruction video - we knew that it was very bad to drive on one flat as it will put too much pressure on the other one in the set and could cause injury or death. The manual had the following instruction under changing a tyre “changing tyres is strenuous and should be done by a professional,” that was it, very helpful when you are in the middle of nowhere with no phone. So after searching high and low for the jack and wheel spanner Dad and Carl started on the strenuous task. The mosquitoes recognised our moment of weakness and clearly liked Carl’s red shirt. After Carl had been bitten numerous times through his clothing to the point where it stopped itching and began stinging we decided that we needed to burn some mosquito coils. Nicola and Mal wafted the smoke around, like incense at a church ceremony, while the men strained to dig a hole under the wheels, as the jack was too short. One professional tire change later, the score was: mosquitoes 40, Marais 5.

After a long but scenic drive of about 400 miles we pulled into our planned RV Park on the Kenai Peninsula. To our horror it was a parking lot, stripped of all vegetation with RV’s shoulder to shoulder. These type of parks seem to be the most popular with the Americans and are always full while the beautiful state run ones with space and scenery but slightly fewer facilities almost always have space. We decided to go in search of one of these. If you are lucky the State park has a tap for drinking water and a dump station. We were not so lucky this night as the park we chose had a parking spot, some long drops and a hand water pump. While Nicola guarded our camping spot, the other 3 went off to fill the RV with water, as we were all desperate for a shower. Despite having to use a hand pump, every pot in the RV and the top of an Evian bottle as a funnel, we managed to get it full.

In the morning it was on the road again, destination Seward. After a couple of nights with no water connections, we were in dire need of a proper hook up for the night, both black and grey water were nearing full. The first park we came to was one of those car park style RV parks so we gave it skip. Our last option was Smokey creek RV Park; this also turned out to be a shoulder-to-shoulder affair but they had a nice green bank and we got a corner spot with gave a lot of privacy. It had a fireplace for each site, a laundry and very slow Internet and was what they call a dry camp, no vegetation and all the ground covered in stone. Dry camps although ugly do have one huge advantage - fewer mosquitoes!

Once we had sorted out our spot, we headed towards the town of Seward to see what was there and to investigate kayaking and fishing trips. The kayaking people sold us a trip that include a long boat trip with some sight seeing at the glaciers, before a paddle round the lagoons in one of the inlets further down the coast. Although it was rather expensive we decided to go for it, as it sounded really cool. The rest of the afternoon was spent walking Seward flat and looking for another Salmon fishing trip, so the disappointed fishermen could have another chance (hopefully in better conditions). We saw the Halibut Sport fishing boats come in with 4 guys catching a huge amount of fish - definitely more than they could consume. (See Photo).

With no success on the fishing charter front (everyone was doing sea fishing and the river charters were all still out fishing) we headed for our RV park. Dropping the ladies off to start the fire, Carl and Louis took the RV back into town, as the phone at the campsite did not work for non-local numbers, their mission to find a fishing guide for the next day. Eventually they returned successful with a half-day trip for the next afternoon ending just in time for dinner.

Still coughing Nicky decided that it was time to find a doctor as she was still not getting better and was absolutely exhausted from coughing all the time. The only Doctor in Seward open on a Saturday was the Emergency Ward at the hospital. We were in for a long wait. The diagnosis was Bronchitis and antibiotics were prescribed. Carl decided he wanted some too as he also had still not shaken his cough. We made it out of the hospital just in time to make the fishing trip.

The second fishing trip was much more successful. We organised to meet a guy called Jason who turned out to be called Mike. He took us down the cloudy blue Kenai River to where it meets the crystal clear Russian river. Again the myth of the wild Alaska was dispelled as hundreds of people were already there. Here it is called “combat fishing” as everybody is so close together that everyone keeps getting entangled and this can end up in fights. We even had heard a plea on the radio for the local fishermen to behave themselves as there are tourists out there and they should not set a bad example of the state. Mike showed us a technique known colloquially as the “Alaskan Force-feed”. The Salmon aren’t feeding so you have to hook them yourself. The technique uses a short length of line on a fly rod, a bit of lead shot and hook wrapped in darn to make it float. You flick the line out 90 degrees to the current, let it drift round and then yank it horizontally to get the hook to travel just above the bottom of the river. We managed to land two Salmon although we had many more that got away. It was absolutely astounding how hard the fish pulled when you caught them and they used the current to their full advantage. That night we gorged ourselves on braaied sockeye salmon, hmm hmm hmm. Carl slept well that night knowing he had at last achieved a major goal for the trip.

Up Early the next day for kayaking trip - which turned out to be more of a private boat trip (which was very cool - but not what we expected). Our Water taxi was owned and driven by a very cool guy called Andy and we were the only people on board. As we sped out into the bay we were on the lookout for wildlife. After seeing Bald Eagles, Sea otters, and humpback whales, we headed out to where Nicola had seen a whole lot of splashing and tail flapping. There was a pair of Humpbacks breaching and we watched them for ages with Nicola enjoying the motor drive function in her camera immensely (taking batches of 5 pictures every time the great beasts launched themselves into the air). Dad was very upset as he had brought the wrong camera and only got the splashes due to his camera’s delay. Andy took us right up to the glacier (well within 0.5 mile - which was as close as you can go for safety reasons). We listened to the creaking and bangs of the ice dropping off into the sea.

Once we had our fill of glacier sounds, we moved on to our drop off spot for the kayaking leg of journey. We were placed on the beach and had a short walk through the forest to where the kayaks were hidden. Before we could move from the beach we had to wait for a black bear to move out of our intended path. Once he saw us he rapidly disappeared off into the trees. Once we had carried the boats down to the shore Mom and Dad had a brief paddling lesson and we were pushed into the lake. It was very picturesque with mountains and a glacier as a backdrop; unfortunately as it was low tide we were unable to get out of the lower lagoon, so the paddling was very limited.

We stopped for lunch and paddled slowly back to our launch spot. As we did a black bear came out of the bushes onto the beach (Of course Nicola had the wrong lens on and there was much fussing as she tried to get it changed before he disappeared again.) After packing away the kayaks we started walking back to our pick up point and the bear we had seen earlier appeared on the ridge just ahead of us, but before we could even get a shot (Camera shot) the guides starting shouting and frightened him away. It is a very different wildlife experience to the one we are used to in South Africa, here you will rarely get close to an animal and if you do and it’s a bear - you MUST frighten it away.

The boat ride back was more cramped as another group had been picked up from an overnight trip. After seeing some sea lions, we went on a puffin photo mission and Andy was trying to get as close as possible to the puffins as Nicola wanted a good Puffin Photo. They only want to come close when you do not have a camera!!

The next day it was off to see another glacier with the possibility of hiking to the ice field. We walked up to the front of Exit glacier but any thought of hiking was drowned out by Nicola’s persistent coughing so we decided to visit the Sea Life centre in Seward. Here was the chance for Puffin photos - they have a Puffin breeding programme and an enclosure with puffins and other seabirds, we watched them for ages as the played in the water and dived down (you could see them diving through the glass walls of the tank). Again we took a lot of photos.

Our third stop of the day was the Alaskan wildlife conservation centre, which rescued abandoned or sick animals. There were elk, moose, bears (brown and black), deer, a porcupine and 3 baby moose. It was interesting to see the animals close up but it was sad to see them in enclosures instead of running free.

That evening we spent at a State campsite very close to the Turnagain Bay which we read has a 30 ft tidal variance which causes a six foot bore tide two and hours after low tide. We decided to go and have a look, as the timing was right. After waiting for 45 minutes and nearly giving up Dad heard and then spotted the wave. Rather than 6 feet it was closer to six inches as it moved slowly up the bay. Well we can at least say we have seen a boring bore tide and we got some nice photos of the Alaskan Railway passing by the spot we had chosen to watch from.

The next morning we dropped off our RV and flew to Kodiak Island. It was raining when we landed in Kodiak and we were met by a pickup truck who drove us all of 500m down the road to our seaplane taxi. After being weighed along with our luggage we got onto a brightly coloured seaplane for our trip to Aleut Island, where we to spend the next 3 days looking for Kodiak bears.

It was a pretty noisy trip but the landing was pretty cool. Wheels tucked in the plane skimmed on the water and became a boat; we could feel the water sloshing against the belly (or hull) the 2 little pontoons sticking under the wings became floats to keep us upright. Right at the end the water came right up over the cockpit so that it almost seemed as if we were heading underwater. We taxied towards the shore and the plane dropped its landing gear so it could ride right up beach where met on the beach by Brigit and Harry Dodge and the 2 other guests Jeff and Samine. Much to Nicola’s delight as we walked up the hill with our bags we ran into the third member of the Dodge household, Rueben the black Labrador.

After a delicious lunch we were piled onto the skiff and whisked out to the other side of the inlet where we hiked up the beach and up the creek looking for bears. We saw many bears but none that you could make out with the naked eye as many bears were feeding on the new grass growing on the very tops of the mountains 700m above us. We hiked and boated back in time for a late dinner and bed. No bathing for us tonight as we had to get up early the next day to make the tides.

The next day we hiked and paused to fish and look for bears all the way to a beautiful waterfall, where we had to clamber uphill through Salmon Berry bushes for some time. The scratches and bruises from the Salmon Berry bushes on the climb up, were rewarded with almost ripe Salmon berries that we were able to eat on the way.

Minus one lens cap we reached the top to have a well-deserved rest and hunt for the few sun ripened Salmon berries. We discovered that not only did Rueben like cheese, and left over lunch crusts but also had a passion for Salmon berries. Brigit had called Rueben - “Rueben the recycling hound” and he does recycle all the left-overs and also knows how to shut the door so as to not let the heat out.

Despite it being a little on the hot side, no fish, a broken Orvis Fly rod and no close bear encounters, we had a really enjoyable day. On the boat to go home, Rueben as usual trying to steak peoples seats when anyone stood up, Nicola spotted a bear on the grass bank just on the beach. It was a sow with 2 cubs and we could see them clearly through the binoculars. Unfortunately they heard our engine and ran away before we could get closer.

Dinner and a Banja were waiting us back at the lodge. Banja is quite a unique bathing experience, it was like a sauna with a big wood stove heating the hot water, you had a big metal tub which you stood in and poured water over yourself while in the warm sauna environment. You could spend ages in there and it was really invigorating.

The next morning we got to sleep in and then after breakfast had a kayak round the island. As Samine and Jeff had to leave that afternoon they could not join us for our final bear spotting expedition. We tried another creek this time and instead of hiking walked up a hill, which looked over a large flat plain of reeds. Almost immediately we saw a bear lumbering in our direction from the far side of the bay - he stopped to eat grass and disappeared out of site for long periods of time but still looked like he was going to get quite close, and then for no apparent reason he turned around and returned to whence he came. Disappointed and warm in the sun we all soon fell asleep, including Rueben who after ruffling around in the bushes found himself a shady spot to nap. After what seemed like an eternity we decided to call it a day and headed back to the beach and our boat, always scanning the shoreline for bears. In the boat chief bear spotter Nicola was on patrol and found a bear on the beach -but he also ran into the woods when he heard the engine. We were getting desperate, running out of land and time to see bears, as we rounded the last bay low and behold a bear!! This one had not seen us, Harry pulled the boat on to the beach and we all got off and followed Harry and Rueben through the vegetation. We reached a point where we could see him and stopped and watched. It was a big Male Bear. He started coming towards us, Harry prepared us to move back into the bushes if he did, but at the last minute he saw us and went into the bushes himself.

It amazes us that such a huge and powerful animal can be so frightened by humans. He could take us out with one swipe of a paw. It seems that we have become top predator with our guns and all the hunting that takes place has made the bears wary of humans. They hunt bears in the National Park in Kodiak and most other areas of Alaska and no area on Kodiak is protected from hunting. It’s surprising how many people get “attacked” by trophy-sized bears and have to shoot them. We wondered if the bears were not hunted would they run away so quickly? Is there a better way to strike balance between the wildlife tourists and hunters? Even in the so-called “Last Frontier” there is not enough land to give at least some of the bears and other animals protection form hunting. It is clearly a bit of an embarrassment as they have taken to calling it “Harvesting”. You don’t harvest something you can’t eat.

During our time in Alaska, we witnessed a wasteful obsession with hunting and fishing among the people we encountered. People would catch huge quantities of fish and only take the fillets, throwing the rest away. At airports and transport hubs we saw huge boxes of fish making their way to other states, one guy had 450 pounds of salmon fillets and a similar amount of halibut. Every man worth his own was a hunter and there were guns everywhere, even the fishermen carried guns. Signs we saw said: “No shooting from the Bridge”, “no shooting from road for next 5 miles”. We encountered individuals who even took joy in hunting prairie dogs, just blowing their heads off when they poked out their heads out their holes. Though we were sometimes misled into a false sense of familiarity by the fact that they speak the same language, on the whole the country was strangely foreign.

From Aleut Island we got a different type of floatplane with pontoons where the wheels should be. We were very happy to see it land in our bay as it was raining and there was a chance we could be marooned until the rain subsided. We made it back to Kodiak where we had a really cool landing in a lake in the middle of town. After that we were on to Anchorage where we said goodbye to Carl’s parents. Three additional flights later we arrived in Belize, where we sit now in our air-conditioned budget room trying to avoid the heat and finish this blog.

In summary Alaska is a beautiful and interesting place to visit but no where near as wild as the literature makes it out to be, the wildlife encounters were somewhat disappointing, maybe South Africa has spoilt us a bit too much, however we do know the answer to: “Does the bear s**t in the woods?”

We have met up with Bob and Don (Or is it Don and Bob?) and are currently staying in Caye Caulker man.

More on Belize to come in the next chapter in about three weeks time man.

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Photos

Walrus
Carl seems to be a Walrus magnet and managed to find a walrus our second day in Alaska.

RV
Our home on wheels

Moose
Female moose? Maybe not - apparently they all lose their antlers at this time of year.

Dogs
The lucky dogs who got chosen for our Dog Sled Demo.

Denali View
View over Denali's Fish Creek

Denali Peak
We were very lucky to see the mountain, it has a 70% change of being coverd in cloud.

The First Dump
All hands on deck for the first Dump.

Ground Squirrel
After many shots we decided that this was the cutest.

Hike
The brave hikers in Denali - they even saw a bear!

Big Bear
This bear was 8 ft 9 inches tall. He was in Fairbanks Museum.

Fishing
Carl trys out his fly rod.

Mosquito Net hat
A very handy item for Nicola's phobia of insects buzzing in her face.

Halibut
All these fish were caught by 4 men in one day.

Combat Fishing
To give you an idea of how many people were in that river

Fish at Last
Carl and Mal caught our dinner.

Our Fishing Guide
Mike lived and breathed fishing.

Seward Docks
We liked this photo, so we thought we would share it with you

Boat Trip
View from our water taxi

Lagoon
We Kayaked on this lagoon.

Black Bear
Seconds before the guides frightened him away I managed to get a shot of his silhouette.

Sealions
Andy stopped our watertaxi by this colony for a good look.

Puffin
Obessed about getting a good puffin shot - I had to resort to the Sealife centre where they did not fly away.

Rueben
Making sure he got the best seat on the boat as usual.

Hike Kodiak
After fighting through Salmon Berry bushes we reached the waterfall viewpoint.

Salmon Berry
FYI

Rest Break
Carl and Rueben had the same idea - time for 20 winks.

Harry
Led us on our bear viewing expeditions, always scanning the surroundings for evidence of bears.

Bear at last!
At the 11th hour we managed to stalk a bear and get this shot.

Seaplane
landing on the lake in Kodiak

Comments

[Brendonus Maccus Lean]

Please don't delete this comment!
Howzit matey, It seems that as a couple, you have have truly managed to merge into an indistingiushable amalgam of Carl and Nicky persona. The writing betrays a strong base of Carlos with a hearty helping of Nicola. I suggest a psuedonym for you writing. Pehaps Nicarla? Anyway, I must go. I've got meself a broom, a piece of string and a dumbell and I have an appointment with my shower...

[Emperor Bob]

From the outside looking in
Thank you for your perspective. It's always interesting to hear how others see us. It's a shame you didn't have the opportunitity to meet other Alaskans that may have shared your ideals. EmperorBob http://youranchorageradio.com