Fishin with the boys

Tanalian Mountain

Last Tuesday we had what may likely prove to be the last amazing great weather day of the Fall...in the mid to upper sixties and cloudless skies - the 10 day forecast following that looked gray and wet for its duration.  Accordingly, we planned a school trip...hiking up Tanalian mountain.  Sarah would be carrying Abram, and I would be carrying Warren, so this time, they got to go with us. :)  It was a glorious day!!


Much of the trail is in the trees, with limited views until you start getting up higher...but the scenery is still nice. It will be awesome to see when the leaves really start changing for Fall...

A Warren selfie on the way up :)


And Abram fell ASLEEP on the way up!..hah!


At long last we popped out of the trees...


Up, up, up...


Sarah pausing to take it all in...

And then it was on to the top

Good to be back in the alpine again :)


Blueberries!!! Yummmm. That's Port Alsworth down there!


The brothers stop for lunch


Happy times with mom


Still not done yet..


Huddled up at the USGS marker


Some panos:






Group shot :)


More blueberries


Dall Sheep tracks!


W pondering life :)

Checking out Kontrashibuna lake...

The 4-H club set out on a hike to Kontrashibuna lake recently, and though it held a lot of unexpected twists and turns, it was one of those trip sthat makes you glad you went in the end. :) First of all, we realized the crock pot with dinner simmering away was left on HIGH instead of low, when we were about halfway through the first leg of our journey to the lake, which goes by way of the Tanalian river falls. I turned around and hiked back to the house to turn it down while S and the boys went onward to the falls to wait...what's adding a couple more miles to a good hike, anyway, right? So then, I made it back to the falls and found them, where we got some pics:









Despite the eariler setback, we decided to continue on and hoof it to the lake anyway. The boys enjoyed their time out of the backpacks...


It was then that things got a little crazy. First I dumped Abie over in his pack, causing him to receive some scratches on his head and cheek. Then, when we got to the lake, Warren and I got attacked by an angry swarm of yellow jackets while I was carrying him piggyback to a better fishing vantage point....sheesh!! What a misadventure... Despite both of us being on the receiving end of multiple stings he worse than I :( we still stayed long enough to catch a couple lake trout. Though it was super sweet to catch lakers from shore - (in an outlet/river, no less) for Sarah and I, we didn't have long before we had to head back. We only snapped a couple pics before turning around and cutting our losses. Here's the gorgeous paintjob on one of the lakers:


And you can see the hurt on W's face in this pic - not his normal "Fishy smile" due to the stings he was coping with. Poor guy! Next time we get to the lake we'll have to get more pics...was another beautiful place that we will surely see again...

And the path has been set...

Well, it is fall 2015 now, and we finally landed in Port Alsworth in August.  The school year is well under way, and things have settled in enough to where I found the time to post a little something.  This place is amazing!!!  For those of you that didn't know already, it is the headquarters for the Lake Clark National Park.  It is the home of volcanoes, glaciers, spectacular mountains, - it could be considered ground zero for the best fishing in Alaska - nearly every species of Alaskan mammal can be found within the Park limits (including marine species)...the list goes on.  And now we get to call this place home.  So in the beginning (first month or so) of exploring this incredible place, we have gotten a taste of the fishing, we got to go on an incredible hike with the entire high school, and generally have experienced profound change in many ways from what we experienced on the lower Yukon.  To get started, here are some pics from our "fly-through" one day visit back during this past spring.  It was quite an introduction...



And now to more posts... :)