Walk in the Park

Landon and I took Dino for a walk in the rain the other day, just around the local trails from the house. We walked for about 3miles and Dino got to spend that whole time running around off the leash, jumping in the water, and continually running off in front of us and disappearing for a minute, only to quietly reappear looking down on us from some direction we didn't expect. They both seemed to have alot of fun. Dino went to the vet and got "fixed" yesterday, but it hasn't seemed to phase him as he's been running around like usual all over the yard today. Been rainy the last few days, but still relatively warm (relative to last year anyway).

Carving a Pumpkin

It may be 3 weeks away, but we decided to go ahead and carve the pumpkin for Halloween. This year's ghost design was a little easier than last year's spider. Landon picked it out and helped a little, while Grayson walked around with an old pirate hat on, and eventually got Pappy to wear the hat for a picture. Today is Landon's and Pappy's birthday - we'll post the pics from their birthday tomorrow. We're on our third straight day of rain, with three more days forecast. Wanted to get out today and take Pappy on a bear hunt for his birthday, but the rain may put a hold on that.

Full Freezers

Jolene's moose meat came back from the processor today. So, with our smaller freezer full of halibut and salmon, and the large freezer full of moose, we're ready for winter. Took Dino for a walk to the creek today, and he broke his leash in two....he's probably the strongest dog I've ever dealt with, even though he's not 5 months old yet. He's going to be a handful when he's grown.

Haul Road pt. 2

We were nearly blinded by the light of the ~24 inches of snow across the tundra. Sunglasses and sunscreen were a must (even at below zero temps, I got a sunburn!!). We hunted with many layers of clothes on covered by white snow camouflage suits on the outside, and I wore Bunny Boots which kept my feet toasty. All our water froze, of course, but our little propane burner worked in the cold temps and helped to feed us some warm Mountain House meals. I took some Snickers and other snacks, but they were too frozen to even try and eat! We had fun stalking caribou across a frozen and snow covered tundra, but the snow really hampered our efforts to stalk. Snowshoes would have helped, but we didn't bring any. We took enough gas to get us up there and back from Coldfoot (the last outpost on the way up), as you can see in the first picture. As always, the truck took a beating from the Haul Road....it'll need some TLC and a air and fuel filter before it's fit for normal duty again. One of the pics shows us with the pipeline in the background near the Yukon crossing, and another of us crossing the wood bridge over the Yukon River, and of course we had to stop and take a pic of the famous Skinny Dick's Halfway Inn outstide of Fairbanks, just for laughs. One of these days I'll bring home a caribou from the Haul Road, but for now I'm still learning the lessons of how to survive on those trips with a little hunting thrown in here and there.

Haul Road Trip

Pappy and I made a trip up the "Haul Road", aka Dalton Highway that leads up the the Arctic Ocean on Prudhoe Bay. You can hunt caribou off the road system there by bow/arrow only due to the proximity of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. Unfortunately we encountered an "Arctic" blast of cold air - with daytime highs around 9 degrees, and night-time lows well below zero, which cut our trip short. We did see a few days of sunny (albeit cold) weather that allowed us to each get about 70 yards away from trophy bulls, but neither of us are willing to take a 70 yard shot, so we had to watch them go by. Several attempts at stalking got us to about 70 yards, but no closer. I saw and stalked more bulls this trip than last year, and got much closer to taking a trophy. Last year's hunt was in August, and was too hot. This year's late Septbember hunt was too cold (with about 2 feet of snow on the ground), so I'd say early September needs to be the time to go on future Haul Road hunts. Took pictures of the Ptarmigan (white grouse-like birds) and musk ox, and one of a huge piece of machinery headed up the road, but didn't get any pics of the caribou since we were busy trying to stalk the ones we could see. We slept in the truck in the crew cab - which made for a cramped living space, but the weather was too unforgiving to attempt the tent. Pappy got the see the Northern Lights, and all in all we had a great time. The drive up was icy (it's a 24 hour drive from home), but we made it ok. Pics of the drive on the way home on the next post.