No rested for the wicked? no..no rest for alaskans, that's it. Once we got back from kodiak we headed to the remote copper river to dipnet for our subsistence salmon. Nate's holding the net and scott has it on a rope to fight the current.
Kristen's dad holding up a beaut.
Just a quick stop for 13 salmon then back to Wasilla.
We picked up G-ma, uncle tom and Carol and took a hike in Hacther's pass.
Good company, fresh fish, and wine! We took this one in honor of Nate's parents who were there with us in spirit.
The whole gang at Eklutna Lake.
13 Salmon is nice and all but it mostly went home with family so...suicide run back to the copper. Who needs sleep when there's fish to be caught!
Nate and Jay rigging up nets at 3am for the 7 mile ride to our secret spot.
Scooping up copper river reds!
After being awake 36 hours even sharp rocks next to a treacherous river make for a nice napping spot.
Not even half of our catch!
The aftermath of no sleep (except for said nap) and biking out with 100 pounds of fish.
No rest for Alaskans, as soon as the fish were cleaned and frozen it was back out to Pioneer peak with good friends.
Lucy loves a good hike.
The fireweed in full bloom.
Eklutna glacier in the background.
The scariest part was trying to keep lucy from chasing ptarmigan over a cliff. It was a constant battle.
The very next day Nate got a job offer to work with an environmental consulting firm on the North slope in the BP oil fields which he could not pass up.
On the very rare sunny days, the arctic sea ice makes a very intense mirage seen above.
I thought the juxtaposition of wildlife and industry was very neat.
Look at all the fish. Our job was to empty our nets, identify, count and measure and then let go all these fish. We recorded 40,000 fish just in the short time I was there.
Sue the seal would often show up to catch the fish we threw back.
Another cool photo of wildlife and industry.
A snowy owl, pretty rare.
Oh and there were polar bears. We had to keep an eye out all the time, not at the land but out at the ocean. Polar bears are excellent swimmers swimming 60 miles from the ice to shore, and they are excellent hunters. They are the only 100% carnivorous bear. We had one close call that had us sprinting through the water to get to our truck.
Sand hill crane and baby.
The brooks range a few hundred miles away.
Nate's back home, it's raining all the time and we're hunkering down for winter. It seems not long ago we were skiing and already we're counting down the days until it snows again. Tootles!
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