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Picture Of The Month



SD2OR with a trophy fall walleye

Topic: Seward, Ak and Denali  (Read 5663 times)

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polepole

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I was up in Seward, AK last week right before the 4th.  Went out on a 3 day kayak camping trip.  I was gong to post on the trip, but I uploaded the pics before heading down to San Jose and my disk crashed.  I have a loaner laptop now, but don't have the pics.  Anyway, thought I'd start a report before it go too old.  Hopefully, I'll get access to the pics again soon.

We went out with Chris Mautino of liquid-adventures.com.  He was one of the guys on the salmon shark trip last year. We took a water taxi over to Aialik Bay.  On the way over we had a nice showing of humpbacks including one coming up and spraying those of us on the bow when it let go an exhale.  We finally reached out destination and had a nice lunch on the beach before starting the paddling.  I think we covered 8-10 miles that day. I was trolling a spoon the whole time hoping for an early silver.  I had one hit, but it was not to be.  We stopped on the water a couple times for a break and I dropped an iron down.  I caught a few rockfish and greenling during those 5 minute stops.  Kept 1 5# black for dinner.

We stopped at Quicksand Cove for the night.  Set up camp, then basked in the sun on the beach.  We got lucky with the weather.  Seward still has a ton of snow in the hills and they've gotten a lot of rain this summer.  We hit the first good spell of sun this summer and it staid sunny the whole 3 days.  While we were setting there we asked Chris about the bears.  He started to say that they should be out soon and as if on cue, one appeared on the hill just above us.  Later we walked down the beach and up a stream.  Right here was a black bear feeding the the field and another in the stand of deadwood on the other side.  Yup, there were a lot of bear in around us.

The next morning we got up ad while waiting for breakfast we spotted whales in the distance.  There were a  lot of blows and we guessed it was a pod of killer whales.   Later that morning we packed up and header to the next bay over which had Holgate glacier at the head of it.  We rounded the corner then saw the killer whales in the distance, traveling towards us.  Soon they were all around us.  We had one big male come up 75 feet in front of us and just sit there on the surface.  His eye was just above the water and he was watching us.  Part of the pod was off to our left approaching us and the big male was just watching us as they dove down, apparently swam under us, and re-appeared on our right.  The big male watched us this whole time as if to say, "stay put", until the rest were on the other side, at which point he joined them.  One of the other whales started tail slapping the water.  Too cool.  Eventually they moved on and we continued on.  Stopped for lunch then headed up the glacier.  The glacier was quite active and calving icebergs off.  We paddled amongst the iceberg before turning around and heading to camp for the nice.  We covered about 12 miles that day.

The next day we had another 8-9 miles of paddling to Pederson Glacier.  We went up into Pederson Lagoon which was filled with icebergs.  Had lunch there then paddled a slalom course through the icebergs.  Soon it was time to leave and we headed to the pickup point.  Right before the pickup we spotted a humpback on the water.  A nice ending to great trip.

After getting back to Seward we spent the night there then headed up to Denali. The good weather was still with us (rained the day we were driving up then sunny the rest of the time).  We had the good fortune of seeing The Mountain, as well as the usual host of animals ... bears, wolves, moose, caribou, sheep, and fox.  Great trip for sure.

I'll post some pics as soon as I have access to them again.

-Allen


YakontheFly

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Polepole,

  You have two days to get those picts up, or it will be another week...  I would like to see them before I flyout Saturday...  Otherwise I might have to believe this to be just another Fish Lie errr story.   >:D

YotF

   


polepole

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 :'( :'( :'(

Going through laptop hell right now.  My disk drive crashed on Friday night and I'm waiting for IT to recover the files.  Not sure what takes so long, but I'm told that I should have something today.  I do have the pics on a FLASH back in Seattle and I'm in San Jose until tomorrow.  So one way or the other I will get some pics up in the next couple days.

-Allen


polepole

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~5 pound black caught on the first day ... and eaten for dinner!

-Allen


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Sounds like a cool trip!  I haven't been to Alaska since 1997.  I really want to go back.  Caught a bunch of pinks on a fly in Prince Williams sound.  Also some sockeye in a creek I can't remember the name.  Went to Wonder Lake and got a good shot of Denali with the medium format camera (framed and on the wall).  Lots of bear, caribou, fox, moose, and Dall sheep. Lots of fly caught greyling.  Previous best trip after a lot of hard work was a nice view from the top of Denali in 1996 on July 10.

Mike


polepole

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PWS is an awesome place ... which is why I'm heading up there next week!!!

Climb Denali you say?  We're planning a summit attempt for 2010.  Probably my mid-life crisis.   :o

-Allen


polepole

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Our trip started with a 35 mile water taxi ride to Aialik Bay.  On the way there we ran across a small pod of killer whales.

-Allen


polepole

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We landed at Verdant Bay, had lunch, packed the yaks with all the gear and were on our way.  Our group consisted of Chris the guide, our friends Chris and Teresa in one double, and my gfriend and I in another.   Here's a shot of the landing at Verdant Bay.

-Allen


polepole

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After an 8-10 mile paddle we landed at Quicksand Cove.  I caught that rockfish as well as some other rockies and greenling along the way.  I trolled a spoon the whole way and had one good salmon hit.  Otherwise, every time we paused I dropped an iron and hooked up on the bottomfish.  Quicksand Cove had lots of bear around.  Here's one crossing an icefield just above camp (maybe 150 feet away).

-Allen


polepole

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The next day we were in for a 12-14 mile paddle up Holgate Arm to the glacier.  Here's a shot of the big bull orca watching us.

-Allen


polepole

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Some random paddling/scenery shots.

-Allen


polepole

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The next day was a 10-11 mile paddle to Pederson Glacier ... up into the lagoon below the glacier.  The upper lagoon was filled with icebergs.

-Allen


polepole

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Our trip continued up to Denali.  We stopped at Talkeetna for the night on the way up and did an ATV ride in the morning.

-Allen


polepole

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The weather continued to hold for us and we got great views of The Mountain.

-Allen


polepole

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Got some great wildlife viewing in.  Here's a couple shots ... first is a fox and second is a caribou.  The only disappointment was not seeing any grizzlies up close.  We did view one through a spotting scope way far away.  We also got a brief glimpse of a wolf.  It ran up and over a rise.  I got out of the car and tried to follow it through the thick brush but could hardly make any way.  It was a weird feeling being in waste high brush and hearing the wolf yelp, but I couldn't see it!

-Allen