Destination: Quartz Lake, Alaska
Miles roundtrip: 172
Driving time roundtrip: 3 hours 30 minutes
Weekend: May 21st to 23rd
After an entertaining and successful fishing trip the previous weekend I decided to return to the same "fishing hole" for roadtrip #3 of the summer. I knew from talking with a guy at work and previous experience back home in minnesota that the fish don't stay in the shallows for long, they're up there for spawning and then they head back out to deeper water as the lake warms up. So I had to take advantage of this short time window.
I packed up the car once again on the thursday night and headed out as soon as I was done with work. When I arrived I found a couple familiar faces... we had talked about possibly meeting up this weekend again and it was funny to actually see the guys there fishing again. So more laughter and fishing banter back and forth for the evening before they invited me over for dinner... they felt bad for me bringing ham sandwiches for dinner... which I did as an incentive for me to catch a fish to fry for dinner... haha.
"I"m going out with my boots on" -country song lyrics...
Enjoying the quiet afternoon at the lake
So we had chicken and potatoes and bread over the fire followed by more entertaining conversations over a few beers. I also tried out one of the guys fly rods while the other one was working on dinner... I've been meaning to try it out for a while now but didn't know anyone that could give me some tips... now the fly rod is added to my "want list" for summer.
The following morning I slept in and then headed back down to the lake... once again no one was really catching much but it was just nice to sit down at the lake "A bad day fishing is still better than a good day at work" old quote but soooo accurate! haha.
Enjoying the views while tying on a different lure
A few of the guys friends came down too and we ended up back at their campsite that night again playing that ladder golf ball game, which turned very entertaining when they golf ball strings started getting tossed into the trees.
Lots of laughs and fun around the campfire that night... it was fun to be just hanging out with a group of guys again, totally brought me back to the summer I worked on the assembly line at Graco building paintsprayers with 7 guys on a nightshift. The humor, farts, and jokes... lol... so different than hanging out with the ladies.. haha.
Sunday morning I packed up right away so I could get back to town to house/dog sit for one of my professors. Once again a great weekend get away... these trips are exhausting because I don't have the downtime/catch up on sleep time that I did when I stayed home on weekends during the winter... but they're totally refreshing to my mind and outdoorsy side. I'm not the kinda girl that likes to stay home or mope around... I need to be out there doing things, and that's exactly what this summer's plan is all about!
Destination: Quartz Lake, Alaska
Miles roundtrip: 172 miles
Driving time roundtrip: 3 hours 30 minutes
Weekend: May 14th to 16th
The adventures continue with Roadtrip #2!!!
I have been meaning to get out fishing ever since I moved up here to Alaska... Dad even put a fishing rod and tackle box in my trunk when I first moved up here, but I wasn't home much last summer, and working in the field that I do not many people enjoy hunting and fishing like I do so I didn't know where the hot spots were... **sidenote here ** for the record, just because I study climate does not mean I am a "tree-hugger"... lol... I'm so tired of being called that... haha. They don't go hand in hand... I do believe that climate change is a real concern, but that doesn't have anything to do with the fact that I absolutely love fishing and hunting... I'm a 100% country/outdoor loving gal and proud of it!!
Okay back to the blog now that I'm done with that rant...
Anyways I overheard our accountant/travel guy in IARC talking about fishing with Volodya, one of the russian researchers in the department and I caught him in the afternoon when I was turning in some paperwork to see if he knew of any good local fishing holes and he filled me in! His family has a cabin on the lake and since the ice had just gone out on the lake he said the Rainbow Trout were in the shallows... good news for me since I was planning on fishing from shore.
So I packed up the car Thursday night with all of my camping gear and left right from work on Friday afternoon. I fished from about 7 PM to 11 PM and then went to pick out a campsite in the state park for the night.
Campsite at the State Park
What a gorgeous night!... still light out through the entire night being it's summer in Alaska but it was still nice to sit around the campfire and roast marshmallows...
Night Sky at 1 AM
The next morning I slept in until 9, made some breakfast and headed back down to the lake. Just as I pulled in I ran into a guy who said his buddy had just caught one...
First thought through my head... I'm following this guy to see where he goes! hahaha... so I did and it turned out to be a smart decision... not because we caught many that entire afternoon, but because of all of the BS'ing and fishing jokes we kept coming all day. I felt like I was back home in Minnesota hanging out with family or my guy friends.
Shoreline in the afternoon after the morning crowd left
One of the funniest moments happened when his buddy decided he wanted to sit down and relax... he put his folding chair in the shallows of the water... set his beer down in the water to keep in cool... and then proceeded to miss... not 1, not 2, not 3... not 4... but 5 fish in a row!!! I was laughing my ass off as was his buddy... it was priceless! After miss #5 he tossed his chair back up on shore... haha.
Over the course of the afternoon the 2 of them brought in 4 nice Rainbows, and eventually... with the assistance of one of the guys offering me a new lure to tie on after nothing in my tackle box was working... I managed to bring in this puuuurdy 20 inch Rainbow... I was so freaking proud and excited that I practically ran backwards dragging the fish out of the water to make sure I didn't lose it.
My 20 inch Rainbow Trout
Filleting the fish... yes I can clean my own fish... lol
Dinner that night was DEEEELISH!!! Yummmmo! Nothing beats fresh caught Rainbow Trout on the grill... potatoes.... sooooo good!
Dinner! Trout...
And... Potatoes!!!
In the morning I got up and spent a few more hours fishing after packing up the campsite. Saw more fish than you would imagine... beautiful to watch but they weren't hungry so I headed back home...
Destination: Valdez, Alaska
Miles roundtrip: 726 miles
Driving time roundtrip: 15 hours 30 minutes
Similar trip distance/time in lower 48: Minneapolis, MN to Chicago, IL
Weekend: May 7th to 9th
So the beginning of this crazy summer of adventures all started out with a last minute decision to check out the bush plane competition I had heard about, officially known as the Valdez May Day Fly-In. I debated for the last few days of the week and then decided what the heck, why not. So Friday at 4:30 PM I hit the road going east to Delta Junction, and then south to Valdez.
The drive was simply Spectacular!!! Mountains everywhere... rain showers with beautiful double rainbows... moose, caribou, eagles, bunnies, and lots of ducks...
Double Rainbow
Friday night I crashed in the backseat of my car at a pullout along the highway just outside of Valdez. It was just a wee bit chilly that night, temperatures got down to 31 degrees so I was happy to start the car and let her warm up in the morning before driving into town. On the way in I pulled over next to Horsetail waterfalls just outside of town... so pretty!!
Horsetail Waterfalls
[Video of the roadtrip]
Upon arriving in Valdez I was once again in awe of the beauty of yet another Alaska coastal city snug in between the towering snowcapped mountains and the sea. I pulled into the small airport and parked next to the terminal before walking out onto the runway to set down my chair and get a front seat spot for the STOL competition.
The staging area was packed with rows upon rows of bush planes all tied down, some with tents tied down right next to the planes. Cessna's, Maul's, and Beaver's.... I had walked directly into Bush Plane Heaven!! And the view for the competition was a runway right next to and surrounded by mountains!
View from my seat as the morning Era flight was leaving Valdez for Anchorage
Soon after I settled in I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around to find none other than my favorite crazy bush pilot friend from Fairbanks that I refer to as "Crazy Steve" haha. This guy is exactly what you would imagine as the classic bush pilot... about early 40's... slightly crazy but always there for a good laugh or smart ass comment... divorced a couple times and still looking for a lady to settle with...
If any of you have ever been up to Fairbanks on a tour or vacation trip... you've probably been on the Riverboat Discovery cruise down the Chena River to the Tanana and watched the bush pilot demo... the pilot that you watched was none other than... yup you guessed it... "Crazy Steve".
Sidestory about "Crazy Steve"...
So I met "Crazy Steve" during one of my first few weeks in Alaska. I had gone out that night to "The Pumphouse", a nice local restaurant and bar, with some of the other graduate students for Wednesday night karaoke. Being very shy at the time and not knowing anyone in Alaska I was pretty quiet at first, but he happened to be at our table... every one squished together in the bar area on Wednesday nights because karaoke is very popular. Anyways we started chatting along with the others too and he jokingly offered to take me up in his bush plane if I happened to visit on karaoke nights... and eventually I made it back to a karaoke night or 2 and he recognized me. He hung out there so often the Pumphouse asked him to watch the door and check ID's... I feel like a local now when I walk in and he doesn't ask for my ID.... haha. For the record he did uphold his end of the deal and we went up flying last summer, taking off from the Chena River in front of the restaurant in his SuperCub. :)
In this competition the best and most daring/talented/crazy bush pilots in all of Alaska show up to take part in contests such as the flour bombing for accuracy, shortest takeoff and landing (STOL), and a poker run (all participants fly to a bunch of bush airports or landing locations ie. sandbars and beaches to draw a card at each location... at the end of the competition the pilot with the best poker hand wins). Everyone shows up to watch the short takeoffs and landings though... these are simply incredible!!
Back to the competition... the best and most daring/talented/crazy bush pilots in all of Alaska show up to take part in contests such as the flour bombing for accuracy, shortest takeoff and landing (STOL), and a poker run (all participants fly to a bunch of bush airports or landing locations ie. sandbars and beaches to draw a card at each location... at the end of the competition the pilot with the best poker hand wins). Everyone shows up to watch the short takeoffs and landings though... these are simply incredible!!Here's a sampling of highlights from the Short Takeoff and Landing Competition... it was absolutely insane to see how insane these guys were! Shortest takeoff was around 60 feet!! These pilots are the guys you see in all of those insane YouTube video email forwards you get from friends and seeing it in person was so neat!!
[Video from the Valdez Fly-In Competition]
In addition to watching the competition I also was able to go up flying over the city and nearby Shoup Glacier!! Here are some of my favorite photos while up in the air...
Valdez from the air... between the mountains and sea
Beautiful calm day...
Shoup Glacier calving
I felt so lucky to have this opportunity!! I absolutely love flying!
So after the competition was over for the day I drove into town to find a spot to set up my tent for the night. Unfortunately the only real camping places in town that were opened seemed to be RV parks, but that was alright. I found the Bear Paw RV park and picked out a spot for the night... cooked up some dinner and started a campfire. Not long after someone stopped over to visit and invited me over to their campsite to visit. Turned out to be a very entertaining evening... haha.
I'm simply amazed by the people I meet in this state!! One of the reasons I actually really enjoy roadtrips and camping alone is that I get to meet and talk with lots of random people... on this particular night I sat around a campfire with the following group of new friends from Anchorage:
a) An engineering student, early 30's, divorced, not working the entire summer and living off of savings to spend a summer making memories while camping with his son he doesn't see often
b) the engineering students's 8 year old son up for the summer visiting his dad
c) the crazy black lab of the engineering student
d) one of the group's friends... this guy seemed normal and nice until he shocked me by saying he was out on bail and would probably be going Back to jail for a few years... he didn't do it of course... lol
e) the relatively normal guy in the bunch... i think he was a construction worker
f) normal guy's girlfriend... such a nice friendly gal
g) normal guy's girlfriend's little chiuaua... with a broken leg in a cast .. the result of falling down a set of stairs
Being raised in a small town in central Minnesota I was never exposed to such a broad variety of people! And the oddest thing is just hearing people's life stories around a campfire over a couple beers. Some of you may sound shocked but I was never uncomfortable or scared.. as a matter of fact, hearing their stories of hardship and success actually made me even more greatful for my own life, family, and experiences.
Sunday morning I jumped back in the car for the drive back to Fairbanks... the drive back was nearly 8 hours with only gas stops, but the views are breathtaking... and I actually enjoy just listening to music and driving on long roadtrips by myself... I call it my "thinking time"...
Moose on the side of the road on the return trip
And so concludes the first of many summer adventures... I'd be amazed if anyone actually read this whole post... haha... thanks for reading :)
And so the adventure begins... For the past 4 years I have not been around for the summer in the same place I've lived during the rest of the year.
The summer of 2006 I was living downtown Minneapolis and working at the Army High Performance Computing Research Center (AHPCRC)...
The summer of 2007 I was working in Hilo, Hawaii at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Mauna Loa Observatory...
The summer of 2008 I was living in Newport News, Virginia working at NASA's Langley Research Center...
And the summer of 2009 I was technically living in Fairbanks, but I was gone most of the summer with 3 weeks in Longyearbyen, Svalbard (between the North Pole and tip of Norway) at the IPY International Polar Field School ... 2 weeks on the north slope of Alaska for a field school... and about a month in the Arctic Ocean above Europe and Russia on a russian icebreaker ship for the NABOS research expedition.
That leaves this summer wide open for ADVENTURES!! I've decided to make it the summer of roadtrips! Beginning with the weekend of May 7th to 9th I will be spending the weekend out of the house. I will be taking photos and making videos of the trips along the way... sharing stories from the journey, talking about the interesting people I met... and documenting what I hope will be one of the best summers yet! I hope to look back and reflect on this someday when I'm old and grey to say... wow... that was an incredible summer. It's so easy to sit and home and waste the summer away and I know I've been guilty of that at times but this is a goal I really hope to keep up!
Thus far I've made it 4 weekends in a row and will be blogging about those in the near future. There has been one snaffoo so far... that's this weekend. I was asked to dog/house sit for a professor of mine and there is one weekend that falls during the time that she's gone... thus I will be improvising this weekend...
I still won't be at home so that won't break my official goal... and I plan on sleeping in my tent in the backyard on Friday and Saturday night to still be "camping". I'm hoping to pick up a new fly fishing rod yet this week with a friend I met fishing and try it out this weekend at a local stream north of town. That way I'll have a couple day trips fishing and still be camping.
I hope those of you that are far away back home in the lower 48 will enjoy this summer's adventures with me :) Feel free to post comments or suggest other adventures for me to try out!
My message for you guys: Life's too short... Make the most of every moment you have... cherish close friendships and family... and tell those you care about you love them as often as possible...
