The Magic Hour

HUNTING. We recently had our new neighbors, Alaskans through and through, over for dinner for the first time. It's moose hunting season right now and that inspired the sharing of many gun-slinging tales. Now, not a hunter myself, I thought I still had a decent idea of what a trip out to get a moose might look like. I envisioned hiking through the forest, gun slung over my shoulder, maybe a canteen for water and a little hip satchel with snacks. Apparently I've read one too many Little House on the Prairie books. Our neighbors enlightened me with some of the logistics a modern hunter needs to consider. Like how if you take down a big animal like a moose away from a trail or forest corridor, you need to make your own corridor to bring the moose out (think chainsaws and four-wheelers). Or how most animal activity happens during "the magic hour," that chunk of time right before and after sunset, and it's super hard to see with the low light; thus if you happen to get a lucky shot, it's dark by the time you actually have a kill on your hands. Compounded with the off-the-trail factor mentioned above, you could have yourself an all nighter just cutting a path through the darkness to your moose, let alone the effort to butcher, wrap, and haul the meat out on your four-wheeler. Our neighbor told of being surrounded by a pack of wolves for several hours in the dark as he cut his way through the forest en route to his moose. His mom, back at a camp site where she could hear the wolves howling in his vicinity, kept calling his cell phone to make sure he was still alive.

For those of you, like me, still stuck on the image of the hunter on foot, I was informed that it takes a reasonably fit person 10 trips to bring one moose out. My teacher-mind feels a word problem coming on:

Question: You're out on a hunting trip and you proceed five miles down a trail. With luck on your side, you meet a moose and are able to shoot him right there, without needing to leave the trail. If it takes you 10 trips to pack all the meat out, how many miles did you hike in all?

(find answer at bottom of post)

Because we have absolutely no pictures related to hunting or chainsaws or four-wheelers, I am including a few extremely random pictures from the past two weeks... enjoy!

Yep, J has got his Alaska groove on. (This man teaches small children.)

Indigo's favorite kind of hunting. (She doesn't even notice the bugs anymore...)

Likely the last dip of the year down in Homer.

Fat tire fun!

Answer: You bring a chainsaw and a four-wheeler.

Dry Landing

WET LANDING. It has officially been one year since Team Leslie arrived in the wilds of Alaska and began sharing our stories of trials (think "moose watch") and triumphs (think kayaking with sea otters). To commemorate this landmark and to celebrate our last days of summer before a return to the working world, we went off on one more trip to a back country yurt across Kachemak Bay only accessible by water or air. I must tell you that this trip marks a serious level of advancement for us as Alaskan locals. In order to even attempt to meet with success, we needed to proficiently do the following:

1. Pick an area we wanted to explore using a map.
2. Find a rentable yurt or cabin in said area.
3. Hire a water taxi to deliver us to said yurt.
4. Pack and dress appropriately for said water taxi and yurt and exploratory trip.

We thought we had it in the bag, but apparently knowing the proper steps did not necessarily lead me to taking the proper actions. You see I had my heart set on a hike I'd read about before we even arrived in the state: the Grewingk Glacier Trail... A sapphire blue glacier. A glacial lake full of calved icebergs. A roaring creek away from the lake. And a HAND TRAM, hanging above the creek, to get us there... powered by our own muscles and inspiration. Yesssssss!!! (I can not express to you how up-my-ally this sort of thing is.) So I looked at a map, chose a yurt right near the trailhead, hired the water taxi, and prepared to go with my trusting husband and daughter.

http://dnr.alaska.gov/parks/aktrails/ats/ken/emeraldlk.htm

Luckily, a chance conversation with a Homer shop-owner a few weeks before our excursion revealed the following information:

1. The map I looked at had not accurately shown the terrain - like impassible tidal marshland between our yurt and the trail head (see the word "mud" on a better map above).
2. Thus the yurt we rented, at Right Beach near the Glacier Spit trailhead, turned out to be completely wrong; it was only connected to the trails via kayak travel. In fact, what we wanted was the yurt at a place called Humpy Creek... which would likely be experiencing a huge run of humpies (pink salmon) during our visit, attracting the majority of bears from the massive Kachemak Bay State Park to our area. Super.
3. Now to get to Humpy Creek, our water taxi needed to be carefully scheduled according to an incoming tide and we would need to have a "wet landing" - unable to pull up to solid land, we would drop anchor off shore and need to wade or swim to our yurt site.
4. Long story short, despite having a year in Alaska under out belts, we were not appropriately prepared for any of this!

Soooooo, I hopped back on the phone, canceled one yurt, found another yurt, canceled our first water taxi, checked a tide chart, scheduled another water taxi, switched our duffel bags out for dry bags, and grabbed both bottles of bear spray. Obviously, because I am able to type this and do not seem extraordinarily emotionally altered, we must have all returned safely and were not mistaken for humpies by fish-crazed bears. Phew.

Almost there!

As fun as we thought...

But harder work than we thought!

Morning at the yurt.

Crossing Humpy Creek.

"The tide is coming in fast - please come grab me!"

Wet landing.

Mission accomplished.

DRY LANDING. So despite bumpy (or should I say humpy?) learning curves which include the anecdote above, Team Leslie feels like overall, our first year in Alaska has been a relatively "dry landing" so to speak. From mountains to sea, we have taken advantage of most opportunities to learn and explore, and we have found joy in both the dark days and the sun drenched nights. If time, technology, and you are willing, I plan to continue chronicling our Alaska Adventure into the next chapter... Thank you for joining us on this wild ride!

Yee ha!

Old Fashioned Entertainment

KITES. Such a symbol of childhood joy. Colorful fabric dancing across a bright blue sky. Luckily for Team Leslie, Granddad (aka Dixon Leslie) brought along a double stringer from New Hampshire and unfurled it along the beaches of Alaska for young and old to enjoy. Cousins Indigo and Owen, both four and three-quarters, enjoyed some shared flight duty. When it was my turn, gripping the handles and gently tugging left and right, I found that rare moment of zen where my mind was so focused on the task I could think of nothing else but "fly... fly..." If your therapist isn't doing it for you, might I suggest a good day out with a kite!

Granddad lets the kids take over.

And away they go...

(Interestingly, we watched a plane land on this beach twice so the pilot could check his set-net like you see in the ocean in the background - Alaskan fisher people are dedicated!)

FISHING. As you know, fishing has played quite a role for us this summer. From rod and reeling in local lakes to dip-netting the mouth of the Kenai, we have enjoyed the time, effort and of course the tasty eats. Indigo is constantly asking to go fishing and takes pride in her new found skill of casting. But most often, when we arrive at a body of water and get out the gear, she simply grabs a net and wades in with a vengeance. For Indigo and Owen, a coffee cup of minnows was the best catch of the day (and let's be honest - the only catch of the day!).

"I'll point and you scoop!"

Granddad does some "big kid" catch and release fly fishing along the Russian River.

CARDS. Several evenings this summer we found ourselves crowded around the table, cards out, spoons out, and grins out. If you don't remember, "spoons" is that multiple winner game where everyone passes around cards, hoping to collect four of a kind. The first successful player subtly reaches to the spoons in the center and snags one, continuing to pass cards all the while. Other observant players also reach for a spoon until one poor clueless soul is left without a spoon. Indigo and Owen formed a special cousins-only team so if one of them lost, the other could win by association. Smart cookies.

The strategy.

Sharks.

WHISTLE STOP TRAIN. A throwback to days of old, whistle stops or request-stops are rare in the United States. The idea refers to stations where trains only stop on an as-needed basis, slowing but not stopping unless a passenger needs to hop on or off. Apparently such stations along remote sections of the rail are more efficient by saving on fuel and employees. In Alaska, the railroad system is endeavoring to bring back the phenomenon, especially appealing to back country explorers wishing to hop off and hike about and then jump a ride back to civilization at a later time. So far, the Spencer Glacier whistle stop station is the only one up and running, and Team Leslie and visitors took full advantage. Indigo and Owen were beside themselves with excitement.

The station.

Our ride.

One mile hike in: Spencer Glacier.

Julie, Dixon, Dave, Owen, J, Indigo and Kim.

Enamored.

Dixon enjoys the view from a newly built pedestrian bridge.

EATING WHAT WE PICK. This simple pleasure (which of course used to be essential to each human's existence) has become pretty foreign to many of us. Until moving to Alaska, my experience with picking what I ate was confined to small tomato/basil plants in my back yard, u-pick orchards, and the occasional gleaning party at our CSA. (Mind you, I am a biology person but it's purely academic - my thumb is not green.) Now, thanks to Miss Indigo, I have been encouraged to explore the wild edibles that surround us. What started as last year's berry tutorial has blossomed into full blown gathering - leaves, flowers, seeds, tree tips - if we can identify it and declare it safe for consumption, we'll try it. And since Granddad had us hunting for four-leaf clovers, we decided to add clover to our list. Today's bounty and new recipes included clover flower fritters and fireweed/violet tea!

Sorting our findings.

Fritter-frying!

Indigo - on top of the world.

Cheers to some good old fashioned entertainment.

Guest Blogger: Gran/Mom/Deb Rogers

(Not sure why the Google Blogger Gods decided to re-post Indigo's Thanksgiving turkey in July, but some of you commented on the nice reminder to feel gratitude in the midst of summer bounty - good stuff! -KL)

This is it! My first attempt at blogging! I cannot come close to the creative and entertaining installments written by my daughter. Grammy Suzan did a splendid job with her Haiku. And Dan - well, what can I say? His had a more youthful vibe than Gran/Mom/Deb can muster. So I am going back to basics - my A,B,C's.  Hope you have as much fun as Chris, Deb, Chip and Kate did with Jason, Kim and Indigo on OUR Alaska Adventure (July 2013).  

A is for Alaskan king crab, antlers and AJ's Oldtown Steakhouse and Tavern

Dinner at AJ's.

B is for birthdays (J's 38th and Chris' 67th), beaches and BIG brown bears (like the one lumbering down the dirt road behind the Leslies' house one evening!

Brown bear lovin'.

C is for Captain Underwear and cheez waffles 

Captain Underwear and Princess Popcorn with Hot Lava Girl.

  
D is for dip-netting, daylight (until midnight)  
E is for eagles and earthquakes (a 4+ magnitude during one of our first nights)  
F is for fireweed (gorgeous and purple and everywhere), fjords and flat tire (which didn't stop Ice Cream Newton for long)

Holgate Glacier in Kenai Fjords.

 

Gran and Grandfather hike through fireweed meadows.

G is for glaciers, goats, go-carts and gift shops (which enticed Indigo wherever we went) 

Go-carts!

H is for hiking (almost killed us), Homer and Hobo Jim

Not dead yet! (Indigo as photographer)

I is for INDIGO (our favorite grandchild) and Iditarod sled-dogs

Loving each other up at St. Elias.

J is for junior ranger (which Indigo became this summer) and J (my favorite son-in-law)  
K is for Kenai, Kingfisher, kickball games and KIM (my favorite daughter)  
L is for Leslie family (terrific hosts) and lynx (spotted by Indigo on our hike)  
M is for mosquitos, Moose On the Loose bakery, REAL Mama moose and her two calves and Mermaid bookstore  
N is for nature and National Parks 

Exit Glacier in Kenai Fjords National Park.

O is for otters, Odie's and Orca Explorer (our Kenai Fjords vessel)  
P is for puffins, porpoises, playground, pickles, pizza and The Princess and the Popstar ( from whose soundtrack a certain song performed by Indigo will forever be imprinted in our memory - for better or worse!)  
Q is for QUALITY family time

Play time at home.

Getting WILD late night on the beach.

R is for river ( the blue Kenai), rabbits and rocks (Gran's favorite gray and white striped ones) on the beach  
S is for slack line, sea lions, St. Elias, spiral staircases, sailing (Chris' birthday treat from/with Kim and Chip,  and of course, SALMON ( hundreds of thousands per day) swimming upstream

Preparing to sail.

Happy Birthday!

T is for tour ( a six hour tour - think Gilligan's Island theme song adapted to our family's names), Two Sisters' Bakery and tire swing  
U is for urchin, underwear in unusual places and unplugged (which we were for most of our trip)

I spy underwear on the moose antlers???

V is for Veronica's and views (magnificent and on a grand scale)  
W is for whales (orcas and humpbacks) and waders (pretty blue ones worn by Kim had a leak)  
X is for X-rays ( no injuries, just airport security)  
Y is for Yukon Charlie ( you've probably heard of him somewhere recently)  
Z is for ZigZag (the Leslie family's cool cat) and ZZZ's ( or lack thereof, during our travels)

Sneaking some ZZZ's.

 

Guest Blogger Gran/Mom/Deb Rogers