August 8, 2005

Friday was a four moose day. We got off to a late start. It was late afternoon when we headed up to the mountains. The target was Little O’Malley Peak. There were some clouds hanging over the mountains, but the sun was shining on Anchorage. It made for some spectacular views as we reached the summit. This was a relatively easy climb. It was a little steep for a while, but mostly it was just a hike. The elevation gain was less than 2000 feet, so it didn’t kill us.

We saw our first moose very near the parking lot. She was not more than 20 feet from the trail. We were startled by the noise of her pulling at the vegetation. She didn’t seem to mind us and I took a couple of quick pictures.

It rained briefly while we were at the summit. On the way back down, it seemed that the quick cooling effect of the rain had brought out more moose. We could pick them out from way up above. We found two males and one female through the binoculars. We watched them as we descended, but eventually we were too low to be able to see them. We walked around a corner and almost ran into the female. She startled briefly, but then just went about stripping leaves of the plants. I went off trail briefly, looking to get a picture of one of the males, but the conditions quickly became too brushy. We also saw a couple of dahl sheep on O’Malley Peak.

We bought paint on Saturday. We also stopped at a few more stores looking for bar stools, but still didn’t find anything we liked. Actually, we did find some that we liked at a kitchen store that they were using in their cooking demo area, but they were not for sale. I just don’t understand why we can’t find simple modern barstools. Everything has very busy designs or is just too bulky. This is making me insane since I thought it would be an easy thing.

We figured we should get the ceiling painted on Saturday so it would have a chance to dry overnight. Then yesterday morning we painted the walls. It was not too tough of a project and it looks much better. It is nice to be rid of the oppressive wall paper AND to have walls that are all one color. We do have one problem to fix. Someone had used a different glue on the seams of the wallpaper and it did not come off the wall well. It seems to have reacted with the paint and we may have to redo those areas. It looks like some vague stripes on the wall.

I also got a rolling tool box/project cart for the garage. This will help me organize my tools and give me a little bit of work space for small projects. I found a unit that fit neatly into a corner of the garage. I bought it at Lowes with a gift card from our realtor.

Yesterday afternoon I went down to Campbell Creek for my first attempt at silvers there. I was surprised that there were not many people fishing. I didn’t see many salmon. There were still a few old kings hanging around and a lot more dead ones. I saw one fish I was pretty sure was a silver, but it wasn’t too interested in my spinner. I did have lots of fun with the trout. These stupid little fish kept attacking the big spinner I was throwing. I got pretty good at picking good trout holes and usually had a hit on the first or second cast into the hole. They were all really small and were not getting hooked too well. I only had to unhook one as the rest came off as I lifted them out of the water.

This was my first experience wading this creek and it was fun. The creek winds back and forth and the outside of the bends are the deeper parts. As I worked my way upstream, I had to keep crossing back and forth to stay in the shallower water while fishing the deeper water.

As I was reaching the end of the hour and a half that I was fishing, I noticed some moose tracks in the mud along the stream. They looked very fresh. When I turned around and began heading back to the trail, she was only about 10 yards from the creek. I walked over to the bank near her and she looked at me. She didn’t pin her ears back, but I figured I was close enough. I took her picture and left.

On my way out I noticed some rodents swimming in the water. They had long skinny rat like tails, so I am assuming they were muskrats. I didn’t know we had muskrats up here. All of this took place within a quarter mile of our condo in the middle of the city. I still find the Greenbelt amazing.

This morning we got up really early, about 6:00 AM. We stopped for donuts and coffee on our way to Bird Creek. There was an early morning incoming tide, so I thought we might find it not too crowded. The reports on silvers in Bird Creek have been good so the crowds have been bad. We got there at a good time. The tide was still low and it wasn’t crowded. I decided to stake out a place on the west side of the creek and just wait for the fish to get to us. We walked out on the mud and it was sticky, gooey, and slippery. We decided to move toward the rocks under the bridge. The tide was low so the area in front of us was narrow, shallow, and fast moving. There were a couple of pools, but it was not a good spot at that time. As the tide came up, it slowed and deepened nicely. We watched as the fishing action slowly moved upstream toward us.

The action was pretty slow. There were people catching fish, but not at a fast pace. I had one hit. The tide rolled in over our feet. It was tricky moving back up the slippery bank to stay ahead of the tide. I thought I had reeled in almost completely, but my spinner was still about 6 feet from shore as I climbed up the slippery slope. My spinner apparently sunk to the bottom while I did this and got stuck on a rock. I had to break it off.

I pulled out a pixee spoon and began trying to tie it on my line without setting anything down in the mud. I tucked my fishing rod in my jacket to hold it. Then I noticed the bent hook on the spoon, so I juggled things around to get back into my tackle box and get a different spoon. I succeeded in accomplishing all this without getting anything muddy. I felt rushed as I was seeing fish going past us as I tied my lure on.

Just as I was tying my knot, Kris yelled that she had a fish. I finished tying and reached back for my net. Kris brought the fish quickly to the shoreline and there was a big rock just under the water by her fish. Not wanting the fish to make a run and break her off on the rock, I quickly netted her fish. She was excited about catching her first salmon and even more excited when she confirmed it had spots. It was a small silver, about 24 inches, probably average for this water, but a nice fish.

Unfortunately for me, when I netted the fish, I also netted the tip of my rod that was tucked in my coat. So now the fire drill begins. I can’t get the rod out of my coat because I can’t hold the net far away enough to give me room. I unzipped my coat and finally got the rod out of my coat, but Kris’ line and the net were both wrapped around the ends. It took some effort to untangle the mess and in the end I had to set my rod down in the mud anyway. The net and the fish were covered in mud by this time as well. Somehow the fish flopped and got partially out of the net. Kris really didn’t want her fish getting away so she actually jumped on it and pinned it to the ground. Now Kris was all muddy. I think she had to set her rod down in the process so it was all muddy.

After untangling my rod, I had to work to get the small treble hook out of its mouth. It was double hooked and kind of deep. It is fun to be fishing for something more aggressive than the reds. I had left my pliers in the car, so I had to improvise. I put the fish on the stringer to have something to hold it up by. I had Kris hold the stringer while I used my knife to pry the hooks free.

By this time, I think we looked like we had been playing football in the rain. The fish was this muddy squirmy thing that just seemed gross. My hands, my knife, and my fishing rod were covered with the silty glacial mud. I washed everything off in the creek as best I could, but by this time the fish had pretty much moved passed. We saw a few more fish swim by, but had no luck. The few fish that were being caught were quite a ways upstream from us, so we took a picture of Kris with her fish. I cleaned it with a knife that apparently needed sharpening, leaving me with fillets that looked like ground meat. Then we left. It was Kris’ kind of fishing, a short trip where she caught all the fish.

On the way home, there were two dall sheep right on the side of the road.

So Peter Jennings died. I didn’t even know he was sick. I guess I fell off the face of the earth about 4 months ago and haven’t really landed yet. It highlights the relative lack of television in our lives. We currently own one TV and it is very small. We had basic cable for free in the apartment and we would watch the news and an occasional TV show when we slugging around after a hard day of playing. When we moved in here, we had basic cable, although we knew it wasn’t included in the homeowner’s dues. Sure enough, when August rolled around, the cable was disconnected. I hooked up an antenna and found out that even though Anchorage is small and flat, only one of the major network stations comes in well. We have been debating the cable issue for the last few days and we are leaning toward getting basic cable, but we don’t seem to be in any hurry.

Well, it has been a few good days of sightseeing, wildlife, and fishing. Tomorrow we are heading for Denali National Park. We will be spending three nights up there. We have never really spent any time in Denali. We bypassed it in our vacation up here in 1999 in favor of lesser traveled parts of the state. I am anxious to see if it lives up to the hype or if it is just another slice of Alaska.