The Winter Bomb's Exploded!

Mr. Snow has once again attacked Seward with his magical white crystals--the snow and ice has taken over! This weekend, we went adventuring. This is the view of Seward from the opposite side of Resurrection Bay--you can see the white streets of the town, right where our apartment is. The light is faded and low, as well. Even though it looks like the beginning of a nighttime sunset, this picture was actually taken just before 3:00pm. The sun wasn't up for much longer. The low angle of the sun in the winter is beautiful, though. It makes the white mountains perpetually highlighted in yellows and pinks.

Our adventures began at the start of Alaska's Iditarod Trail (only 2 miles from our apartment) on our cross country skis! We both received a pair of skis, boots, and poles from a very generous friend we met while living in the campground. Robert had spent the winter literally driving across the entire United States, and showed up with a van-ful of skis this summer, with plans to sell them from his tent in the campground. (The year before he sold fishing gear he found on the beach and polished up--when he skipped town he was nice enough to let us keep it!). He wasn't in town for very long this year, so when he left, we got to pick out boots and skis that fit! A super duper deal from a super duper friend!

We found a nice hill to practice our downhill form on. This was the first time we'd been on skis, and neither of us were ever anything like pro skiers, so this hill posed a challenge. I immediately fell  down, turning my body into its own sled (gravity loves me too much---I never stood a chance on those slick skies!). Tyler did much better, although did manage to find the pointy stick in the side of the hill. Not bad for our first day of practice!

The next day we took advantage of our cold temps and high winds to try our rods at our first round of ice fishing for the season. The temps had been around 20, and the winds had been blowing up to 60mph all night-perfect conditions for the ice to form! We went to Grouse Lake, which wasn't quite frozen over, so we drilled some test holes on the sides. We had aabout 3 inches of ice over about 4 1/2 ft of water, so we dipped our poles in. Unfortunately, the only fish we saw were the same size as our lures. After about a half hour, the ice started cracking, so we jumped off and dashed to the truck. By next weekend, we should be able to walk across this lake no problem! Our high temp yesterday was 11 degrees, and the wind's still blowing. Bring on the fishies!

Even with ample adaquate gear, there's only so much of the cold, almost-gale-force winds a body can take before a warm, wind free home beckons. We spent the evening making homemade pizza--complete with homemade rosemary crust! It was sooooo good, I almost had to slap the  moose mit into submission because it started drooling on the pizza. The green cardigan I'm wearing in the picture was my weekend project--my first time sewing with jersey knit, and it turned out really cute!

I sadly forgot my camera for the Halloween party we attended, but our friend Tasha graciously took this beautiful family portrait. Such a sweet family. Such a nice and sweet family... :o)

Road Trip!

This September we took a hunting/road trip around Alaska. The hunting was, on the whole, unsuccessful. But in our search for querry, we ended up covering about 2500 miles of road, to the arctic circle and back. We started out looking for moose, but when our 7 mile packing trip turned into a 20 mile packing trip, we decided to scour the rest of the state for some different hunting grounds.

This was very close to the arctic circle. We are traveling on what is known as the "Dalton Highway", and this was after our fist night camping in the back of our truck. The temp hovered right around freezing, and the clouds and fog were so bogged in that you had to look very closely to see the tundra. Tundra, for the most part, is nothing but grasses and lichens for miles and miles. Here, the geology has created these large granite pyres that stick up from the tundra and create a very fantastical atmosphere. I felt like I should be in a scene from the "Labrynth".

We've reached the arctic circle! We're now officially in the north polar region! We've been travelling on dirt roads for about 160 miles, and good dear Maude likes her new rugged mud paint job.

Coldfoot is the first town in the arctic circle, and the only one until the end of the road 240 miles later. This is the stretch of highway they film "Ice Road Truckers" on. We stopped in town for a warm bite to eat; I hadn't had tater tots as a side option in a restaraunt before! The town has two public buildings: a 10X4 ft post office, and a cafe/bar/gas station/gift shop. Coldfoot has a population of about 30, I think, and it's all brown and dirty. But it was an interesting stop!

In order to get to the caribou hunting grounds we were aiming for, we had to make it through the Brooks Mountain Range at  Attigun Pass. A blizzard hit on the pass, this was the view from the window. Consequently, our caribou hunting was botched and we decided to travel back down south for some better options. We did try and hike on the tundra a little. I have never walked such a hard straight, flat line in my life! Recommendation: Do NOT hike the tundra. Your thighs and ankles will die.

The Alaska Pipeline follows the Dalton Highway.

The sun broke out finally after a few days of travel. It was still cold, and we ended up with snow the next day, but beautiful!

Tyler caught his first Burbot night fishing near the Yukon River. This is a big sucker, and we even caught it with the guts of the grayling we were eating for dinner!

With hunting unsuccessful, we decided to detour around Fairbanks for some hiking. Here, we climbed up to some protruding Granite slabs only to find the perfect blueberry patch. I've never had such sweet berries!

Tyler caught this trophy-worthy grayling on our way south from Fairbanks to Valdez.

And lookey here! I shot my very first nanimal! The spruce grouse was quite tastey.

We found this big fat black bear in Valdez. We saw a total of 4 black bears in the town of Valdez, and 3 others on the trip that were in places we couldn't shoot. We also saw 3 moose we couldn't shoot. Lesson learned: unless you're rich enough to buy an air boat or spend $1200 on a flight to a remote location, you're shit out of luck for profitable hunting grounds in Alaska. We need more rich friends. It's quite ironic that the perception of Alaska is a place where a man can be a poor gold digger and live off the plentiful game around him, when in actuality you have to have plenty of gold in hand to get to places it's actually legal to hunt large game.We don't know a single person who went hunting this year and was successful, unless they spend thousands of dollars to get to remote locales. Ah well, such is life. At least there's plenty of animals to see!! Consequently, rather than bear, moose, or caribou, our freezer is jam packed with halibut and ducks. Good thing those are tastey! And maybe one day we'll be lucky enough to justify buying our sausage stuffer!

The Frosted Pagans

November is here, and brought the icy cold with it. For Halloween, we decided to tromp through the woods like good little Hallow's-Eve spirits. Seward was in the high 30's, but by the time we got 25 miles out of town, everything was covered in a thick frost, like this little plant.

It was a beautiful fall day, and our first day hiking around in freezing temps. These logs were all covered in chonchs.

We were hiking around Trail Lake.

This frozen lake puddle is a wonderful example of solid water geometry. Ah...science in action!

This salmon had died on the edge of the lake. The perfect Halloween Zombie!

We found a large broken up puddle on the trail. Since we had the guns, we decided to have a shootin match at the ice chunks. When you hit them, they explode in what sounds like a shattering of glass.

I like to eat ice. mmm.

After a long romp in the woods, we came back to the house with grand plans of getting dressed up and hitting the town for Halloween. The romping had exhausted us, so we layed down for a nap only to wake up and find that our mold problem, which has moved us to the living room and out of the bedroom, has now travelled to the living room. So we're now surrounded by the mold. Ewe. In our exhausted state, we decided to end Halloween with an "Evil Pizza". He's about to spit on us.

Novemer 3rd brought our first real snow! Look, the Spectacled Eiders like to eat it! We've reached winter, and the darkness has set in. Here comes our 6 months of cold!

hares and crows, just hares and crows.

Fall hasn't been a particularly eventful time for us. We did get one beautiful day of sunshine clouds a couple weeks ago that gave opportunity for some interesting pictures. I went beach coming with my camera , and while standing in the middle of a sea-level cloud, these crows swarmed around me. They crowed and crahed to each other between the flaps of wing beats, and as soon as they finished surrounding me, they were off to swarm a log down the beach.

Farther down the beach, the fog clouds parted. A perfect fall day.

That same week Tyler blasted his first snowshoe hare! I was proud of the hunter, and we savored the meat Hassenpfeffer style. The hare soaks in a wine/vinegar marinade for 3 days in order to tenderize the meat, then there's about 2 hours worth of cooking time to serve the dinner. We were both afraid that after all that effort, my German meal wouldn't turn out. But the hare was delectable! We made it a complete German meal with dill potatoes and rotkraut...the Steinmetzers would have been proud. :o)

Fungal Frollics

We spent most of our August/September trying to harvest as many different things as possible. We unfortunately were unable to fill our cornucopia with wilderness harvests this year, but did manage to find a few new fungi for the table. I thought I would start our mushroom blog with a very Alaskan mushroom: the Alaskan Gold. There is a fine gold powder all over this mushroom which immediately covers your fingers when you pluck the mushroom. It's the mushroom that gave Alaskans "Gold Fever" ;o) The above pictured mushroom is not quite table-worthy, although people with super human stomachs have been known to eat this variety and feel no nausea.

This grouse, however is QUITE table-worthy! Its dark meat has become one of my favorites.

While Tyler shot birds, I found mushrooms. This is a "hedgehog mushroom".

This is the underside of the hedgehog mushroom. You can see the tooth-like underparts that give the mushroom its name. This mushroom is quite delectable. We made a wonderful shrimp mushroom scampi.

Conch shells abound in these Alaskan woods! In Washington, I always felt super lucky when I found a large conch, but here it's not uncommon to find tree swarmed by them. This tree was covered in them, and apparently a smallish mammal overtook its hill of a root system, as well. Ecosystem: 2 Tree: 0

This is what our kitchen table looked like for the better part of a month. We were constantly on the prowl for mushies. I would often go after work on my favorite just-out-of-town mushy trails to find new species to ID. In order to properly ID mushrooms, you have to place the cap on a sheet of white paper for a few hours. The cap drops its spores, which create a fungal fingerprint. Each species has a unique sporeprint. So, while some species can look very similar, and one will make you severely ill and other won't, you can use spore prints to ensure it won't kill you! I find it exciting.

We hiked out to Troop Lake in September. It's only a couple miles off the road, and there's a great aluminum boat complete with one ore about 2 ft long. We took it on the lake, but the fish didn't bite.

On shore at Troop Lake someone built a tarp/stick shelter. I think it's nicer than our apartment.

Is the squirrel sleeping or dead...I bet you can figure that one out!

We love fungus! As long as it's not growing in our walls....

Steinmetzer Round 2

We stopped at one of the few places with wide sandy beaches in Alaska and did some good ol' famliy clam diggin! We were blessed with a beautiful blue sky for our day of mudskipping, too! Tyler found this Pacific Sandfish while we were diggin--he's a MONSTER for a sandfish! Once he put the fish back on the sand, it dug down and was completely burried in less than 5 seconds. I once again attempted what all siblings across the world have attempted since the dawn of sibling-time...to stab my sister in the neck. With a moose antler. Sadly, I missed the jugular and she lived to stab me back. We hiked to Exit Glacier. This glacier is only about 10 miles from our apartment. And everyone had super fun climbing up to it!! And here are the Steinmetzers, surrounded by birdies, specifically puffins. No, this is not an Alfred Hitchcock movie...these birds are much more well behaved. One even fell in love with Deanna and tried to be whisked away romantically on her shoulder. Those cute little googly-eyes almost won her heart over, I'm sure.

To cap the visit off, we had a bonfire by the apartment. Tyler got a super amazing collapsible fishing rod from my parents for his birthday, so of course had to try it out as fast as possible. It's made more for freshwater fishing than surf casting, though, and his efforts were fruiteless. However, it should be a nice pole for the upcoming ice fishing season!

It was wonderful having the family out for a visit, and of course we were all sad to part ways. Help me convince them to move the catering business up here ;o). I think everyone enjoyed their little Alaskan experience!