Our Alaska Trip

[Scoot]

Well, after many, many years of hearing my mom talk about going to Alaska, my two sisters and I were fortunate enough to get the chance to go there with her. What a trip! We had a very full trip planned, thanks mostly to a ton of leg work by my sister, Nicole. Fishing, critter watching, shopping, a cruise, horseback riding... we did a ton in a relatively short period of time. Below are some of the pics from the trip. I won't say too much and will let the pics do most of the talking.

The trip mascot, Klondike.

Day #1: We started out the trip by renting an RV in Anchorage and heading for Homer. The scenery on the way was phenomenal! Homer is a very cool little place and the scenery there isn't anything to sneeze at! We got into Homer later on the day we flew in and spent got some shut eye, after checking out things for a bit. We spent most of the next day snooping around all that Homer had to offer.

...and we shopped, and shopped, and shopped. I shopped more on this day than I had the previous year total (easily). But, we had lots of gifts to get while we were there, so we got much of this done on this day.

Day #2: The next day we halibut fished. We were going to go 34 miles from the docks, but it "got pretty lumpy" out there and we ended up at 27 miles. It was still rough at times there too. We all caught our limit of two keepers and it was a lot of fun.

The ride out took a while...

It rained for most of the day.

But thanks to Captain Steve, we got our fish. He definitely earned his keep and worked hard for his money. He did a great job.

[Scoot]

Day #3: This day had us going on a kayak adventure out of Homer. This was very fun! This pic was taken just before we started the adventure.

Here's my mom with a sea otter just over her shoulder.

Here's a closer shot of the little (or not so little) guy.

I was lucky enough to find a Japanese float after snarfing up a little lunch on the beach of an island. A very cool little find...

[Scoot]

Day #4 was devoted to a fly-in bear viewing trip. We saw totally wild bears in their natural environment. Although it rained the entire trip, it was really cool! My pictures didn't turn out like I'd hoped, but there wasn't much I could do about it with the weather we had. My camera was totally water logged and finally gave up the ghost in the last half hour of this day (it came back to life the next day though!)

Right after take off.

The pic below is of a sow and two cubs that my two sisters had a very close encounter with. The excused themselves from the group to use the "restroom". One of our two guides went with to make sure nothing goofy happened. He walked them up to some bushes and said, "You can go right in there". Just as they stepped out of view, a huge sow and two cubs stood up in front of them, not ten feet away. Mama Bear looked them in the eyes, turned, and slowly lumbered away, with the cubs in tow. WOW!

After the bear trip, we headed for Soldotna for some sockeye fishing. Fishing Reds was a hoot! We didn't know anything about it, but my buddy's brother, Randy, was gracious enough to meet us and show us the basics. We certainly didn't achieve expert status at any point in time, but we pretty quickly were able to do "the flop" in a servicable manner, thanks to Randy. We fished reds this evening and the next day.

Here's a shot of Randy, who took time out of his vacation to teach us rookies the scoop on red fishing. Next time I see Randy, I hope to have my bow in my hands and to be hearing bugles in the mountains behind camp!

My sister Nicole and me with the catch of our fist day of red fishing. A nice limit of reds from the Kenai.

Second day of red fishing.

[Scoot]

After that, we headed down the road for a "saddle and paddle" trip. This involved a horseback ride and a float fishing trip. Here are a few shots from that outting.

[Scoot]

Our last big adventure was to drive to Seward and do a 3/4 day cruise. This was a lot of fun and was a nice change of pace.

We saw breath taking scenery on this trip.

The girls acting goofy.

[Scoot]

We saw some cool critters on this trip:

I got some cool shots of a humpback jumping:

Here he is diving deep for a jump.

Then he catches some cool air.

[Scoot]

After that, we headed back to Anchorage, returned the RV, goofed off for a while, and headed home. What a great trip! My sisters and I are so glad that we got to go there and experience Alaska with our mom. It was a truly wonderful trip that none of us will forget.

[Jim Uran]

Awesome awesome awesome..

[jwmiller33]

WOW! great pics! those shots of the whale jumping are really cool. it looks like you were in some of the same places i was when i was up in alaska about a month ago. were you fishing the kenai for reds when you were in soldotna? awesome pics and looks like you had a amazing time!

[sticknstring]

Wow, what a great trip. Sounds like you guys had a blast. Looks like the Sitka gear got some bunus use as well. Nice!

[mrklean]

man what a blast scoot my buddy just spent 10 days up there 2 weeks ago

[muc33]

Looks beautiful!!! Great recap!

[bmc]

Looks like a GREAT trip Scoot! My wife and I are planning on a trip to Alaska next summer for our 10 year anniversary. These pics will definitely add to the anticipation.

When we start figuring out our "to do" list, I might have to drop you an email.

On a side note, saw some maple leaves here yesterday that have quite a bit of color to them! Getting to be every bowhunter's favorite time of year!

Brian

[Sherpa]

Awesome whale shots. I wish I would have seen a few of those on my trip.

[MuleShack]

Looks like a ton of fun with family. Great recap and very nice picture to boot.

Alaska is on my to do list some year.

Thanks for sharing.

[senco 1]

Awesome pictures!!!!!!!!!!! Looks like you guys had a busy but fun trip? Very cool! You even had some sunshine!

[mainbutter]

Great trip I LOVE that whale shot!! I've seen probably close to 50 humpback whales in AK, and haven't yet seen one breach like that!

[Nutty Fisherman]

Great pictures Alaska is a very pretty place to visit.