Our August 2013 trip photos!

[mainbutter]

This past August, I had the pleasure of taking my fiance to see Alaska for the first time (excluding a 4 day winter trip to visit the parents where we hardly left the house).

We had so much fun I thought it'd be fun to share with the HSO fellas and gals.

Our goals were to cram as much "Alaska" experience into a week and a half. We flew into Anchorage and right back out to Kodiak the following day. I'll caption the photos with a tidbit about what we were doing

Beth's first salmon, the pinks were running all over. Her biggest fish before that was a 2lb LMB. Her 2nd biggest fish before that was a bluegill.

We had fun chasing pinks that evening and didn't take enough pictures. The next morning we went out for a halibut/lingcod/rockfish trip. On the way out to the spots, we saw humpback whales feeding. I've seen whales, but the feeding behavior was crazy. They would chase the bait ball, turn on their side, and open wide!

Beth's first halibut, and a new PB biggest fish!

This albatross was a special treat, he displayed his trifold wings nicely (but we didn't catch him folding them on camera).

This sea lion stalked us as we were dropping the boat's load of fish off. We dubbed him "crazy eyes".

We got a tip on silvers starting to run, and had some success! I caught two, my dad caught two, and Beth caught one. Hers was the biggest tipping our scale at a quarter over 15lbs, mine was a quarter under. My mom skunked out on silvers but kept connecting with feisty pinks. Here's us displaying the results!

Just a fly fishing pic. I'd never caught salmon on a fly before this trip. I gotta say, I'm "hooked".

A pretty place to walk around in the woods, beautiful moss EVERYWHERE.

It's hard to pick a wildlife highlight of the trip, but it's hard to beat a bear cub in a tree, its sibling on the ground, and momma fishing away to feed all three of them. I apologize for the poor focus, but I promise the brown blob is a bear cub and not a squatch!

[mainbutter]

Cool bold-as-heck stoat

And just a fishing picture

That's our Kodiak trip, Anchorage was a little more low key but I'll upload a few more pics.

[eyeguy 54]

fun!

[mainbutter]

Those two specs on top of the rock are us after a fun climb at Beluga Point (I'm not sure if the "point" is where we were, or where my parents were taking pictures from)

Speaking of belugas..

We actually saw belugas on three separate occasions, just unreal. They came in with every tide, chasing salmon I assume. I've never had that kind of luck watching for them in years past.

A beautiful day in the clouds climbing Flattop, Anchorage's most popular spot to hike supposedly.

Black bear

A fun sign

Can't wait to get back there!

[Slabasaurus]

Well that was a fun little trip there... thanks for the pics! Watching whales feeding like that must have been really sweet.

Gotta get up there before too long.

This also looks awesome.

[AKSalmonSlayers]

Looks like you had a great trip! awesome stuff. I can live here the rest of my life and not accomplish everything on my bucket list.

[Wanderer]

And just a fishing picture

American River?

I think you made a good choice to go to Kodiak. Looks like you had a great trip!