Category: Camping

Posted on

Best Weekend Ever!

This memorial weekend was Juneau at its best, and we all enjoyed it! It started out with catching a skiff ride (with Nathan, Amanda, and Adam) out to Portland Island. Nathan had staked out the best sandy beach camp site (and there was only one other group on the whole side of the island–they were out of sight). The panoramic image tries to give you a sense of it (if you click on the image, you’ll get a “movie” which should load up in your browser or with quicktime and you will be able to navigate around the panorama with your mouse and control/shift for zoom).

It was incredibly relaxing, with a great beach walk. The sun was overpowering. Whales swam by three different times, sea lions visited, eagles, kingfishers, ravens, fish jumping… Torsten had a hard time getting to sleep before 10pm (despite waking up at 6am that morning!) and we all were over-sunned, over-stimulated, and happy relaxing. Carrie made (well-deserved) fun of Matt for using the iphone to email a few photos to the grandparents from camp (see them all at the gallery), but when Matt got the voicemail from Marijke that they couldn’t go up on the glacier with Era helicopters, and there was no need for Matt to hurry back to Juneautopia, we were happy to get the news.

We went on home, were a bit exhausted, but rallied to go to False Outer Point on Douglas for Eran’s 40th birthday (happy birthday!). Torsten got a nap in the car, then was ready for rock climbing and fun with the kids at the party.

On Sunday, we met Dave, Lori, and Garret for a hike up the East Glacier Trail at Mendenhall. Matt did some more playing around with the panoramas, so from one of the outlooks along the trail:

Torsten was showing his roots:

Our camera had a rough time keeping up with us this weekend–it took lots of pictures, but the digital display/viewfinder gave out, so we have a few more random pictures and a few less pictures we meant to take.  But we got some good ones!  Here’s Carrie and Torsten at the AJ falls:

After the hike, Matt spent some time on the roof, preparing for wireless computer connections to Lemon Creek Glacier and Carrie and Torsten worked in the yard. We went out for a bike ride with Torsten’s new trail-a-bike. He rode approximately four miles!

We biked over to Chip, Missy, and Adelie’s for some baseball, a great “local food” dinner (grilled salmon and scallops, with a Devil’s Club sauce, a fiddle head salad, and some fresh bread and strawberries (we broke the “local” part with the strawberries we brought, but Torsten is on a big strawberry kick at the moment, and they were delicious!

Since this was Memorial Day Weekend, we finally got the weekend we’ve been craving–one with three days! We took Torsten over to Garrett’s house (and the babysitter there) and we went with Dave and Lori on their “anniversary kayak”. Again, Matt got to play with the panorama:

Here’s the whole kayak gallery (for Dave and Lori!).

Other folks with cameras got photos of us, and perhaps we’ll add more details in a later blog-update, but this is getting long enough (or too long).

Juneau gave us great weather and we did our best to take advantage of it!

Posted on

“Camping” Adventure

Matt wasn’t around for this adventure, but based on reading the police reports and interviews with the unindicted minors present at the scene, this is his understanding of what took place on that fateful night of March 28.  A camping trip was in the air, so Carrie, Kristen, Chip and Misty took the unindicted minors (Ava, Willa, Adellie, and Torsten) to the *closed* camping grounds at Mendenhall Lake.  After battling with the tent setup, getting a fire started, and the all important marshmellow roasting underway, the forest service/homeland security strike force showed up to enforce the closed nature of the campground.  These “innocent” parents were obviously a threat to the homeland and abusing federal services so must be promptly (and rudely) escorted off of the federal resource.  It was apparent that the “unindicted minors” were acting out natural hazards (pretending to be “Krakatoa” for example) and so were part of the threat, due to their young age it was most likely that they were strongly influenced by the “responsible” adults.  At one point, one of the adults approached the enforcing officer with hands raised (luckily–otherwise force may have been necessary).

OK, I can’t keep it up…  But apparently after the kids roasted marshmellow, the “man” showed up and kicked everyone out.  The retreat back to the “compound” for ice cream was accomplished with no injuries.

One important part of the evening for Torsten was that he got a spark on his fleece which burned a hole.  I (Matt) have a fleece with a hole burned in it from a campfire, so Torsten was extremely excited to have a fleece like Dad’s (and was in fact, for Torsten, the saving grace of the evening).  What an adventure…

I give up officer! I'm unarmed!

All the pictures are in the gallery, of course.

Posted on

Father’s Day in Haines

After the great bike ride fun (see previous blog entry), we enjoyed the post-race dinner, and then searched out a quiet camping spot.  We went out to the Chilkoot Lake State Recreation Site and found a really great spot.  After sleeping in a bit, we woke up, had coffee and hot chocolate, then started packing up.  Carrie finished this up while Torsten and Matt went down to the lake to fish and do some father/son bonding on Father’s Day.  Carrie came down and joined us after a bit.

We have some great fishing movies, but I still have to compress those for posting.  In the meantime, enjoy this still shot (and I’ll post a bunch of movies as a separate blog entry).

We went into Haines and had some “famous” fish and chips for lunch at the Bamboo Room, played at the playground, and went to join in with all the other unique, individualists who drive subarus and bikes, just like us and everyone else. 🙂

 

As always, check out the whole gallery (includes the bike race and fishing).

Posted on

Kluane Bike Race

We had an awesome adventure last weekend centered around the Kluane Chilkat International Bike Race. It started out with a beautiful blue sky, flat water, fast ferry ride from Juneau to Haines. Carrie, Torsten, and Matt were on the ferry with Adelie, Chip, Missy, Mark, and Julie. Chip “Dr. Blokus” brought along his favorite game..

Blokus on the Ferry (Adelie and Torsten)

After grabbing dinner and some new fishing gear for Torsten, we went on up to Haines Junction (Canada) and camped with a lot of bikers. Here’s the start of the race on Satuday.

Carrie, Chip, and Matt rode as Team US Postal Service, with Missy acting as our team captain. Julie and Mark rode the whole race (150 miles–the race was 148.1, but they rode bikes from the campground to the start of the race). Chip rode legs 1-4 (69.4 miles) of the race, and was a bit wet and cold. Once he got up into the mountains, the skies cleared up and things warmed up, just in time for Matt to hop on to ride legs 5 and 6 (36.3 miles). Carrie got this great shot of Matt heading down the road after the station between legs 5 and 6.

Here’s Chip after Leg 4, escorted by Missy, Adelie, and Torsten:

After thoroughly enjoying Leg 6 (check out the altitude profile of Leg 6!), Matt handed off to Carrie (here she is riding off down the scenic road), who did Leg 7 and went on to do about a third of Leg 8 (the line at Customs to get back into the U.S. was a killer!!). Carrie rode a little over 30 miles.

Chip cleared customs and jumped right back in to join Mark and Julie at about midway through leg 7. So the US Postal Service team “cheated” (by covering parts of legs 7 and 8 twice) to get the red lantern (last to finish). But we had a blast and that was our only goal. Here’s the whole team (along with the “finishers”–Adelie and Torsten).

As usual, the whole gallery is available.