Spring Camping Round 1

May 28, 2020

"There's nothing better than camping in Alaska." -Oren James

This is the first Spring that we've had the boat in the water, so we made the most of it and camped last weekend.

On the way down we saw a moose on the river bank.

The water was pretty high so we went down to Nunakruk (totally didn't spell that right) and took a creek into some lakes. We looked in the large lake first, but there was still lots of ice.

. Specklebelly Geese on the big lake.

We found a smaller lake to set up camp on.

Can you spy our tent?

After we had camp all organized we hiked to a pingo (permafrost hill).

This picture makes me smile because it's so typical. There are so many plants and little creatures on the way that capture the boys' attention. Our hikes end up being quite slow placed. Anya typically rides in the backpack, but she is getting better at walking on the tundra. When we got to the hill she climbed up on her own.

Hiking up the hill.

We love spring time with all the new growth. The kids were excited to find flowers. Anya picked some coltsfoot. It's super fragrant and the flowers bloom first before the leaves. We did some reading at home and found that the large leaves can be used as a cough remedy or to treat respiratory ailments! Here's a close up (the flowers bloom before the leaves emerge):

There were some ducks in the lake by the hill. Brett shot one and it was Anya's doll for the rest of the hike. (She was slightly disappointed when we told her we had to pluck it so we could eat it for dinner!)

I'd love to see what goes on inside her head. She is just fascinated by ducks and any new animal really.

Wild poikas playing and flipping down the hill.

My hearts.

"Is this called a tail mom?"

As we were playing around on the top of the hill, we spotted a beaver and were able to watch it for a long time.

On Sunday Brett had a hike planned for us. There was a mountain that was 3.5 straight line miles from our camp and a lower ridge that was 2.5 miles. Our goal was to make it to the ridge. We has expected the walking to get a little easier on the hills, but it was tundra the whole way. The kids were champs.

We saw a surf scoter on the big lake on our way out. We had never seen one here before, so we had to identify it in Oren's Alaska Bird Guide.

Female Surf Scoter

Break time

Tundra walking isn't the easiest.

We found some snow patches on the way!

The kids were getting pretty tired by the time we were nearing the ridge, so we took our time and picked some (of last year's) cranberries along the way. However by the time we got to our destination they miraculously had a ton of energy and were exploring and running around like crazy.

They were excited to find flowers (forms of liverwort), spiders, and worms.

Cranberry face princess

Beautiful views from the ridge.

Oren dragged this caribou shed all the way back to camp!

Ryker found a comfortable resting spot during a break.

You can take the guy out of the Yoop but can't take the Yoop out of the guy. Brett fashioned a tarp sauna (I can't believe I didn't get a picture of it!) and carried the rocks all the way back from the ridge. He used the cooking grate upside down to carry the rocks in. The boys helped to build up the fire to get the rocks hot. Then Brett transferred the grate with rocks into the tarp and threw steam for the kids. The boys were SO excited to swim....and they got all the way up to their waist in the water. Anya managed to dip her feet in. The water was pretty chilly.

The boys getting sticks ready for the fire.

On our way out on Monday we went back into the big lake to picnic. The boys duck hunted for a bit and in the short time we were there the wind shifted and the way we came in was blocked (which was exactly why we didn't camp in it!). We tried to sneak around to the other side, but that was blocked too. The water was so high that we were able to push the boat through the willows to get around the ice. It wasn't the most relaxing time ever, but we would've been fine. We had all of our camping stuff in the boat. I was just hoping we wouldn't have to call someone for help for something like this (that we knew better!)