Flight to Steen's upper slopes.

Today I made a "day break" start to check for possible Elk hunting spots this fall on the lower slopes of the Steen's Mt. The terrain there runs from 8500 to 5000 feet. While on the South end the escarpment juts up out of the desert floor from about 4000 feet to 10,000 feet very nearly vertically, and on the North end of the escarpment, slopes gradually from 4,000 to 10,000 feet South of Burns Oregon in the area of the Malheur Refuge.

We have had a really unusual and wet June. There is more water on the desert than many of the residents here, have ever seen. It really has made the spring branding very difficult as the stock is all scattered all over the hills, and even horses could not negotiate the saturated earth.

The water that you see in the picture below is in the Mickey Basin, and rarely holds anywhere near that much water.

The top of the plateau is covered with Sage, Juniper and Aspen, and supplies very rich forage for both game animals and livestock. Deer and Antelope were evident, but no Elk were sighted. I stayed up quite high, so it would be very easy to miss them.

Looking West towards the Alvord. Mann Lake is in the foreground.

Although I didn't take any pictures of the future sites, there is a new road that has been punched in the hillside to allow access to a soon to be "Wind Farm" on the South facing ridge. The rest of the roads were "two track" of what appeared and I sure will prove to be very rough road. I was very surprised to find three "line Shacks" located on the top of the slope.

I crossed Kiger Gorge a bit lower than its beginning, which is at 10,000 feet, but even so it is quite lovely.

On leaving the area I crossed over the ridge towards the Alvord, noting the water coming off the ridge, and on down to the Alvord itself, then turned towards home.

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Upon touchdown found that I had consumed 6.5 gallons of gas, covering 115 miles in 2.1 hours of flight. Of course this fuel burn is not accurate, since I seem to have a habit of forgetting to flip off the choke after it is warmed up. Doesn't hurt it, just burns more fuel. :-/ My highest altitude was 9000 feet, with an outside air temp. of 65 degrees.

Alaska Pictures

The view from part way up Polychrome Pass. Karen had her eyes mostly closed for the rest of the road. It is quite a scary road as the drop off is perhaps 500 to 1000 feet to the bottom and the road is extremely narrow. Pucker factor was high even for me.



Karen took this picture of all the wild flowers at Eielsen rest stop in Denali. I lost sight of her in the interpretive center. I walked around the area looking for her and finally located her walking down a path over the hill. I knew she was on a "flower quest".

Alpine Lupine.
Wild Rose.

Bridle Falls taken from the White Pass RR.
Between Ketchican and Juneau from the Cruise Ship.
Float planes were every where.
Interesting color layers from the Hubbard Glacier.
Hubbard Glacier. All the "calving" was going on around the corner that you see.
The cruise ship lying at anchor a Hoonan, Icy Straight.
Karen and I took a walk on one of the forest paths while at Hoonan.
The trees are thick and a bit interesting sometimes.
Pretty darn big too.
Other than the mountains in the background, I found the
calm ocean amazing.
One of the little fishing villages along the way.

Reid Falls, named in honor of the man who shot Soapy Smith.


Another train headed back into Skagway.


This is the American/Canada Border.
This little cabin was the Northwest Mounted Police outpost, no longer manned. They are now located on the Hwy in a much more comfortable building.

Alaska Cruise, part 2

The cruise ship was really quite nice, and there was more food than should ever be available to anyone. There was a buffet that had almost every thing that you could ever ask for. I especially liked the fruit, and indulged in entirely too much Watermelon and Pineapple. The main dining room served elegant meals with big names, with two waiters at each table. It was all served with a flair, designed to impress, but I could have done with a good steak, with some seasoning on it, and a beer. :-/ Larry, the used car salesman ate it all up and usually ordered two of the offered meals. Of course he weighed around three hundred pounds. I managed to gain about 7 pounds in the week that I was there.

There were several shows at the theater each evening that were quite entertaining, and several of the bars and the main room had nightly entertainment, all quite good. One of the shows featured Beetles songs, with entertainers that were carbon copies of the originals regarding looks and sound. The one that portrayed Paul was even left handed, and from the back of the room undistinguishable from the real thing. They had the place rocking.

Overall it was a good time and very comfortable ship, but I was ready to get off by the seventh day when we reached Seward. The weather was remarkable, with hardly a swell to the seas. The ship rarely had any noticeable roll to it at all. An occasional Whale kept things interesting.

After leaving the ship we caught a bus to Anchorage and then on to our hotel. Karen had been combing all the shops that featured Ivory, looking for earrings for pierced ears. In 1967 I had bought her a pair of carved Ivory Forget me not's (Alaska's State Flower) that were screw on posts, as she didn't have her ears pierced at that time. She liked them very much, but couldn't wear them and couldn't find any one to change them over. We found a shop that specialized in Ivory and they had ones that were practically identical, so Karen's quest was over.


The train ride to Denali was quite nice and comfortable. We took the Gold Star tickets on the trip up, which was a "Dome type car", and general tickets on the way back. Personally I preferred the "cheap" ticket, and we packed our lunch that time. I was a bit surprised at how few animals we saw, only counting a Black Bear and a Moose.


We stayed at "McKinley Lodge" in a room that was supposed to be for four people. It consisted of a double bed, a single bed, and a hideaway couch. The sink was in the bedroom, although the shower was nice. There was only two towels, so we had to request two more, get more coffee, and have them bring down the bedclothes for the hideaway. The following day after our return we found that they had given us only three towels, did not clean the coffee pot, did not make the bed. Karen found a receipt from a previous tenant in the ice bowl. All for only $299.00 a night. If you are planning on going there, I would recommend another lodging.

We decided on a "shuttle" operated by the Forest Circus, rather than one of the guided tours. It was much cheaper, and a lot less structured. We opted for an 8 hour trip that covered 60 miles into the park. The driver was great and basically gave the same type of tour as that given by the fancy operators. If any body wanted a picture he stopped with no complaints, in fact he encouraged it. It was rainy at first, so the windows were a bit of a mess and we cleaned the side windows at every stop.

The one thing that I did notice was that the Snowshoe Hares are really on the up take. In some areas they had chewed the bark off most of the willows up to about four feet off the ground. We did see a lot of Hares, a couple of Moose, a few Dall Sheep, a group of three Grizzlies hunting Squirrels, and sun bathing Caribou on a river bar. The birds were represented by Golden and Bald Eagles, Ptarmigan, Ravens and Magpies.
This is what the mountain is supposed to look like, but this is what we got.

We had time for dinner after returning to Anchorage, and then off to the airport for a 12:30 AM flight out. We arrived in Boise at 8 AM and back home arriving about 10:30 AM.

The back lawn yielded two wheel barrow loads of cut grass for the horses. It had rained almost every day since leaving and has rained twice since. It is good to be home. Now to pay my debts to the gal that took care of the place while we were gone. She wants a new porch built.

Larry