Fishing and camping in wilderness of Alaska.

Oh that sure is pretty. Tell you what, you'll be hard-pressed to find a more beautiful campsite. I think this is where I'm going to camp for the night. This ground is nice and soft too. I'm going to go down to the river, get some water, see if I can't catch a fish. How do I get down here without breaking my neck? Oh there we go. That's not a big grayling but that's an actual edible one. Going downstream seemed to pay off. Oh there we go, that's an even better one. That's a very skinny grayling but that's a proper size. Fly fishing for arctic grayling has got to be one of my favorite types of fishing. Just seems like grayling are always in the mood for a dry fly. Got another one. Little guy, I'm gonna let him go. Oh that's a pretty one. You know what, I'm gonna let him go. I think I landed about eight or ten grayling in a pretty quick period of time but I think I need to get back up that hill and get camp made. I got food to cook up. All right, I'm gonna let the little guy go. I'll keep the big one. All right, got a fish, got some water. I think it's time to go make some dinner. Now the tough part, I gotta get back up that hill. It's nice and warm out here but man the bugs are getting intense. I think it's time to set up the tent and I'm liking this little spot. It's flat, level, soft and you got a little bit of depression so the wind isn't hitting the tent. I'm gonna go ahead and filter the water I took from the river. Go ahead and put my bottle in this parky squirrel hole. Gravity pulls the water through the filter and into your bottle. All right, I think it's time to get serious about picking blueberries. Ah, the hazards of blueberry picking. But I got about two pounds of blueberries here so that's not bad at all. Make sure to do this downwind from your camp otherwise you'll have feathers in everything. This is what was inside the ptarmigan's crop, blueberry leaves. Make sure I throw all the guts way down the hill. I don't want these anywhere near my camp. There we go, there's the grayling and ptarmigan all cleaned and dressed. It's not a ton of meat but it'll make a good meal. All right, I'm gonna pour about half the blueberries into this bag. As you just add some water to the blueberries and all the sticks and leaves will float and you kind of just skim them off. There we go, got some clean blueberries. Oh, it's starting to rain. I'm making a little blueberry sauce to go on the ptarmigan and it's super easy. Just throw in a bunch of clean blueberries, just put a dash of water in the bottom of the pan, boil everything until it's the consistency you want. All right, well I didn't know whether I was going to get any ptarmigan or not today so I brought some lamb steaks just in case. I think I'm gonna eat those too. I walked 12 miles today, I earned it. Well, it's starting to rain. I think I better eat my dinner quickly. All right, I'm gonna put some blueberry sauce on our ptarmigan. That's good, that's really good. That's not bad, I didn't overdo it. Ah, that was good but this rain and wind is getting me cold. I think I need to get inside. It was really cold last night. I am going to go ahead and put on some adhesive body warmers. You know what? I have them and I don't like being cold. Might as well, right? Got my stretchy pants on. I'm gonna put my legs in this sleeping bag and I'm gonna eat lamb in bed. It's been a good day and a good meal. I'm gonna finish it off with coconut flavored chocolate covered macadamia nut. So good. And for second dessert, a melon flavored KitKat straight from Japan. Absolute favorite KitKat flavor. Well, it's late and it's getting cold. I think I'm gonna boil a bottle of water to put in the bottom of my sleeping bag. I got two liters of boiling water to put down in my bag. I'm doing well but it's late. I'm going to bed. I'll see you guys in the morning. It rained a lot last night. Well, it seems we survived. Got this Just Add Water muffin mix. I'm gonna use it to make some fresh blueberry muffins. I'm gonna add some blueberries. Might not look like a lot but that's like three muffins worth. We're gonna let those muffins cook in the steam for about 20 to 30 minutes and if the water level starts to get too low, we're gonna add a little bit more water to it. There we go. Steamed muffin. You can tell the steamed muffin's done because they'll start to crack at the top and when you give it a little slap, it doesn't slosh around and jiggle. It's just like it's baked in an oven only it's softer and it's got fresh blueberries. Oh, that hits the spot. Well, it seems like I got a little break in the rain. I think I need to get this party cleaned up and we need to hit the trail. I got a long way to get back home. Socks were a little wet last night. I put them in the bottom of my sleeping bag up next to that water bottle and they're nice and dry now. Well, I'm all packed up but my fingers are freezing. It is so cold out here. We are this close from getting snow instead of rain. My fingers are frozen. Oh, this has been an awesome campsite but we've got several miles to go to get back to the car and there is no trail. Here's the car. Here was the lake by the car, okay, and here's the trail I followed. I followed the trail until it disappeared and then I kind of went cross-country and I stumbled upon the river, okay. Then I followed the river along. We camped there. I'm going to go this way. Now, there's no trail. I don't have a map but I know that there's a big mountain right here and there's a mountain right here. So, if I just stay to the top of two mountains, I should be able to make it back to the car. I've got to be really careful picking my way. I don't want to walk through brush and get my pants soaking wet. That's an important part of backcountry survival. Don't wet your pants. So, if I'm not mistaken, I think that should be the first hill I need to follow to get back home. If I'm wrong, I'll be able to see you the right hill from the top of that one. So, either way, I'm getting on top of that mountain. Yeah, I think I'm on the right hill. Putting this stove in last night was the best idea ever. It's so toasty in here. Oh, pancakes are hard to beat. I guess, technically, this is breakfast in bed. Nice. There you go. My smoked salmon's done. It's tiny but good. Well, despite the weather, I really want to go see that glacier. This is a bald eagle's footprint. Look at the size comparison to my hand. From one talon to the other, that's probably eight inches. Oh, darn. I missed the tide. It's heading the wrong way. I might be able to get up against the current. We'll see. In the middle of the river, the current's moving faster than I can paddle. But maybe if I stick to the sides, I can sneak upstream. Oh, my hands are so cold. All right. Check out that eagle. A bunch of pink salmon right there. Look at that. I think I made it to the lake that feeds the river. Now, it's hard to see with all this fog, but there's an enormous glacier falling into this lake somewhere over there. I just got to see if I can find a way through all this ice. Oh, that'll buff out. I got to be careful going in between these icebergs. Some of these weigh more than buildings, and as the tide goes up and down, they're going to shift and move around. This clear water can disappear, or worse yet, you can get squished in between two big icebergs. This place is just full of seals and sea otters. I've seen like 20 of them. This ice pack goes on forever. Ice that comes from the bottom of the glacier is super compressed and has that really cool blue color. The fog lifted, and I can see the face of the glacier. The tide switches in about an hour and a half, and it's taken me three hours to get here, so I better get heading back. I know I'm hungry when I'm double fisting it. Oh, that kayaking wore me out. That was about five hours. Well, it's almost dinner time, and I got some bread dough left over, so I think I'm going to make a bushcraft bread oven. We got the oven stuffed full of wood. Got the dough rising in the pot. Just stick it over here and let it rest. Aha! There we go. Oh, is there anything better than warm fresh bread? Yes! Warm fresh bread with honey butter. Oh, that is so good. Oh, the crust is so crispy on this thing. Oh, I'm getting so full. I've got a belly full of warm bread, and it's nice and cozy in here. I'm going to just kind of take it easy. I'm sore after all that kayaking. Here we go. Nice little wooden spoon. Well, I think I made a little bit of a mess here. It's been a fun relaxing evening, but I've got to get to bed. I've got to get up early in the morning. I'll see you guys then. Oh, good morning. I've got to hurry up and get packed. I hate packing up in the rain. All of my gear is soaked and dirty. Well, it's about noon, and if anything, there's more ice in the river than there was this morning. I think if I'm going to get out of here, I got to go soon. I'm nervous about this because if I get in the water and I get soaking wet, it is going to be so cold. I'm going to freeze really quick. My backpack's taking up a little bit more room than I expected. I'm going to try something else here. Oh, that's a lot more manageable. Yeah, that'll work a lot better. I've got about 70% of my gear stored inside the raft. That'll keep the center of gravity lower and just keep it out of my way. Moment of truth. Oh, it's so weird having the ice around. We're moving at a pretty good clip. Just floating downstream with the icebergs. Luckily, this ice is nice and soft. It's just like a giant shave ice. Slush makes it really hard to maneuver. It makes it hard to see all the snags and boulders I need to avoid. See right there? My two biggest fears are hypothermia and sweepers. Sweepers are when you have a tree laying across the current. If you hit that, you'll get stuck under the sweeper and pinned under the water and you can drown. Avoiding sweepers and not getting wet are my two big priorities. The key to avoiding sweepers is staying on the inside of the curbs. Sweepers are always on the outside of a bend. My fingers aren't even wet and they're already cold. The cold is just seeping up through the kayak and the paddle. Words cannot describe how badly I do not want to get wet. Looks like we got some rapids. Scraped my butt on the rocks, but seemed to be okay. Look at all this ice. Dang, this is a lot of ice. It's really good I'm getting out today. If I waited one more night I probably couldn't make it. Man, if this slush was any thicker I wouldn't be able to maneuver in it. There we go. Got some open water. It's crazy. I look at the ice and it feels like I'm not moving at all. Then I look at the shoreline and I'm like, oh I'm ripping. One nice thing about the ice is it's keeping me moving downstream even with this wind in my face. Normally these pack rafts get pushed around by the wind quite a bit, but the ice is having none of it. Well, I've got about four miles under my belt, but I'm starting to get a little cold, a little bit hungry. Then I remembered I packed my food inside the raft. I really don't want to have to deflate the raft to get lunch, so I might have to just power through. Oh, we're getting spicy. Man, I want that sunshine back. Man, some of these ice chunks are getting big. I've got to go around that one. You can see the sweepers right there. Those trees hanging into the water. Number one way to run into trouble on this river. The further downstream I go, the more packed the slush is getting. That was tough. That right there is a big sweeper. I don't want to get stuck underneath that. Look at that. The water is freezing to my raft. I managed to raft 12 miles back to town and my lower half is all cramped up and cold. It feels both good and painful to be walking. Floating the river was fun, but a little bit dicier than I like. I would hate to think what would happen if I had to fall in.