Truly Alaskan Adventure

So, after slaving away equipping the greater Denali Park area with its fair share of caffeinated beverages, even the hardiest of souls (me) needs a day off. Yesterday was my day off.

Naturally I slept in.

Then, after that, I got to embark on an AMAZING Alaskan adventure.

Lets flash back a little, I got up here about a week before my job started, so there was a lot of down time... without money. I live right next to a private airstrip. An opportunity to clean some windows came up and I jumped at the chance. Well, I met this older guy, a pilot, retired custom home builder. We got along pretty well, and he told me about possibly going flying in his little plane to get some moose antlers. I thought it would be rad, but didn't really think it would come to fruition. Well, yesterday it did.

We had been trying to get out, but the weather was either windy or rainy after I got off work. Yesterday, the storm broke. I walked down the airstrip, we hopped aboard his little single engine plane, and embarked on this journey.

You see, he had spotted these antlers from his plane, there was a small gravel landing strip across from a river that is fed by a glacier (which is about 10 miles from the antlers).

We flew out, he showed me the location of the antlers from the plane, circled multiple times, so I could see where I needed to go, and then we landed on the strip. A backcountry landing strip is essentially as wide as a dirt road.

The plan was to land, then I would go and inflate this little boat that he had stashed out here the week before (when he tried to do this by himself), cross this river, retrieve the antlers, and paddle back across, and then fly out. When circling, I saw a second, smaller set of antlers not too far away that I thought would be easy to get.

He would give me a 45 minute head start, and then take off, and circle the antlers in the plane, should I have a hard time seeing them from the ground.

This is what the task would be...
I took this from the air on one of the circles so I could orient myself once on the ground.

Here is what it looked like, the plane is in the lower left corner.
The uninflated raft.

Once up to proper PSI... she was a hardy vessel.

The Solstice SunSkiff 350 at the put-in.

Let me tell you about this water crossing. A) The water is cold. B) it is moving fast. C) you had to lay on your stomach in the boat and paddle like that. D) all of the above.

The first of the antlers I found.

Everything went as planned for the first two antlers. I walked right to them. Then I started bushwhacking over to the others. Those turned out to be a little harder to find. Everything was COMPLETELY different on the ground. At that point Roger flew over, and dipped his wing and started to circle a spot about half a mile away... I was WAY off. I ran down there through the swampy/marshy/soggy Alaskan tundra, and after a few more passes of the plane, was able to find the third antler. With one more pass I found the fourth.

Now was the task I wasn't looking forward too. Getting the antlers to the boat, and back across the river.

After securing the antlers to the back of the boat, and testing it to make sure it was still buoyant under the antlers weight, I bellied up into the boat, shoved off, and rowed like crazy back across. The boat was actually a lot more stable with that extra weight in the back.

Me, with the full load of 4 antlers after successfully crossing back across the river.

Roger and the airplane, with the antlers.

Me with a surprise Diet Mountain Dew that Roger had in the plane.

The plane is small, so we had to strap the two big antlers outside by the gun.

Well, hope you enjoyed that... I sure as hell did.

Oh, and this is an aerial view of where I live, taken by me, from the plane when we took off.