Of Mountains and Halibut.

The summer has largely been gardens, growing, watering, weeding, harvesting and planting some more. During July we’ve made it out and about a couple of times so far to adventure beyond the innumerable house projects.

Over fourth of July weekend, Ben, Kaya, Pemba and I headed over to spend a couple of nights exploring up on Portlock Plateau across the Bay. We moored the boat at the Saddle Trail and headed over, across the tram, and up the glacier-side to Emerald Lake. Whew ~ that trail has not had much love lately. It was definitely in worse shape than in August of 2008, the last time I was up there with Rachel and Jen. Despite a brief period of bad-attitude (while mired in mosquito/devil’s club-uphill-hell), it was a most-fabulous trip. Sleeping in a tent again was fabulous, cooking out and having the dogs in the mountains. I love it all. We found snow, beautiful alpine plants, steep cliffs, sapphire lakes, mountains mountains, glaciers, and the Gulf of Alaska! Oh, and Pemba found a porcupine. We held her down and removed the 30+ quills from her face, but it begged the question – what if that were Kaya? It’s on the list to consult with the vet about bringing some doggie-downers out with us for extended trips.

These are long days for the dogs, who aren’t accustomed to 9 mile days running back, forth, up and down. Kaya slept like a champ, and definitely seemed to be in her perferred environment. Pemba had a lot more concern about the world, and spent a lot of time shivering. On the second night we let her into the tent…she was so beat from all of the running she didn’t even try to take over all of the prime sleeping spots like she normally does. Looking east down the mountains to the head of Kachemak Bay, across the Portlock Valley and down the Martin River valley. Looking west, down at Grewingk Lake, Halibut Cove, and the Spit off in the distance on the right. Ben, full of joy, pushing large rocks off of high cliffs....Last weekend, following our fabulous alpine-adventuring, we headed out into the Bay/Inlet with Jason and Annelisa to try our hand at halibut fishing. It was a glassy day out there, beautiful and chock-a-block full of boats! I actually just forget about the sport fleet – all of those folks who head out at the crack of dawn for a chance to bob around with a weighted, hooked line a couple of hundred feet down on the bottom of the sea floor. We spent nearly 8 hours, moving a bit from here to there, trying to “feel'” the fish way under.

Pemba {hearts} fishing. Charlie and Elias joined the efforts for the day, and caught 3 nice flatty fish. For our efforts we came home with 3 ‘buts and a cod. Some of which we froze, but also that night we had a good ‘ole fish fry and it was goooooood. It felt great to be out fishing, and to catch my first halibut ever! After scanning the heads of 150,000+ halibut, it was gratifying to pull one off of the bottom myself. I didn’t even check to see if it was tagged… Ben caught a halibut! And so did I! I contend that mine was bigger, but in all of the excitement I forgot to check. So….we’ll just go with mine was bigger.