First Ride for 2010/2011 season
Drove up to 42 Mile Steese for our first ride of the season. The club had a ride planned from the Elliott (Haul Road) side of the White Mtns. But I was planning to try out the new sled and see how she handled and figured I’d be better to do so without a large group of folks to laugh at me when I goofed
Anyway, it was a short trip but a great day. Lots of fresh snow and the powder was up to my knees, not a record but still good riding.
I did discover that I need to add some snow screens to the hood of the Cougar for Tyler, every time he plowed some snow on the hood the carbs would freeze up, so lots of down time cleaning snow and letting the carbs warm back up. Hopefully the screens will help.
So here’s a couple of pics of Tyler riding his way out of (another) Ooops, off the trail and in the trees moment
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The White Mountains in Nov 2010, great day for riding in some fresh powder
Share on FacebookIron Dog Route 2011
Images for the 2011 Iron Dog route through the Tanana Flats, Chena Flood Project and the Chena River to downtown Fairbanks. This is going to add 66 miles to the race and make for a better finish.
New Sled
So the first snow has come and gone and I figured there won’t be a better time to buy a new trail/freight sled then now, so I did.
And she’s pretty, but heavier than any thing I have ever owned before. Now if the snow would just stick and build up a few feet I’ll be ready to do some test riding.
Share on FacebookFirst Snow
So the cabin platform is completed and so is the porch deck. Since the RV was being repaired I decided to take the dome tent and stay in that, not ever again if I can help it.
The temps dropped to below freezing and the wind was gusting to 40 MPH, it was a cold couple of days but it feels good to get the platform done and ready for the walls.
Next will be stacking materials to frame the wall and roof and then enclose the cabin in so I can work on the inside. Of course this won’t happen until next spring giving me lots of time to buy the materials and haul them in with the snowmachine over the winter months, much easier than hauling with an ATV.
Had our first snow fall and now its suppose to snow some more today, lets hope for a heavy snow year, I’d sure like to get a decent season of riding in this year.
Share on FacebookMoose camp and cabin building
Well so far it’s a mooseless year and an empty freezer. Had a good time in base camp and we did see a few bulls and some cows, but nothing that anyone could get a decent shot at, so moosies your safe for another year, or at least those living in the valley we usually hunt. I drew a late season draw tag, so starting Sept 22 I have 6 weeks to try and fill the freezer and plan to do so before the middle of Nov.
I cut my time in camp short and only stayed about 8 days instead of my normal 15. My priorities changed this year and pointed more towards working on the cabin platform for the Indian River property. With Dean’s help we got the platform done and 99% of the porch deck finished. I sort of mis calculated on my materials list and ran out deck boards, Ooops, hopefully I’ll get back down there one more time before the snow flies to finish it up.
It did go good, friend Scott helped out and drove my truck towing the car hauler with both the truck and trailer loaded down with lumber and I drove the RV also towing a trailer with ATV’s and more lumber. It was a heck of a load of wood we hauled down, but that was the easy part. Scott and I arrived at our camp site on Thursday and Dean showed up Friday with his ATV to help build and haul material into the cabin site.
From the parking area to the cabin site is about a two and half mile ride through mud and hard pack trail, depending on the weather. Our first load was bridging material to build, well, a bridge over a small creek we had to cross. After we got the bridge up Scott and Dean went back and got more material while I drove into the cabin site and started on finishing up the last beam and then work on the floor joist for the platform and porch deck.
It took them all day Friday to haul all the material in and about as long for me to finish up the beams. Of course getting a flat and having a tire come off the rim on the trailer they were hauling behind the ATV’s didn’t help. By the end of the day we had all the materials in and made it back to camp for a well deserved steak dinner. Saturday morning Scott headed back home to spend time with the wife and Dean and I started to get serious on hammering down the floor joist and platform decking.
By Sunday afternoon we had the joist and decking down and nailed and then finished up on the hangers for the porch deck. It sure was hard keeping our mind set into nailing down boards when we had this excellent view of the valley in front of us. Being as it was still hunting season we did take a fair amount of breaks to watch the valley, just to make sure no legal sized moose tried to sneak by us :<) Dean left Sunday afternoon to head home and get ready for work on Monday and mentioned how nice a shower was going to feel and though I agreed with him on the shower, I’m betting I had a nicer day working on the cabin, even if I did stink from 3 days of sweet and grime. Hey it wasn’t like there was anyone around to notice anyway. By the end of Monday I had 50% of the porch deck down and done and planned to finish it up Tuesday, apply a coat of wood preservative and call it good. Hah, nice plan until I realized I goofed on my material calculation and was short by 3 runs of 2x6’s. Dang nabit, oh well, I’ll have to come back next week with more material and finish it up. So Wednesday morning I pack up and head for home with plans to bring back more material and another can of wood preservative. It was a nice and uneventful drive to Fairbanks, sunny and warm and all was going good until I got to town. Decided to stop and gas up the RV and see just what kind of mileage I was getting these days. So a quick and easy off the Parks, hit safeway 2 blocks away and back on the road home… Not. As I’m getting on the off-ramp I hear a grinding sound, hum, not good, better stop, so I look out the passenger side window and see my axle and passenger side rear tires, all of the tires. Now dangit, aren’t those things suppose to be under the vehicle…. So I stop as fast as the brakes will let me and watch the two rear tires and half of my axle roll past me on fire and burning. If it wasn't so shocking it’d be funny, kind of like the movie Vacation….. I won’t bore you with all the wonderful details of not being able to get a wrecker out and when after calling everyone in town I was charged $500.00 by the only one that would tow a 27 foot RV that day 4 miles… So ends another wonderful week of my vacation :<)
Building the cabin
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Building the cabin platform and porch deck, all set for the cabin. Now to get more material in to build with.
Share on FacebookWooHoo
So I’m on my lunch break and just thought I’d post a quick WooHoo, in couple hours my vacation starts. 5 Weeks to hunt, fish and work on the cabin, can’t wait. Its been a long year and I think I’m in major need of a break.
Trish comes home Sunday morning at 1:00 AM after being down in Oklahoma for the past two and half weeks, hurry up and get home sweetie, we all miss ya. So we’ll get about a day together and then I’m gone for 9 days then come home, re-pack and gone for 10 more days. Going to be a busy month.
Share on FacebookBase Camp
With only 9 days to go until Moose season opens it was time to get into base camp and see what kind of shape things were in and cut some firewood. The ride in was fairly easy and the trail is still pretty good. We only had one bad spot to cross and that wasn’t all that bad.
Our camp area supports were all looking good so all we really had to do was cut firewood, extent the cover area (hate getting rained on while I’m trying to relax by the fire) and do a little general clean up. We did haul out all the garbage that has been sitting there for over 5 years. This wasn’t our garbage, but deposited by some previous campers in the past. We’ve just been putting up with it over the last few years, but this year I figured it was time to haul it out and improve the local view.
The only real problem was the porcupine’s, they darn near ate our whole outhouse to nothing. I’m sure they enjoyed the easy meal of plywood, but man, when they ate the walls they took away our “Privacy to Privy”.. So unthoughtful of them.
Scott now has plans to build us a Stainless steel facility to replace the one the porcupines ate, I hope he also plans to add a fluffly cloth seat cover, I know I won’t be looking forward to sitting on a cold toilet seat at 30 degrees above.
So here’s the pictures from our short but productive excursions to get base camp ready.
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Cleaning up and expanding base camp in preparation for the upcoming Moose Season Hunt.
Share on FacebookAs life rolls along
I’m working on getting material to finish the platform for the cabin and getting geared up for hunting season. Hunting season is going to be short for me, 7 days, and then I’m heading down to work on the cabin. I really need to get the cabin platform done before the snow flies so I have a place to store material. It’ll be much easier to haul materials in over the snow this coming winter then by ATV.
Anyway, I’m heading out tomorrow (Sat) for the day with Jake and Scott to see what kind of shape base camp is in and get firewood cut and do some house cleaning as it were. It’s going to be a long day I think.
Since Trish is in Oklahoma helping out her mom, I’ve been doing double duty with the grandkids and pups. Pax has been looking a bit depressed, which probable has more to do with Sassy being in heat than Trish being gone, shhhh, Trish thinks he’s sad because she’s gone :<) So last night I figured I’d take him on a long walk and as were heading back to the house, he stops in his tracks, ears go up, heads turning left and right and he’s pulling on the lease big time. Oh, so there’s a momma moose and calf 30 feet in front of us, I stepped out and around from the tree I’m behind and let her see me, see turns and heads towards the slough. No biggie. So we almost get home and here’s momma moose again, sitting in my front yard with her calf behind her, again, no biggie, I’ll just keep walking and go inside. At this point Pax decides he’s going to bark his head off and momma moose doesn’t like it, ears go back and down and she starts coming at us. There’s only about 60 feet or so between and I know she can make that in two seconds, so I grab Pax and fast step behind my pickup truck and she stops. Whew, so now here I am with a barking 20# Terrier in my arms, a momma moose who thinks I’ve already come to close to her calf and nowhere to go but around my truck to keep momma moose’s legs out of range. The front door is only 12 feet away but I can’t get to it with momma being so dang gone defensive. Well, we did the dance around the truck once and she went back to her calf, so at least she’s now 100 feet away and I head for the door, get in the house and grab my camera. So here they are eating and drinking and looking at me like “what, you still here”. Once the barking dog was in the house she didn’t seem to mind me getting within 50 feet of her and her calf, of course I did stay inside the green house, just in case she got frisky again. [flagallery gid=59 name="Gallery" skin=StylishGrey]
Share on FacebookChulitna, stage left
On the last trip we got the railroad ties in to use as post. These are basically 7 by 8 inch beams of wood soaked in tar and as a rule are pretty good for standing up against rot and bug infestation, I guess time will tell. Anyway, I drove down on the night of the 5th of August and unloaded the load the lumber I had for the beams and cross member supports, a pretty uneventful trip and kind of relaxing for a long day.
Dean showed up Friday morning around 9:00 AM and after a quick cup of coffee or two we loaded up the trailer with about half the lumber I hauled down. This made for a pretty heavy load and we were a bit concerned about being able to get it in with all the rain we’ve been having this summer. Get it in we did and didn’t even get stuck, we saved that (getting stuck) until “after” we unloaded the trailer. Go figure, loaded with 800 pounds or so of excess weight and the ATV hauls the trailer in like its nothing, unload the trailer and we get stuck in a mud hole….
While Dean hauled the limber I got to haul in the portable Auger with a 12 inch bit and it worked out really well. We got to the site, off loaded the lumber and set up the auger for our first post. So far so good, until we got about 3 feet down, “hey Dean, where’s the drill bit extension?” reply, “we ain’t got no drill bit extension” Ooops. I forgot to mention to him that when he picked up auger and drill bit to get the 18 inch extension and of course the folks at the rental place didn’t bring it up, so, no extension. OK, no biggie, drill as deep as we can then use the manual post hole digger. Turns out it wasn’t needed anyway, the deepest we got was to the 3 foot mark and then the underlying soil was as hard as rock, probable because it was rock
So by 6:00 PM Friday were both pretty tired out, but we did get 7 of the 15 post placed and compacted in. We also decided that were going to pour some concrete footers around the post at ground level to add to the overall strength and support. So back to camp and dinner, when dang nabit, I forgot to take the steaks out of the freezer for dinner, good thing Dean brought down some pre-made spaghetti, Thanks Marquise (Deans wife) for dinner.
Saturday morning I got up at 7:00 AM, what, I never sleep in that last, I guess I was more tired than I thought. Humm, so I made a nice breakfast of bacon, eggs and potatoes and we loaded up the second half of the lumber and headed in to finish up the post. Another easy trip in and everything was good. Started drilling and had placed 12 of the 15 post when Dean’s sister and company show up to visit. So there’s an hour spent socializing, they were great folks to get to know. John (another John) jumped right in and gave us a hand and we got those last three post placed in record time, well record time for our normal speed. Leave it to say neither Dean nor I are speed demons when it comes to digging holes in rocky soil.
By the end of the day we had all the posts set and some temporary supports up. So we cleaned up the site and headed back to camp to cook the steaks I did remember to take out of the freezer this time :<) I actually got up by 6:00 AM Sunday morning and started cooking breakfast and so we could load up gear and head in early. There wasn’t much left to haul, fact is we didn’t even use the trailer, just loaded up the ATV’s and off we went. My hopes were that we’d get the post and maybe one beam up by the end of the weekend, but by Jove we got all the post and all 3 of the main beams glued, screwed and set. Wow. So what you say, what’s so big about setting three 24 foot 6 by 12 inch beams, well let me tell you. Since we couldn’t haul three 24 foot long prefab beams in we had to build them on site and since we didn’t have a crane to lift them on the post once they were built, we had to build them on the post. Dean’s creative mind did help here as I was looking at these posts and envisioning us getting 90% of the way done and one them suckers falling off the darn post, now that would have been a cluster (you know what) to try and solve. Ain’t no way I’ll even try to lift that beam up. A little scrap wood and a couple of support saddles are built and were off to the races, by 2:30 PM we had all three of the main beams build and placed with temporary braces, a good weekends work. The best part was sitting or standing on the beams and enjoying the view of the mountains and valleys, just makes me want to get the cabin done now so I can sit on the deck with a cup of coffee and watch the trees grown. Next trip is to add the porch beam, set the floor joist and place the floor decking. Photos of the trip in progressive creation. [flagallery gid=58 name="Gallery" skin=StylishGrey]
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