Ahh...back to the swamp...we'd no more than dumped our Atlanta bags on the floor before we tossed the camping gear together and headed straight up the mountains behind our house for a little R&R. Adam also had a birthday present waiting for him in the mail when we got home that begged for a maiden voyage into the bush. Here's a picture of the precioussss...it's a three barrelled german made gun called a Drilling. This particular one is a Merkel 96K, 12 ga/12ga over 30.06 with a swing mount scope...a gun for all seasons!
I had loaned out my personal chopper so Adam grabbed an unfinished one off his workbench for me. He sharpened it up and whipped a cord handle on it and we were off. 
It was a bit of a brush crash to climb to the foot of the mountain... then things started looking up...
We camped about 50 yds. from the summit the first night. We were up above the tree-line and the crevasses were still brimming with snow. It's remarkable how heavy a pack can feel after a winter of relative inactivity in the shop. It was often steep enough that you couldn't sit to rest either on the snow or grass without sliding down. We wheezed our way onto a little outcropping and called it home for the night. 
We were eating our top ramen dinner when we heard a SSSHOOOOOOOSHHHH sound and a huge boulder came sliding down through the snow about fifty yards away. The next morning I realized I'd forgotten any tea or cocoa so Adam brewed me up some mountain fare from spruce-tips and flowers blossoms. Then we went up and over to see what we could see!The view was inexplainable as the top of an Alaskan mountain should be. Massive rocky peaks and snowy slides share the altitude with alpine meadows of moss and wildflowers. It was really the perfect time of year to be up there. Enough snow to melt for water but warm enough for all the fairy sized shrubs and petite flowers to be in bloom. We picked enough fiddlehead ferns on the way up to sautee for dinner. 
Game was plentiful and Adam was in heaven breaking in his drilling. 
"I don't mean to brag, but I make a mean weed-rat stew..." Cheers to the second honeymoon!
The puppies were glad to be a family again and with all that moss it was basically a whole mountain of dog-beds.
It was hot and sunny and no wind to speak of. We dumped our packs on the summit and spent the day hiking the far ridges and exploring rock crevasses that hold tasty critters.
We also heaved a few boulders off the edge ourselves to watch them slide and spin through the snow far below. There was a sunburn to be had and we got it...here Adam fetches me some snow while I relax, he spoils me until I'm just rotten.
I brought along this little .22 that my grandpa gave me when I was tiny. Remington 'improved model 6' it's only 34" long. A great little rolling block, single shot, it breaks down with one thumbscrew to about 20"
I hadn't shot it much in recent years and was stoked to find it's still a tack driver. We wiled away an evening decapitating lupine flowers outside our tent...alaskan 'groundskeeping' at it's finest. That little rifle is all the more precious to me since Grandpa went to be with the Lord recently, he would be proud to know it's still traveling mountains. 
We camped out the second night on the crest of the mountain overlooking Excursion Inlet. Here Adam prepares to hurl a thunderbolt at the city and borough of Haines for having the nerve to collect property taxes from us without providing any services.
It's hard to get to sleep because there's so much more daylight with nothing to throw a shadow on you, expecially this close to the summer solstice it never really got dark at all. We woke up the third day to find ourselves in the clouds. 
Our world suddenly seemed very small and steep on both sides. The wind picked up a bit and we decided to break camp and get down off the summit and into the timber in case the weather turned bad. It started to rain a tad and we made ourselves a camp down there in the trees and had a wood fire for a change. There was still patches of snow nearby so we weren't short of water.
The next morning it started really pouring down rain on us. We went home another way, got to thinking about hot cocoa and crashed down a loooooong steep slope cross-hatched with windfalls and brush. I was taking this picture to try to capture the incline and caught Adam just as he slipped and swung around dangling from this tree. Didn't realize I'd married such a tree hugger!
All in all it was a great way to decompress from the BLADE show excitement...we may make it a tradition.
Game was plentiful and Adam was in heaven breaking in his drilling. "I don't mean to brag, but I make a mean weed-rat stew..." Cheers to the second honeymoon! The puppies were glad to be a family again and with all that moss it was basically a whole mountain of dog-beds. It was hot and sunny and no wind to speak of. We dumped our packs on the summit and spent the day hiking the far ridges and exploring rock crevasses that hold tasty critters.
We also heaved a few boulders off the edge ourselves to watch them slide and spin through the snow far below. There was a sunburn to be had and we got it...here Adam fetches me some snow while I relax, he spoils me until I'm just rotten.I brought along this little .22 that my grandpa gave me when I was tiny. Remington 'improved model 6' it's only 34" long. A great little rolling block, single shot, it breaks down with one thumbscrew to about 20"
I hadn't shot it much in recent years and was stoked to find it's still a tack driver. We wiled away an evening decapitating lupine flowers outside our tent...alaskan 'groundskeeping' at it's finest. That little rifle is all the more precious to me since Grandpa went to be with the Lord recently, he would be proud to know it's still traveling mountains. We camped out the second night on the crest of the mountain overlooking Excursion Inlet. Here Adam prepares to hurl a thunderbolt at the city and borough of Haines for having the nerve to collect property taxes from us without providing any services.It's hard to get to sleep because there's so much more daylight with nothing to throw a shadow on you, expecially this close to the summer solstice it never really got dark at all. We woke up the third day to find ourselves in the clouds. Our world suddenly seemed very small and steep on both sides. The wind picked up a bit and we decided to break camp and get down off the summit and into the timber in case the weather turned bad. It started to rain a tad and we made ourselves a camp down there in the trees and had a wood fire for a change. There was still patches of snow nearby so we weren't short of water.The next morning it started really pouring down rain on us. We went home another way, got to thinking about hot cocoa and crashed down a loooooong steep slope cross-hatched with windfalls and brush. I was taking this picture to try to capture the incline and caught Adam just as he slipped and swung around dangling from this tree. Didn't realize I'd married such a tree hugger!All in all it was a great way to decompress from the BLADE show excitement...we may make it a tradition.
These always seem to take longer than they should with some turning out just as you'd hoped... and some not so much. The final shaping of the leather on the grinder sends floating pink shreds everywhere making it look as if we'd been plucking muppets in our spare time and leaving us shaking it out of our hair and explaining to disbelieving friends 'uh, that's not really MY dandruff'... It's rare it seems I'm out of the shop before 8 pm to even start dinner... conversations center on plunglines, damascus etchant and 'let's hope it rains since we don't have time to haul water'.
Adam trims a moose antler down to size for a handle...
The finished product!
...To grinder...
Finally we'd finished all the knives we were going to get done. The night before we left we had a 'private viewing' for our friends and neighbors...
...had to have something to show for all the turned down invitations to adventures we'd been dishing out the past month! It was a fun time, lot's of ice tea and chocolates were consumed. Someone even came up with the idea to all pick a favorite and runner up and have a best of show award. After they all went home we packed our knives straight into the hardcase. The next day was gorgeously sunny for our boat trip into town.
My maiden name is Bell. I'd made the reservations months ago and the name change process (now that we're married) has been glacially slow since we live out of town. When Adam called for the car he gave him his first name. Anyhow, I'm sure my Dad would enjoy the sight of that..."right this way Mr. Bell"
