The Scheins' Blog: Day 5 - August 19, 2009

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Ok, finally, back to Alaska.

The day after Katmai, we took things a little easier. Josh had off for the day again, so we had a good breakfast, loaded up in his Volkswagen camper bus (which is a lot like the one we had when we were little, and this one really brought back a lot of memories. It's amazing how similar the smells and sounds of that bus were to the old one.), and headed south out of town again. This time, however, when we reached the fork in the road, we turned left, toward Chiniak.

Chiniak is a tiny "village" that consists of little more than a few scattered houses, a post office that used to only be open a few hours for a few days/week, a tiny school, and a restaurant called the Road's End. I don't think the post office is open at all anymore, and the restaurant wasn't open on this day - big disappointment: the restaurant is just a pretty cool place to stop and have a bite. Chiniak had only 50 inhabitants in the year 2000. One good thing about this drive is that soon after turning left at the main fork, the road was no longer paved, as the entire drive used to be only a few years ago.

Driving past the Road's End, there really aren't any more buildings. Just streams choked full of salmon, hiking trails, and wilderness. We drove to near a beach we'd visited in our last visit to Kodiak. 1st, though, we hiked around some more WWII bunkers and gun emplacements. These things never cease to amaze me, but unfortunately they've turned into what appears to be the not-so-secret pot-smoking hideout for all of the island's teenage idiots, who also spend their time defacing historic landmarks. Teenagers - who needs'em.

These bunkers are located on a cliff 50-100 feet above the ocean.

The view from a bunker lookout.

Afterwards, we walked back to the bus, grabbed our gear and lunches, and then hiked down to the beach. This is a beautiful, undisturbed beach with sand and cliffs. Last time we were hear Jon David and I fished for the numerous salmon you could see just off the beach. Since then I thought it would be fun to catch some more and build a fire with the driftwood and cook them there. Unfortunately, there were no fish this time. So, Sarah and I explored the cliffs a bit, then came back to where Josh was and ended up falling a sleep for a few minutes. It was a beautiful day. Cloudless, with a warm sun and cool breeze. Ed and Jeanette went walking the other way on the beach.

Once they got back, Josh and I went down the beach to shoot some clay pigeons with his shot gun (he has this for safety from the bears on the bear views). Ed didn't want to shoot, but watched with us. I'm pretty darn good, if I do say so myself.

We had a good time, but soon we were heading back to the bus.

We started driving back towards Kodiak, but with the intention of stopping at many of the streams along the way to go fishing. Our 1st stop was a short drive from where we'd been, and was a stream that was FULL of salmon. There were just clouds of salmon from the mouth of the stream to a pool about 100 yards up stream, but that pool was just unbelievable - it looked like you could walk across the pool on the backs of those fish. A truly amazing site. And just think - before we came along, every stream and river on the Pacific coast for thousands of miles north and south was even more full than this one not too long ago. It was so full, that literally every time Ed threw his line in, the hook would snag one of the fish. It would always come off after some amount of time fighting with that fish (which, of course, was very frustrating to Ed), and sometimes it would hook into another one before he reeled it all the way in. I caught one, but didn't have a whole lot of luck here, so after cleaning mine and trying to help Ed, we moved on.

Kodi caught a lot more fish than we did.

On the way out, we passed this place. This used to be the Chiniak Winery, but obviously it it not now. We had no idea what the "World Peace Training Center" is, but obviously we had some fun mocking it. Don't worry, mom - the shotgun was unloaded and not really pointing at anyone.

Still farther along the way back to Kodiak, we stopped at the Olds River, where we'd been told the fishing was great. Well, it was. There were salmon everywhere. I caught a couple more and cleaned them up, and then just kept fishing and catching more, but letting them go - we had plenty of fish now.

Poor Ed still hadn't caught a fish. Well, while I was cleaning one of those fish he picked up my fly rod. I think he was just dangling the line in the water while trying to figure out how to cast it when he got a bite. It turned out to be by far the biggest fish of the week! SOB!! Nice job Ed!

Ed with his lunker male pink (humpie) salmon.