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Thread: Alaska Journal

  1. #481
    My wife and I have been running non-stop, taking advantage of summer in AK.

    We were out at our remote cabin a few days, and there was bear sign everywhere. Never did run into that sow and two cubs, although we were vigilant. Saturday we flew into town and previewed stages at the Alaska state Sectional USPSA match. There was some light rain, and we were feeling good about our decision to shoot on Sunday, which had a better forecast. Slept in the plane at the airport, but didn’t anticipate they were doing major construction to the adjacent taxi way all night.

    Woke up Sunday to rain, and it pretty much rained all day, sometimes quite hard. Most of the ten stages, we had plastic bags on the targets. This was pretty typical of the conditions.



    My wife was High Lady in the match, which I thought was awesome. Finished shooting around 6pm, did awards, and flew home, getting to the house after 11pm. Between the days at the cabin, sleeping in the plane, shooting the match in the rain, we were both tired Monday!

    Today we got out flying Cubs taking advantage of great weather. I was working beach strips and my wife was up in the mountains. Here are some shots from her flight today.

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    Normally there are Dall sheep in the cliffs below, but today there were goats there.

    (Breaking this into two posts to try to keep the photos organized.)
    Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.

  2. #482
    Congrats for Charlie and all that work paying off!

    As always enjoy your posts in this thread and getting to see a bit of Alaska in this way.

  3. #483
    This afternoon we piled into the helicopter and flew to a ridge climb we do. The deal is to land just above a lake, climb until you get tired and then descend to the helicopter.

    Getting out of the helicopter we got swarmed by bugs. My wife had her bug shirt but I had forgotten mine, and went near commando in just a t shirt. I was hoping for wind higher up the ridge. Here she is in her bug shirt.

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    Equipment sidebar. I was carrying my Benelli M2 with the Aimpoint S1 mounted on the vent rib. I prefer this over my 14 inch with the micro mounted over the action, because the S1 has a larger dot, and the forward mount gives me great down range field of view with a bare action for carrying the shotgun there.

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    In past years, there have been water holes fed by melting snow, but none today, making for a thirsty Vizsla.

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    We climbed for about an hour, and had a great view of the surrounding country.

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    We had a quick hike down to the helicopter, but then Astro got swarmed by bugs when we gave her water. We got the machine cranked and rotors turning in record time to get relief!

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    Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.

  4. #484
    Quote Originally Posted by scw2 View Post
    Congrats for Charlie and all that work paying off!

    As always enjoy your posts in this thread and getting to see a bit of Alaska in this way.
    Gotta agree w/ SCW's post above re. Charlie, nowhere for her to go but forward so keep us updated on her progress plus the AK summer visit.

  5. #485
    Attachment 45704Been enjoying flying in the desert. My wife has hundreds of landing spots that she has named and GPS’d. This one is called Micro, and is 180 feet long with junk on both ends. She took this picture of me down on the strip. The takeoff is more sporty than landing, as you use all the strip available and then yard on the flaps to elevate out.

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    This is just as you pull flaps.

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    Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.

  6. #486
    Hammertime
    Join Date
    Apr 2016
    Location
    Desert Southwest
    Quote Originally Posted by GJM View Post
    Attachment 45704Been enjoying flying in the desert. My wife has hundreds of landing spots that she has named and GPS’d. This one is called Micro, and is 180 feet long with junk on both ends. She took this picture of me down on the strip. The takeoff is more sporty than landing, as you use all the strip available and then yard on the flaps to elevate out.

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    This is just as you pull flaps.

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    Do you delay pulling flaps so speed get up first without the drag?

  7. #487
    Quote Originally Posted by Doc_Glock View Post
    Do you delay pulling flaps so speed get up first without the drag?
    This varies by aircraft and circumstance. In this case, with this aircraft and available takeoff distance, it made sense to accelerate without flaps, use all available take off distance, and then pull flaps to lift out with smash to clear the obstacles.
    Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.

  8. #488
    Out flying first thing this morning, taking advantage of the great flying conditions. First place we went into, was a little uphill spot my wife figured out a year or so ago. This is her, landing after me this morning.



    We got out, and moved a few large rocks, which made the departure easier. I headed to a nearby spot, and didn’t hear from her for a few minutes. She then called to say that her starter appeared to have gone Tango Uniform, and for me to come back and assist hand propping her. I did, but as I rolled out, she got started — some electrical anomaly. Being on top of a ridge, and a long way from a road, glad it all worked out!
    Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.

  9. #489
    Sorry, I haven’t been good about updating this thread. Woke up this morning to learn a buddy crashed his 185 on skis last night, with his family on board. Bad injuries. We decided to head out for a holiday social distancing hike, to enjoy spring out in the desert. I had left my cell phone in my pants overnight, and it was down to 30 percent — hoped that wasn’t the first step in the error chain waiting to bite later.

    The .300 BLK AR won’t fit in the GR1, but since we were heading out remote, took it anyway.

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    Here is Astro kitted up for the ride out.

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    It was 16 gusting 20 at the airport, and bumpy on the way out. Wind out of the southeast gusting into the low 20’s on landing, but brilliant sunshine and a gorgeous spring day. Chilly enough to need a jacket.

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    The desert was drop dead gorgeous.

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    Our plan was for a 90 minute hike, out and back. It was a pretty remote area, and only accessed occasionally on horseback by a dude Ranch a few miles downhill.

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    My wife carried the pack, while I carried the .300 BLK. The way I wear it slung, it is very low profile, not that there was anyone else to notice.

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    Astro was having a ball.

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    We got off our high point, down in lee, out of the wind and had brunch. Astro really enjoys our jerky.

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    Almost immediately, we ran into a bunch of jack rabbits. Astro was chasing them, acting like a three year old Vizsla. We lost track of her, but she has great SA, knowing not to stray to far from her human protectors. The flowers were at peak.

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    When we were maybe fifteen minutes from our LZ, we realized Astro was AWOL. We spent ten minutes yelling for her with no luck. She wears a fitness tracker and gps device called “Whistle,” but it wouldn’t update with her position, despite us having a bit of cell coverage. We decided to split up, with me heading towards our turn around point on the hike and Charlie heading to the helicopter. After a while, Charlie called to say Astro wasn’t at the helicopter. I continued to our high point, and despite scanning in all directions, couldn’t see her. Thank goodness for her big orange jacket, which would make her stand out more.

    Charlie worked towards me, and still no luck. It had been pushing an hour that she was gone, and we were starting to get seriously worried. Was she lost, injured, down in a mind shaft, covered in cholla cactus, nabbed by a pack of ‘yotes. We decided to rejoin, since I was low on cell battery, and Charlie had the water, figuring we would search more effectively as a team. Even though we couldn’t track her on Whistle, my wife got a text alert that “Astro had made goal and was active today.” Somehow it was tracking her activity if not her position.

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    We were relieved to see that she was still moving, as that meant lost and not any of the other bad things. We hoofed it out downhill, as fast as we could, planning to head to the helicopter, and if necessary make a 400 foot AGL search grid in ever expanding circles, to look for her. We had just over two hours of fuel, so we had 75 minutes of search ability, but that was not something we were looking to have to do.

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    We kept yelling for her on the way down without any response. When we got close enough to see the helicopter, there was no sign of her. As we popped down into a gully and up the other side, we were so happy to see a knackered looking bird dog laying down under the rear of the helicopter, in the shade!

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    She was very thirsty and tried to help us get her water poured!

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    We had a windy but uneventful flight home. Now we have a very tired Vizsla.

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    Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.

  10. #490
    1) my wife was studying Astro’s activity stats on the Whistle app, and noted some interesting things. At the beginning of our hike, all three of us went together to our turn around point. Whistle showed us hiking from 8:19 am to 9:08, or 48 minutes, and we covered 2.2 miles. No idea whether that is as the crow flies or our actual steps. We stopped 8 minutes for our snack. Then, Astro went from 9:16 am to 10:55 am, or 96 minutes, and she covered 6.0 miles. It would have been very interesting to see where those six miles took her, given it was only 2.2 miles along our path.

    2) we were discussing what we would have done if we couldn’t find her with an aerial search. Best plan seemed to be for my wife to leave me with a pack, water and a sat phone at the LZ. Then she would have flown back, got more fuel, food and a tent, so we could have spent the night there at the LZ and made periodic scouting flights. Without water around, and the predators, not sure how long she could have made it out there without us. Really glad we didn’t need to execute that plan.

    3) Astro slept all afternoon, and then got up and went to the door just before 5 pm, like it was time for her regular end of the day hike. It took us a while to convince her there would be no more hiking today.
    Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.

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