Wild catch — Fisherman in the middle of bear-shark tug-of-war

By Clark Fair
Redoubt Reporter

Commercial fisherman Bill Holt thought the shark was bad enough — and then the bear came along.

Holt later admitted he was somewhat amused by what transpired next, but mostly he was just irritated because he was losing precious fishing time.

In a world of 12-hour openings and limited resources, Holt didn’t appreciate wasting minutes when he could be netting salmon and making money.

“That’s the one thing about commercial fishing,” he said. “You can never rest on your laurels. As soon as something goes wrong, you’ve gotta be thinking about the next place to go because you have such a small window of opportunity to make it.”

Holt’s notions about taking advantage of limited time have been honed by years of experience. He has been drift fishing Cook Inlet for about 30 years. For nearly 20 of those years he fished the east side until the runs petered out, and then motored across to the west side to extend his season.

Typically, in mid- to late August, he would enter Chinitna Bay, just south of Mount Iliamna, to take advantage of the runs of silver salmon entering the streams there to spawn. At the head of the bay, he might jockey for position with other boats trying to corral schools of salmon headed for Clear Creek, but he preferred the more sedate opportunities along the bay’s northern shore, particularly in tiny Clam Cove, when the weather and the tides were right.

Holt, a local school board member who is the chief caretaker of the Tsalteshi Trails behind Skyview High School, entered Clam Cove one morning in August 1995 and set about preparing to fish the outgoing tide, as he had done many times before.

As water leaves the cove and enters the bay during an ebb tide, it is swept west to east toward the mouth of the bay and open inlet. So Holt fished the cove’s east-side beach, cognizant of the need to keep his fishing vessel inside the cove and not drift into the main tidal current, where it could be pulled eastward and trail his nets into the rocks on the point of the cove.

On this particular morning, Holt backed up his boat — a 34-foot fiberglass vessel named the Loujon — as close as he could to the sandy beach and dropped his 40-inch bright orange buoy right at the water’s edge. Fishing regulations state that a buoy, which marks the far end of a fisherman’s net, must be in the water at all times. Holt likes to tie his buoy close to the end of his net and place it just offshore to prevent salmon from skirting his mesh on that side.

He said he is careful not to place the buoy actually on the shore because he is “paranoid” about breaking the law and bringing down the wrath of fish cops. As the tide ebbs, he keeps enough tension on the boat end of the net to prevent the buoy from going dry.

“We always heard these stories about (former Fish and Game wardens) Dan France and Al Thompson, that they would be over there and they would hide in hollow tree trunks,” he said. “Whether that was true or not, I don’t know, but we always lived in fear of that.”

After dropping the buoy, he and his crew — his 12-year-old son, Galen, and a college graduate named Maggie, who was set to enter Harvard Medical School later that fall and had never fished commercially before — began feeding out the net in a series of small S-turns that Holt likes to call “lollygags.” The lollygags give him handling flexibility with a net three shackles (900 feet) long, and the turns in the net sometimes confound the fish and cause them to become more easily trapped.

“We were catching some fish,” Holt said. “And as the tide started leaving, I had to start pulling harder offshore. So pretty soon, essentially, I sort of had a straight net.

“And so we’re fishing, fishing, fishing — and all of a sudden the (first shackle of) net just goes completely underwater and starts thrashing around.”

The net began to bow outward slightly south toward open water.

“When I first saw it happen, my first thought was we’d just seen killer whales that morning going up the bay. But then I realized, no way; I would’ve seen them. The boat was in only 6 or 7 feet of water.

“And then we saw that it was a shark. You could see its ugly old shark nose and all that stuff. It went back down and started thrashing around.”

The salmon shark, which Holt estimated at 8 to 10 feet long and 250 to 300 pounds, became so entangled in the mesh that it could not escape. Holt’s crew was “pretty excited,” he said, but he was becoming concerned.

“I’m thinking, ‘Oh, man, here we go. It’s gonna wreck the net. It’s obviously gonna wreck the net.’ And I knew that to pull back and get the shark out would cause the buoy to pull too far offshore and then I’d have too much current.”

Then, as if the situation wasn’t bad enough, out of the mix of alders and spruce at the margin formed by the beach and the woods, came a large black bear that ambled down the incline to the water’s edge, apparently drawn by the jerking motions of the buoy.

“It just sat there like you’re sitting on a stool or a chair, sat there watching the buoy. Ten feet away from this buoy, just sitting there watching it.”

The bear didn’t sit still very long. Intrigued or irritated by the movement, it returned to all fours, walked determinedly down to the buoy, grabbed it with both paws, and bit it.

“Then it takes the buoy and starts backing up the beach with it. He pulled it up the beach a little ways to where it was actually on the sand. So he’s actually helping me fish,” Holt said. “And then he dropped the buoy, walked away and sat there, watching.

“And the shark’s still going at it, and pretty soon it starts pulling back off the beach again. Pretty soon the buoy’s back out in the water, so the bear comes down and grabs the buoy again and pulls it back up on the beach. And I think this happened three times.

“It was like a shark and a bear playing tug-of-war with each other, and I’m in there, too, trying to mediate the whole thing. Eventually, the bear quit pulling up, and the shark kept screwing around, and in order to keep things straight I ended up catching some current.”

As the bear disappeared back into the woods, Holt was forced to motor out into the current and around the point to steer clear of the rocks. As he drifted eastward, he used a hydraulic gillnet drum to winch in the net until the shark was free of the water. Once he had slashed at the net enough to liberate the shark, he was able to bring in the rest of the net and pick the fish he had caught. He was delighted to see that, despite his double predator seesaw struggles, he had 100 to 150 silvers in his hold.

The morning wasn’t off to such a bad start, after all.

But, as a true fisherman knows, time spent contemplating one’s fortunes or misfortunes is time lost, so Holt prepared to fish again. “By the time I got the net back in, I’d forgotten all about the incident and I was already trying to think about someplace else to go fish. And I was upset because this thing had taken some time out of my fishing day.

“We only needed two shackles of gear there, anyway,” he added. “What I did was cut all the floppy net out and restart the set. When you’re fishing, you don’t ever give up.”

Sliding into spring — Avalanche hazard in Turnagain Pass

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter

Snowmachiners, backcountry skiers and climbers beware: the January hurricane crust could come back to bury you.

That’s the message from Carl Skustad, with the Chugach National Forest Avalanche Information Center. The center issued an advisory of extreme avalanche danger in the Turnagain Pass area on Friday.

“The current hazard is out there due to the large amounts of new snow. We’ve actually gotten about one-third of our total snow in the last three weeks, and that is sitting on top of a weak layer that was formed mid-January,” Skustad said Friday.

Conditions formed what Skustad calls a hurricane crust. Winds gusting up to 120 mph on ridge tops and rain up to 3,000 feet in January created an icy layer on top of the snowpack. Subsequent snowfalls, which have gotten heavier as temperatures warm, are sitting on top of that slick surface.

“Now we’ve reached this point where there’s this much stress on top of a weak layer and it’s exceeding the strength of this weak layer. That’s why any additional load could tip the balance, or any skier or snowmobile or climber,” Skustad said.

In these conditions, a slide could be triggered by as little as the warming rays of the sun. On steep slopes, any snowmachining, skiing, climbing or snowshoeing could trigger an avalanche, and risky activities like high marking pose a distinct threat.

“No, that’s definitely not a good idea right now,” Skustad said.

Most avalanches happen on slopes with a 38-degree or higher angle.

“But that’s just another indication of how tender our snowpack is now, that we’re seeing avalanches as low as 25 degrees,” Skustad said.

“I do not have a good feeling for the rest of the season,” he said. “We’re in April, so, really, we’re looking at a month. Once the snowpack has a chance to go through the whole avalanche cycle, which it does every spring, and it gets to what is called isothermal — when the snowpack is all the same temperature. Past that we’re golden, but until that point this weak layer will live under there.”

The hazard was issued for the Turnagain Arm area, but Skustad cautions that the same conditions probably exist throughout the highway backcountry corridor.

“It’s confirmed all the way through Summit Lake, and I expect all the way into the Lost Lake area. There’s nothing to think that it’s not at Lost Lake. I think it’s safe to assume this hazard does exist all the way down to there,” he said.

The death of 35-year-old Yancy Flair, of Anchorage, who was buried in a slide in Johnson Pass while snowmachining March 28, and a slide that closed the Seward Highway between Girdwood and Portage on March 27 has punctuated the avalanche danger in the Turnagain Arm region recently. It took searchers until Saturday to recover Flair’s body.

Skustad said conditions are hazardous, but not extremely unusual.

“It’s something that we can expect every few years. It’s the persistent weak layer that happens midwinter that determines how significant our spring instability is going to be. We had a couple really large events midwinter that have now come back to haunt us in the snowpack,” he said.

That doesn’t mean the mountains should be off-limits, just approached with caution and the proper gear — including avalanche beacons.

“I always tell people they should go out and recreate out of doors somehow. You need to keep the slope angle low and have experience, or travel with someone who has experience with avalanche awareness,” Skustad said.

Science of the Seasons: Stone cold crazy in love

It snowed again this week and spring seems to have been put off again. After a long winter, many of us are ready to see a color change from pure white snow (perhaps with a little gray volcanic ash as an accent) to the shades of green that spring offers.

Various trees are showing bulging catkins that are preparing to pop open, and swelling leaf buds will soon give rise to the next generation of leaves. A postponement of what we think of as spring may occur, but changes are ongoing in the streams, whether we know it or not.

If we could see underneath the ice cover of streams and rivers today, there are subtle changes happening. A fair number of aquatic insects have been feeding and growing during the winter months, and some will emerge as adults within a couple weeks. One of the early emerging insects from the Kenai River is a group of small stoneflies (Plecopterans), commonly called winter flies or winter stoneflies. They get these names because they can often be seen crawling on the snow and ice in the late winter or early spring.

Two weeks from now there will be thousands of tiny black, Capnidae stoneflies emerging from gravel substrate areas. If you happen to walk along the river, perhaps near Slikok Creek, every large rock along the stream edge will be crawling with slender, half-inch long stonefly adults. A close examination will reveal that these little insects have transparent wings folded flat on their backs, indicating they are in fact adults and no longer nymphs.

They aren’t very strong fliers so they prefer to crawl. You’ll find them crawling all over you if you sit down for any length of time or even stand still for a few seconds. They do not feed as adults and will see you as a tall, drumming platform and a possible place to find a mate. One might argue that they are “looking for love in all the wrong places,” but there will be lots of them using you as their personal dating service.

In some years the Kenai River ice cover has been melted away by now. This year it seems that the ice cover could remain intact during their chosen emergence period; but that will not deter their massive emergence. Most of these insects use light duration as their “zeitgeber” or timing cue, and they don’t really care if there is still ice cover or not.

Hidden from our view are air-filled spaces beneath the ice because of lowering river levels. There are lots of exposed rocks or even ice surfaces for the insects to use as an emergence platform. Winter stoneflies can emerge underneath the ice cover, find a mate, lay eggs and die, all hidden from the gaze of curious entomologists or insect predators.

For shortlived aquatic insects, and these stoneflies might only survive for two weeks, synchronous emergence of the entire population is important. By having most members of the population becoming an aerial insect at the same time, there is a high likelihood of everyone finding a mate. Since they are emerging early in the spring, very few avian predators are around to disrupt their party.

Along the Kenai River, various shore birds, like lesser yellowlegs, will work the shoreline, feeding on as many stoneflies as they can, but they cannot eat them all. These winter stoneflies will emerge by the tens of thousands so the predators that do appear will soon become satiated. The surviving flies will be able to complete their reproductive duties.

Because of a diverse number of microhabitats in the Kenai River, there are a fair number of different species of stoneflies. This species diversity probably comes from the variety of possible food sources available for stoneflies. Many, like the winter stoneflies we’ll be seeing in a few weeks, are leaf shredders. They feed on leaves, mostly those from riparian trees that are infested with nutrient-rich bacteria and fungi. The nymphs (immature stoneflies) chop the leaves into fine fragments and pass them through their gut. Because their guts are relatively inefficient — they can only extract about 5 percent of the nutrients they take in — they process a lot of leaves. Now you know why we don’t find many leaves in the river after the ice melts.

Another guild of stoneflies are active predators on smaller aquatic insects. These predators target the most abundant stream insects, the midge larvae and young mayflies. Some stoneflies combine the two lifestyles by starting their nymphal careers as a detritivore but slowly change into omnivores and eventually become predators.

Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects about many stoneflies is their novel approach to finding a mate. The males will crawl into a nearby shrub or tree and begin to “drum” on the limb with their abdomen. A receptive female, upon sensing the drumming, will answer with her own abdomen tapping and crawl toward the male virtuoso. Eventually the male will find the responding female and they mate. Each stonefly species uses a unique drumming cadence so inappropriate species are not attracted. Eggs are then laid on the stream surface or along the shoreline on submerged structures like a rock or tree limb. Soon stonefly nymphs hatch out and start the yearly cycle again.

David Wartinbee, Ph.D, J.D., is a biology professor at Kenai Peninsula College’s Kenai River Campus. He is writing a series of columns on the ecology of the Kenai River watershed.

Wild life — Kasilof duo laughs through volcanoes, Exxon during 30 years in the Bush

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter

Mary and Bob Haeg’s version of paradise would be some people’s version of hell, or at least purgatory.

Thirty years with no running water, no electricity, no regular mail, no phone, no TV, no computer or Internet, no neighbors, no way in or out except by boat or plane.

“No stores, no roads, no people,” Bob said.

“It sure was nice,” Mary said.

“Yeah, there was no baloney. I’d still be there if I wasn’t so damn old,” Bob said.

Now in their 80s, the inevitable march of time has taken its toll on the Haegs and the subsistence life they carved out for themselves in remote Chinitna Bay across Cook Inlet and a little north of Anchor Point. Age kicked them out of their own, self-made Garden of Eden about two and a half years ago and landed them in their version of purgatory — civilization. Or as much civilization as they could stomach, anyway. They packed up what they could from their wilderness home, shipped it all across the inlet and moved into a house near the beach in Kasilof.

“Only a couple cars a day go by. It’s already too busy. But we can stand it,” Bob said.

They made the move for an easier life. One where they can stay warm without chopping wood and eat dinner without having to find it, kill it, dress it and cook it.

“We had to do with what we had, you know,” Mary said. “Now over here you can get fettuccini sauce. We never had any of that before. It’s different being able to go to the store and cook with all that stuff.”

Different surroundings have forced a different lifestyle on the Haegs, but at heart they haven’t changed much. Their activities are still governed by daylight, rather than the irrelevant numbers on a clock, and they’ll make appointments for “when it’s light out” and head home “before it gets dark.” After a few days holed up with a cold, they need to confer with each other to determine what day it is, and only then if there’s a good reason to bother knowing. Bob still makes his famous pickled salmon; he just does it with fish from a subsistence set net site on the beach near their house. The Haegs bring the “young people” lunch, and the fishermen share their catch.

Though they say they’d just as soon not have so many gal darn people around, the Haegs can’t seem to help being friendly to anyone they meet, a throwback to their years hosting tourists in Chinitna Bay after fishing went south and they opened Haeg’s Wilderness Lodge instead. At the same time, three decades spent without having to impress or get along with anyone but themselves have left the Haegs without concern about what people think of them.

They’re equally as colorful in their stories as in real life — driving a shiny black Hummer with yellow flames custom painted on the sides and wearing bright Hummer jackets to match. The custom plates say “THXXON” — a sarcastic salute to the monetary settlement they got after the Exxon Valdez oil spill ruined fishing in Chinitna Bay.

The Haegs laugh over the plates as much as they do everything in life. It’s hard to say which came first with them — their “Oh, what the hell,” attitude or their spirit of adventure. Either way, the combination has made for an interesting life.

Life on the bay

The Haegs’ decision to move to Chinitna Bay came as spur-of-the-moment as many things in their lives have. They were living on the central Kenai Peninsula at the time, in the 1970s, after Bob convinced Mary to move to Alaska. She had been living in Minnesota with her five kids when she lost her husband, who was Bob’s first cousin and best friend. She was working at a liquor store when Bob came back to visit and showed her a picture of Alaska.

“He said, ‘You know, Mary, if you ever came to Alaska you’d never go back. You’d love it,’” Mary said. “I went to lock the liquor store door one night and thought, ‘I’m going to go to Alaska.’”

She bought a Winnebago, packed up the kids and headed north. She got into Kenai late at night.

“Where did I find Bob?”

In a bar. But neither that nor anything that’s happened since has made her regret her decision to come to Alaska.

“It never entered my mind,” she said.

Bob blames Mary for the Chinitna Bay scheme, but in fairness it was only half her doing. Mary said she loves to fish, and told Bob about a set net site she’d seen on the east side of the inlet. He’s the one who went looking across the water.

“She comes home after seeing a fishing site and said, ‘We want to buy a fishing site.’ I said, ‘Sh-- we don’t need another job.’ I was paving. I never seen a fishing site, didn’t know what it was, but I’m game for anything, gal darn. I didn’t need another job and I didn’t know anything about fishing, so I said, ‘We’ve got to buy a fishing site where you can’t do anything else.’”

It wasn’t hard to find someone who knew of a site for sale matching that bill.
“Anytime you sit down and get to bullsh---ing, you’re going to start talking about fishing. If you don’t like talking about fishing, don’t live in Alaska,” Bob said. “The guy said he knew of a site, but you can’t live there. I said, ‘Oh, hell, that’s going to be interesting.’”

Bob’s cousin, George French, flew them to Chinitna Bay, a 10-mile-long inlet east of Iliamna Lake, in French’s Super Cub to check out the site. It was blowing about 70 knots out of the west, so they couldn’t see much. A beach and some trees were all Bob had to go on.

It was enough.

“We couldn’t even land the airplane it was blowing too damn hard. We flew back and said, ‘It’s just what I always wanted,’” Bob said.

In the spring of 1976, Bob and Mary packed up the few belongings and supplies they could gather and headed across the inlet by boat. The skipper dropped them on the shore and told them they had two days to haul everything up off the beach before a big tide came in.

When they first arrived there was just an 8-by-16-foot trailer house. When they packed up 30 years later, they left 10 buildings behind.

The 2.5-acre site was more than just the buildings, though. It was all as much of their home as the 34-by-34 log cabin the Haegs built and lived in. Their walls were the mountains behind them and the cliffs that cut off the beach in either direction, making it so they couldn’t walk more than two miles either direction, and so visitors had to come in by boat or plane. The laundry room was series of racks and clotheslines strung high enough to catch the breeze. Their refrigerator was the garden they planted in an old wooden dory, the berry patches they picked in the fall, the smokehouse they used for their salmon, the traplines Bob and their son, David, tended during the winter, and the rich clamming beds and fishing grounds in the bay. Their television, playing nature and wildlife shows 24-7, was everywhere they looked.

Boom, bust at sea

Fishing was mythical when the Haegs first got to the site. They set netted for salmon — kings, reds, silvers and chums. Their summers were filled with the hard work that comes from having a hot spot — mending nets, tending buoys and dealing with the flopping, flashing bounty that came in when they pulled their gear.

There was ample sportfishing, too. Halibut were easy to find. And they’d occasionally hook a king crab so big they’d swear it was a halibut until it got up to the boat.

In the winter there were tanner crab in the bay.

“When the tide would go out they’d forget to go back so you could go pick them up,” Mary said.

They had a clam beach nearly to themselves, except when a visiting pilot would mistakenly think it’d be a good spot to land and ding a prop or wreck landing gear on the rocks.

“How many planes did we pull out that tried to land in our clamming spot?” Bob asked Mary.

The Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 put a stop to that way of life. Oil balls floated up the southern reaches of Cook Inlet and invaded Chinitna Bay. Halibut, the Cook Inlet herring fishery, even the salmon runs were destroyed. They used to get 3,800 chums a day, but after the spill, a good day was 363 fish, Mary said.

“It changed quite a bit. The fishing really never did come back,” Mary said.

“Yeah, it was a mess. It still is, really. It hurt us and all we got out of them was a Hummer,” Bob said.

“Our land wasn’t worth anything because there wasn’t fishing anymore. We started taking in tourists, otherwise we couldn’t have stayed there,” Mary said.

Life off the grid

Even before the tourists, the Haegs were isolated, but they weren’t completely alone. The National Park Service created Lake Clark National Park and Preserve in 1979, extending park boundaries around the few private inholdings on the bay, including the Haegs’. The Park Service people were good neighbors, the Haegs said. They’d help out if the Haegs got in a bind, and the park made it so unauthorized fish camps couldn’t spring up on the beach and in the woods, which used to be a serious headache, Bob said.

The squatters would build plastic shacks, litter, harass wildlife, catch too many halibut, bury them until their boat showed back up and shoot the bears that were drawn in to the fish.

“Then we’d have wounded bears around. The Parks Service helped clean that dump out. We put it out on the beach, I gave them a gallon of diesel and we burned it. That was the end of that crap,” Bob said.

A citizens band radio served as a link to the outside world, on the Kenai Peninsula and much farther beyond. It was entertainment to a point, but also proved incredibly helpful on occasion, like when the Haegs’ refrigerator went on the fritz and someone from Outside talked Bob through fixing it. Or when their pet goat ate insulation and a guy on the CB talked to a vet and relayed treatment information — “We had to pour Wesson oil down his throat,” Mary said.

Marine radio kept them in periodic touch with civilization across the inlet, especially if they needed a fishing tender to haul supplies over for them or needed a flight somewhere. Bob learned to fly when he was 62, and they had their PA-12, a little bigger than a Super Cub, painted with pink flames during a trip to Soldotna.

“Oh, it didn’t fit our lifestyle, with pink flames all down the side of it, but it was a pretty airplane,” Mary said.

Their son, David, the only one of the kids to grow up in Chinitna Bay instead of leaving to attend school in town, also became a pilot.

David Haeg regularly flew supplies and equipment in and out for his parents, in all kinds of conditions. During one trip, on Jan. 24, 1990, David had guided a larger plane delivering two snowmachines out to his parents’ site, then was dropping a passenger off in Port Alsworth, which took him near Mount Redoubt just as it was erupting. Being a photography buff, he got a gorgeous shot of the mountain before getting out of there to avoid ash damage to the plane.

That luck held with all the volcanoes in the area. In the 30 years the Haegs lived at Chinitna Bay, both Redoubt and Spurr erupted and Augustine erupted twice, but not one dumped any ash on them.

Mount Augustine is a mere 30 miles south of Chinitna Bay, and the Haegs could see the steam and ash rising when it erupted in 2005.

“We could see where it blew. It went up in the air and went east and went across and dumped on you guys. Boy, that was funny. We thought we were going to get it,” Bob said.

Never a dull moment

“We had something happen all the time. There were no dull moments,” Mary said.

Animals accounted for many of those not-dull moments, and General Custer the goat was at the center of many of them. A friend from Homer told Mary she had a young goat she couldn’t take care of and wondered if Mary and Bob could keep him. Custer made himself right at home. He was housebroken, so he got to come inside. His favorite spot when he was younger was curled up on Bob’s lap in the rocking chair. When he got bigger, he liked to stand right next to the barrel stove.

“In the winter you had to watch him ’cause he’d stand next to the stove and you could smell him,’” Bob said.

Being a goat, it was a constant battle to keep him from eating things he shouldn’t, like the insulation and the entire instructions to a brand-new three-wheeler kit Bob had had delivered. Tales of General Custer traveled far and wide over the CB, prompting one woman from down south to make and send a blanket for the goat with five stars on it.

“He got promoted to a five-star general,” Mary said.

They had a series of dogs, including Howler, who would lie under the stove and howl in the middle of the night if it went out. Then there was Tasha the horse, who learned how to open the cabin door. One day Bob and Mary heard knocking on the door, and it opened to reveal Tasha with a face full of porcupine quills.

“She knew they had to come out, and she sat there and let me do it,” Bob said.

Moses the raven was an ancillary pet, adopting the Haegs rather than the other way around. Moses liked to perch on Tasha and go for rides, and the raven was deadly with clothespins when Mary hung out the laundry, and with anything shiny.

“You couldn’t put down a socket or wrench or anything shiny,” Bob said. “We never did find all those.”

Wild animals were all around, including the brown bears that became a huge draw for wildlife viewers when the Haegs and other park inholders starting hosting tourists in the 1990s.

“We lived with 20 brown bears. I never petted a live bear. I petted a lot of dead ones and I’m still alive. If you’re dumb enough to pet a live bear, they make a movie of you. If you’re smart enough to stay alive with them for 30 years, there’s nothing to that,” Bob said, referring to “The Grizzly Maze,” a documentary about amateur naturalist Timothy Treadwell, who was killed by a grizzly in Katmai National Park in 2005.

Actually, a filmmaker did think there was something to the Haegs’ life in Chinitna Bay. Nature filmmakers Bob Swerer Sr. and Bob Swerer Jr. got a hold of Mary over Marine radio about eight years ago and told her they wanted to come film a documentary about them.

“I went out and told Bob and David. They said, ‘Oh Mom, you’re just kidding us.’ But I said, ‘Yeah,’ and they came out and did it,” Mary said.

The film, “Alaska Off the Beaten Path,” is available for purchase at www.dickproenneke.com and by calling 800-737-0239. It has aired on PBS, and the Haegs sometimes get stopped in the grocery store by people asking if they’re the ones on TV. It’s a kick to see themselves on TV, Mary said, and to look back at the life they created on their own, in their own little corner of the wild.

“Oh, we had so much fun, and we’re still having fun,” Mary said. “We’ve been laughing ever since.”

Downtown Wilderness — Outdoor gear retailer has new owners, moves into town

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter

Given Brian Richards’ love of the outdoors, he’s a little disappointed that he and his wife’s business venture is keeping him cooped up inside so much lately. But at least it means he’s helping others get out and enjoy the outdoors.

Richards and his wife, Nikiesha, purchased outdoor gear retailer Wilderness Way in November and recently moved the business to the old Trustworthy Hardware location in downtown Soldotna.

Richards is from Utah originally, came up to Alaska for a summer four years ago and liked it so much he talked his wife into moving up permanently. He worked for an outdoor retailer in Utah before the move, and started working at Wilderness Way three years ago.

“Other than that I’m just an avid user of everything in here. I like spending as much time outside as I can,” he said. Although, with the move, “I can’t remember the last day off I’ve had.”

The process of buying the business, the new building and getting things moved has been going on for about six months, he said. The Richards bought the store from Walter Ward.

“He’s been ready to retire and move on to other things. I just approached him about it,” Richards said. “I thought it would be fun. I enjoy working here so much I thought it’d be fun to take over and run it.”

He and Nikiesha looked at other locations in their search for a new site for the store, but nothing came close to the old Trustworthy location on the Sterling Highway, which is in the same complex as Safeway and the Peninsula Center Mall. The building is tri-level, with an entryway area, an upstairs and downstairs. The space is 9,000 square feet in all. The downstairs will be used for storage for now, with the 5,000 square feet of the entry level and upstairs used for retail space. That’s as much as the old Wilderness Way location had in the entire building, including the back storage area.

“This should be a good location right in the middle of town here, a little more accessible to people,” he said. “We looked at few other places but this one I think really fits us well and it’s the right size and a good deal, really. I think it’s the right fit for it.”

It took two weeks to have a new roof put on and for the wood floors to be refinished, and packing up and moving all the merchandise took about five days. The store reopened in its new home last week, although the staff — the Richards and Diane Penland — are still unpacking and getting things set up.

The extra space means the Richards will expand the store’s inventory, with more variety in the products they already carry, and some new items.

“More hunting stuff — packs, accessories, that type of thing. We’ve carried high-end fly-fishing gear for a number of years now. We’ll probably expand that a bit, too, get back into that side of things,” Richards said.

On Saturday, Lacie Ferrar, Bleu Schachinger and Kyle McMillan, all of Soldotna, were in Wilderness Way looking over the expanded selection of North Face apparel. Ferrar said she liked that the store is now in town.

“No one wants to drive out to Sterling,” she said. “This is probably the most people I’ve ever seen in Wilderness Way at one time.”

Schachinger said she was glad the old Trustworthy Building had an occupant again. She remembered the days of the “big buckets of nails that spun around. It’s been lonely,” she said.

Richards said he’s excited for the new venture, especially moving the business in town, despite concerns over the nation’s economic crises.

“It’s an existing business. We’ve got a pretty well-established local clientele for Wilderness Way. We’ve seen sales have been pretty steady, in line with the last few years, anyway. I hope to see it stay that way. We’ll still provide the same services and products,” he said.

Hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturdays and closed Sundays. The store will have a grand opening sale Saturday.

Dog days of fashion — Special jackets will help keep team ready to run in Iditarod

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter

As Dallas Seavey mushes his sled dogs through temperatures that could plunge to minus 50 degrees or colder during the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race starting this week and beds his team down at rest stops along the trail, Julie Bowman will be warm and comfortable in her home in Sterling. But she’ll still have a hand in keeping Seavey’s team cozy and their muscles limber, even from thousands of miles away.

Seavey, son of 2004 Iditarod champ Mitch Seavey, approached Bowman this winter about making adjustable jackets for his dogs to use in the Iditarod. Bowman, who runs a sewing business, Julie’s Ideas, out of her home, was intrigued.

“I had a lot of fun with it and just think it was a neat project,” she said. “I certainly enjoy doing special-order things like that, instead of making 400 pairs of socks. I just enjoy the different projects and enjoy the challenge of making something new.”

Seavey brought Bowman a jacket he wanted her to modify and re-create for his team. The jacket fits over the front legs of the dog and fastens with Velcro over the shoulders, so it’s adjustable for different-size dogs. The material is an insulating polar fleece on the inside with a wind-resistant coating on the outside. She also made some from a less-expensive fabric with a more rubbery exterior, so Seavey can compare how each holds up on the trail. Bowman also sewed in three pockets, one over each shoulder and one over the chest, that can hold packets of chemical warmers to keep the dogs’ muscles warm and limber.

Seavey said he uses the jackets mostly when he’s resting the dogs to keep them warm, and to prevent and treat muscle soreness. He also uses them on the trail when it gets particularly cold.

“In my case if I have a dog that’s thin or a shorter-hair dog, in a year like this when we could see 50 to 60 below, it really helps them to stay warm and conserve calories. If they’re a shorter-hair dog it lets them stay more comfortable and rest a little better,” he said.

He’s bought similar jackets before, but the outlet in Alaska he used to get them from isn’t open anymore, and he didn’t want to shop in the Lower 48. He also wanted someone who could customize the jackets.

“I thought we could make them a little bit better than we were getting. More to fit my dogs, which tend to be little bit smaller than most people’s,” Seavey said. “I also have a lot of sewing stuff I have around mushing. When I found Julie’s contact information, I thought it would be good to start building a rapport, to kind of have this stuff done locally. My parents have run a business on the peninsula all of my life, and now that’s what I’m doing, so we like to have as much done locally as we can.”

Seavey and his wife, Jen, are living and training in Kasilof this winter. In the summer they run WildRide Sled Dog Show in Anchorage, an extension of the Ididaride Sled Dog Tours business the family operates in Seward in the summer.

Seavey has trained dogs with his dad for years and ran training teams of 2-year-olds in two previous Iditarods, just like his wife will do this year. This is Seavey’s first year running competitively in the Willow-to-Nome race, which starts Saturday.

“My dogs are looking absolutely incredible. It’s the first team I’ve trained entirely by myself, for myself. It’s been fun doing things a little differently, and it’s working out well. All my dogs are happy and healthy and ready to race,” he said.

Keeping his dogs healthy is one of his primary goals.

“For me, being my first competitive Iditarod, I really want to not overpush the dogs and see that the dogs are maximized and they place as high as they are capable of placing, and having a nice healthy team the whole way,” he said. “Halfway through you see teams in rough shape and I would really like to avoid that.”

Having the jackets will help.

“Especially if it is really cold you put everything warm on them to keep them a little bit warmer,” he said.

The same goes for the mushers. Bowman made neck gaiters for Dallas and Jen Seavey, as well as Rachel Scdoris, a legally bind musher.

Bowman said she started her business in 1995 doing primarily knitting, but has since switched to fleece products.

She sells her hats and other gear at Sweeney’s and Trustworthy Hardware locally, as well as craft shows. Beyond that she occasionally takes on custom projects.

“A lot of it is just people saying, ‘Do you have or can you make?’ Or, ‘I have this really cool hat I like but I can’t find it anywhere,’” she said.

A lot of Bowman’s work is for family or charity, including donating 300 to 400 hats to SOAR International, a Christian outreach mission, to distribute in Russia each year, so she didn’t mind the extra work and tight deadline to help out local mushers.

“Dallas called and said he wondered if I could make them and can I have them ready in two weeks? I needed something to think about. It gave me something interesting to do,” she said.

On target — NRA helps teen set sights on college

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter

Living in Alaska, gun rights weren’t something Skyview High School senior Marquee Lucas gave much thought to.

Her family hunts and has firearms. She’s gone deer and grouse hunting with her family, and said she’d be interested in shooting sports if they were available on the central Kenai Peninsula. She’s never run into opposition in those pursuits, so the Second Amendment that protects her and her family’s ability to own and use firearms and the organization that lobbies to preserve gun rights didn’t grab her attention.

That is until she was a junior in high school aiming for scholarships and found the National Rifle Association could put valuable new experiences in her sights.
The NRA operates a Youth Education Summit and scholarship program in Washington, D.C., for sophomores and juniors in high school.

With five siblings, a desire to go to college and an interest in the medical field, possibly in radiology, Lucas wanted to get as early a jump on scholarships as she could. This was one of the few she found that was open to juniors.

The program’s goal is to give students an up-close and personal look at government in action, and to instill an interest in the nation’s history and its governmental processes. Lucas said only 11 students in Alaska applied for the program last year, and she was one of 10 selected to participate, with 35 others from across the country.

“They love having kids from Alaska, too,” she said. “Because, I don’t know, we’re Alaska. We’re special.”

Through the NRA Lucas visited Juneau to get a first-hand look at state government, and went to the week-long Youth Education Summit in D.C. last year.

Participants saw the sights in D.C. — the White House, Supreme Court, Capitol, Pentagon and several monuments. They met congressmen and participated in speeches and debates. Lucas said the highlight of the trip for her was visiting the Quantico Marine Corps base, where she did a night-vision goggle training course, shot an M-16 and M-9, tried Meals Ready to Eat rations and did physical training. She said some students were right at home on the shooting range, while others had never handled a gun before.

Throughout the summit, she said students learned about the Second Amendment and the NRA’s mission and activities. But Lucas said students weren’t required to support the NRA, although she does, and it wasn’t the overall focus of the trip.

“I was always a big supporter of gun rights. I do support the organization and that they work hard to protect gun rights,” she said. “I definitely would like to be a member of the NRA, but it was just neat because the trip wasn’t about making kids be NRA members. It was about us learning about government and that we were going to be the future leaders. I thought that was neat; there wasn’t any pressure at all.”

At the awards banquet at the end of the week, $10,000 in scholarships was given out to recipients chosen for their involvement in the program and their speech and debate skills. Lucas was awarded a $1,500 scholarship.

“It was just a really good opportunity, it just keeps on giving,” she said.

Students who participate in the summit and do outreach in their community to educate others about the trip or other NRA education programs are eligible to apply for further NRA scholarship money, with $20,000 to be awarded in all. Lucas has been spreading the word at Skyview about the program in hopes of getting another scholarship, but mainly so other students can benefit from the opportunity, she said.

Her experience in D.C. is one she won’t soon forget.

“You can try to learn as much as you can in the textbook, but you’ll never learn it until you apply it,” she said. “It brings everything full circle. You learn so much more. It’s not like somebody putting it on the light board or reading it in a textbook. I’ve actually seen it and I’m a part of it.”

Lucas has been putting the leadership experience to use at home. She’s active in her church youth group and Teens Against Tobacco Use. She’s the student body president at Skyview this year and last, and she’s active in the school’s National Honor Society. She did play several sports — swimming, cross country, basketball, track and lacrosse — until an injury sidelined her. Now in her senior year, she’s focusing more on getting ready for college, taking EMT and other classes. This summer she hopes to take a trip to Nicaragua with her uncle, an orthopedic surgeon.

She may also qualify to chaperone a future NRA Youth Education Summit trip.

“I would love to get back to D.C., I’d never been there,” she said. “To actually see what’s in history books — it’s jaw-dropping. It’s amazing. Pretty surreal. It’s a good opportunity for money, but more important than the money is just the learning. What you learned from the trip is so much more valuable than what you get out of the scholarship.”

Fast learners — Kids conquer the trails in youth skiing program

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter

Eight-year-old Oliva Botirius’ stream-of-consciousness play-by-play was going as fast as her skies were Saturday as she launched herself down an incline at Tsalteshi Trails.

“Yeah, a hill!”

“Look out below!”

“Hey, no cuts!”

“Woah, don’t fall, don’t fall, don’t fall!”

She didn’t, making it to the bottom in a blur of matching purple snow gear, hardly any ski pole flailing, and brown curls flopping in the breeze. Once she coasted to a stop at the bottom of the hill, she plopped down to her knees, but made sure everyone in her learn-to-ski group knew it wasn’t an accident.

“I didn’t fall. I did this on purpose. ’Cus I can do this,” she announced, as she started scooting herself backward.

A few loops over on the trail system behind Skyview High School, the mighty Snow Leopards were sizing up a hill of their own. The kids had been at Tsalteshi Trails Associations’ learn-to-ski program long enough that their first reaction to hills — “We have to go down that?” — had been largely replaced with the desire to see how much momentum their 4-foot-tall bodies could accumulate.

Coach Robin Nyce was waiting a little ways down, calling out encouragement to try to snowplow — point the tips of their skis together to slow descent — or some other technique.

They dutifully followed instructions, whether it was a snowplow or hunching over their feet and grabbing the tips of their skis as they slid down the hill. But some were mystified about the point of maneuvers that made them go slower.

“Why did we do that? I could have gone down that way faster on my own,” said 6-year-old Tyle Owens.

That’s a far cry from the beginning of January, when the kids’ ski program started.

“We had a couple of little, little ones like, ‘I don’t know. I don’t want to go uphill,’ and, ‘I don’t want to go down hills,’ but now they’re doing it. The ones who have never even skied before are cruising. It just takes getting kids out moving on skies and they figure a lot out on their own,” said Laura Pillifant, with the trails association board.

For older or more experienced skiers, the program is a chance to get instruction and practice with their peers, instead of just their parents.

“We take them out skiing, you know, with us, and they kind of complain a lot and they don’t really want to go,” Pillifant said. “Being in the program, they haven’t complained once. They’re out there skiing hard and having fun and coming along really well.”

Marc Johnson, a parent volunteer, said he was excited when he heard about the program. Not only does it teach kids a new skill and gets them to enjoy the outdoors, but it’s helpful for school ski programs, as well.

“It gets kids started at a young age, like they do with kids in Anchorage,” he said. “They have a pool of talent when they get into middle school and high school there.”

He said the instructors have been doing a great job of tailoring the program to the kids and their ability levels, even coming up with games they can play to keep it interesting — like sharks and minnows and a scavenger hunt.

“They make it fun for the kids to get them excited about skiing so they want to keep doing it,” he said. “They’re having a great time. Even when they crash they get right up and they’re laughing.”

Johnson’s daughter, Leah, 8, is hooked. She said she plans on being on the Kenai Central High School Kardinals ski team when she’s old enough.

“I think the trails are the funnest part,” she said. “The hills are really fun because you go so fast.”

This is the first year for the program, which was scheduled for Tuesday and Thursday nights, plus four Saturdays, from Jan. 6 through March 7. The trails association got a grant to buy 30 pairs of combination skis — waxable skis that can be used for classic or skate skiing — for kids to rent out. Next year it hopes to add poles to its stock of rental gear.

Kids start with the basics of how to wax skis, put on the boots, skis and poles, and the all-important tricks for how to stand back up once you succumb to the unavoidable combination of gravity and slippery, awkward footwear. Kids are grouped by ability level, so the more experienced skiers can work on higher-level techniques, like step turning around corners, while others practice the basics of just get getting going.

Originally, the plan was to teach four weeks of classic skiing and four weeks of skating, Pillifant said, but weather, trail conditions and ability levels have dictated the program’s progression more than initial planning.

“The younger, 6- to 8-year-olds, the beginner beginners, if they can get standing on their skies and moving any way they can, they don’t distinguish between the skate and the classic,” Pillifant said. “The older ones, they know skating is faster so they’re kind of starting to press coaches, ‘Come on, let’s go to skating.’ But the classic is just a lot of fun and they need to know that, that’s for sure, if they’re going to continue on.”

Pillifant said she’s thrilled with the response to the program, with 43 skiers ages 6 to 12 signed up (plus one 13-year-old with two younger siblings in the program). Along with the kids came a platoon of volunteers, which has been crucial in wrangling, much less teaching, so many kids.

“It’s been overwhelming the response from people and the help that we’re getting. It takes a lot of people not to leave someone on the trail or take a skier back to warm them up or help with cookies and hot chocolate,” she said.

Organizers conscripted a group of coaches — David Michael, Adam Reimer, Gigi Banas, Pillifant, Sara Hepner, Nyce and Denise Harro — and have had even more people step up every week to help, including Bill Holt keeping the trails groomed, Kelly Keating bringing a lighting system, Dr. Justin Moore and SoHi skier Jordann Nelson helping coach, parents and Skyview High School coaches and skiers helping wax, and Mary Helminski bringing cookies, cleaning up and helping with whatever else is needed. The community has also pitched in with donations when needed, Pillifant said.

“Everybody is just going crazy with helping us,” she said. “You think ahead of time, ‘Oh dear, I’ve got a lot of places to be already,’ but it’s just way different than most things that you have to be at. It’s a lot of fun, and it’s going very fast.”

Death-defying leaps — Man survives avalanche, double parachute malfunction

By Clark Fair
Redoubt Reporter

Jerry Dixon had nearly died many years before, and he was about to have another close call, but the irony of this newest narrow escape would not strike him fully until hours after the event.

Dixon was skiing beneath clear May skies with his friend, Mike Tetreau, in the mountains west of the Seward Highway near Lower Summit Lake. As morning became a warm afternoon, they climbed from the valley floor to a series of ridges and summits at nearly 4,500 feet elevation. Eventually it was time to head down, and they chose a new ridge for the final portion of their descent.

The final ridge featured several exposed rock outcroppings, and the two men kept a cautious separation between them as they maneuvered just below the rocks. While Tetreau waited, Dixon skied down and then turned left toward the ridgeline. As he turned, he kicked off a small point-release avalanche — a sloughing-off of snow, in this case a foot or two wide — dropping away from him for more than 30 feet.

But Dixon, who had spent a lifetime skiing in the mountains, didn’t stand still. He broke instantly for the safety of the nearest rocky outcrop. As he moved laterally, he heard a loud “whomp” and saw a crack shoot out in both directions from the bottom of the slide he had triggered. The crack was suddenly more than 300 feet long, and then the mountain face below it began to collapse.

As he reached the security of the rocks, the smooth slope disintegrated into a tumble of snow and ice, and spilled downward for nearly 2,000 vertical feet before rumbling to a stop in a wide deposition zone piled high with dense chunks of snow. Had he gone down with that churning mass, Dixon knew, he would not have emerged alive.

“If you were caught up in that, there’s no way you could’ve survived,” he said. “Once again, I was lucky.”

Dixon, a longtime teacher who grew up skiing on the slopes of Alta Ski Area in Utah, pondered his good fortune as he drove home to Seward.

When he arrived that evening, Dixon said, he hugged his two sons, Kipp and Pyper, and then kissed and hugged his wife, Deborah.

“My wife looked me right in the eye and said, ‘You’ve been in an avalanche, haven’t you?’ I said, ‘I set one off. If I was in it, I wouldn’t be here.’”

Sometime in the next few hours, Dixon was struck by the irony of his experience in the mountains. The avalanche had occurred on May 13, 2006, one day shy of being exactly 30 years since the most harrowing experience of his life, the first time he almost died.

It was May 14, 1976, and a 27-year-old Dixon was inside the belly of a twin-engine Volpar as it circled low over Birch Hill, just north of the Alaska smoke jumper base at Fort Wainwright near Fairbanks. Dixon and the other smoke jumpers inside the plane were preparing for their second practice jump of the day, preparing for another season of fighting fires.

Each jumper’s parachute was affixed to a static line that would pull his chute from his pack as he leapt from the airplane’s open door. As the line broke free of the top of the chute, the lower edges of the circular canopy would catch the incoming air and snap it open, buoying the smoke jumper for his descent to the ground.

The nylon parachute canopy was attached to suspension lines that, upon deployment, would angle down toward the smoke jumper’s harness into precise clusters of lines called risers, which the jumper could use for minimal steering.

The jumpers would exit the plane only about 1,000 feet above Birch Hill and would remain in the air for only one to two minutes. The idea was to practice real firefighting conditions, so the shortest jump, with the least margin for error, was preferred. In the case of a real fire, smoke jumpers need optimum accuracy. Extra time in the air can mean extra drift, and extra drift can mean landing in trees or in the fire zone itself.

Up in the plane, Dixon, a fifth-year jumper who had trained in and worked out of McCall, Idaho, stood momentarily in the open doorway, then launched himself into flight.

“Something didn’t feel right,” he wrote for the National Smokejumper Association in 2000. “The risers were tight against my face, and there was no opening shock. I pulled the risers apart and looked up to see a streamer.”

A “streamer” gets its name from its shape. It occurs when a parachute fully exits its pack but fails to open. It appears as a vertical column of fabric and does almost nothing to slow the jumper’s descent. Such a malfunction requires the jumper to take emergency action, and Dixon knew what to do.
He had trained for this eventuality, and he knew that, without a chute, he had less than 10 seconds before he would strike the ground.

Looking down, he located the handle attached to the ripcord of his reserve-chute pack, which was hanging like a small stuffed sleeping bag from his belly. He grabbed the handle and pulled, then punched the pack to release the chute. As the reserve chute shot upward, he turned his head aside and arched backward to avoid being struck in the face.

“The reserve blew past me, hesitated at the edge of the main (chute) and then flowed up alongside it,” Dixon said. “I was stunned to see it clinging to the side of the main.” Dropping at about 100 miles per hour, he pulled apart the risers to glimpse the rapidly approaching ground.

And once again, training paid off: He knew what to do.

“In my life, nothing’s been so clear. All fleeting thoughts were gone. There was almost a calm.
“My training told me to pull in the reserve and throw it out again. I grabbed the reserve lines and started pulling in the chute. Either the act of pulling or the fact that my body was arched so that I could pull harder caused the reserve to deploy. It seemed to explode, and I could actually see what appeared to be dust pulse from the canopy. (Then) the main started to billow and I was on the ground.”

Dixon landed on his back, his helmeted head smacking the ground forcefully. “My back hurt and I was in shock,” he said. “I left my chutes on the ground and walked away.”

Up in the Volpar, some of his fellow jumpers had assumed he was dead. From their perspective, he had disappeared, trailing two malfunctioning parachutes. One of the jumpers approached Dixon afterward and said, “We watched you go below the tree line. Everyone in the plane thought you went in.”

His only injury was a single herniated vertebra in his back, and he said that it was about a year before he was out of pain. But it was five more years before he was ready to jump again.

Dixon had been intrigued by smoke jumping since he had watched Richard Widmark in the 1952 film, “Red Skies Over Montana,” which is about 13 smoke jumpers who died fighting the Mann Gulch fire in 1949.

In his brief career as a smoke jumper, he said he had come to love the camaraderie of the jumper fraternity and the notion that the very nature of their jobs meant they had to rely on each other.
“You never look left; you never look right. They’re your buddies. They’re there for you,” he said. “You never wonder, ‘Will they be there?’”

Such a sense of closeness, of “brotherhood,” made it difficult for Dixon to stay away, despite his narrow escape in 1976. So in 1982 he went back to jump again.

In August 1982, he made what would turn out to be his final jump.

From a DC-3 over the rugged Salmon River wilderness in Idaho, Dixon leaped out and caught a draft that kept him aloft much longer than usual. Instead of fighting it by pulling in his chute for a more rapid descent, however, he allowed himself to drift, taking in the beauty of his surroundings for nearly seven minutes before he touched the ground.

“I was just like a bird,” he said. And that’s when he knew this jump would be his perfect ending.
Back at base days later, Dixon said he went to his squad leader and turned in his gear. The squad leader said, “I’ve never had a jumper in the middle of the day, the middle of the week, middle of a pay period, say he quit and turn in his stuff. Why?”

Dixon replied, “It took me six years to come back from a double parachute malfunction, and that last jump was just so magic. I was floating. I was flying. And that’s how I’ll always remember it.”

Thirty years after the experience over Birch Hill, all these memories would come flooding back once again, and Dixon would also recall his other numerous outdoor adventures — traversing mountain ranges, making first descents of distant mountains and dangerous streams, skiing the route of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. He would admit that he had been lucky throughout his life, but that life was too precious not to be fully lived.

As he is fond of saying, “Every day is a gift, and every sunrise is a new beginning.”

On ice: Mushing, carving events postponed or canceled due to lack of winter

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter

Organizers of an event the size of the Peninsula Winter Games have a challenging task in ironing out all the details required to hold a communitywide event, but they’d gotten it all taken care of — volunteers were lined up, space had been reserved, announcements were made; everything was ready to bring the peninsula out to the games.

But somebody forgot to take care of the “winter” part.

With the Tustumena 200 Sled Dog Race, Al York Memorial Junior Musher Sled Dog Race and ice carvings scheduled to begin over the weekend, the weather turned from a two-week, below-zero cold snap to rain and temperatures in the 40s, washing away hopes of events that depend on winter conditions.

“The weather’s the one thing we can’t control, and that’s frustrating,” said January Yeager, project coordinator for the Soldotna Chamber of Commerce.

Typically, the first weekend of the Peninsula Winter Games includes volunteers cutting 2-ton blocks of ice from the pond along Marathon Road in Kenai, which local carvers use to create ice sculptures around town.

On Saturday, the pond was covered with water.

“There’s like a foot of water on top of the pond. We can’t ask volunteers to go out there and do that. It’s not safe. You’re working with 2-ton blocks of ice and cold water on top of that, so it’s not good,” Yeager said.

The ice carving was canceled.

“It’s a total bummer,” she said. “There was just way too much water on there to get equipment out there and everything. And that’s one of the best things. They’re so cool to look at.”
Well, not so cool at 40 degrees.

“Yeah, exactly,” Yeager said.

While the carving event fell victim to a lack of good ice, the Peninsula Sled Dog and Racing Association’s Al York kids’ mushing races fell victim to too much ice.

Warmth, rain, then overnight freezing have left the mushing trails by the Soldotna Airport bare in spots, icy in others and with just a weak layer of crusty snow in the trees.

“It would be bad for the dogs. Dogs can’t negotiate this ice, there’s really nothing we can do for them,” said Mindee Morning, one of the event organizers. “They have a little bit of a stud system built in, but I’ve had a few dogs fall in the dog yard, hitting their chins or splaying their legs out. Put a load on that and try it, it’s not the best of things. People can do it and dogs do it all the time, but I voted for no, especially with kids. It’s really hard to fall on the ice.”

Danny Seavey, race organizer, said the event is now scheduled for March 21, to be held in conjunction with the Clark Bradford Memorial Race on March 22 — if conditions improve by then, of course.

“Just do a snow dance every single day, because dogs don’t ice skate,” Morning said. “I have a bunch of dogs, they don’t know what happened. They don’t know why they’re not running.”

Morning asks that people and dogs stay off the trails until they do get more snow.

“It’s just better right now for everyone to stay off the trails. Hopefully we’ll groom as soon as we can,” she said. “In the trees, there is snow, similar to what you’re seeing on the side of the road or any trails where snowmachines can’t go. It’s crusty on top and they’ll fall through and just pound it down into little lumps of ice.”

The Tustumena 200 Sled Dog Race is in a holding pattern waiting for snow, as well. It was supposed to start this Saturday, but has been pushed back a week until Jan. 31 in hopes of better conditions.

“The reason we did that is the lack of snow and the trail conditions, so we’re giving it another week,” said Tami Murray, executive director of the T-200. “We got 4 inches of snow on Saturday night up in the hills, but we still need a lot more down low, so keep your fingers crossed.”

Pushing the race back creates some logistical challenges, especially for mushers who may have had other plans for the 31st.

“We had a couple that had to withdraw, one because of the Yukon Quest. The food drop is that same weekend,” Murray said.

Kasilof musher Jason Mackey will miss next week’s T-200 in order to get his food distributed in preparation for the 1,000-mile Quest race from Whitehorse, British Columbia, to Fairbanks.
But they’ve picked up a few more mushers by extending the registration deadline to Jan. 23. They’re up to 23 for the T-200, and nine or 10 each for the T-100 and the junior race, Murray said.

Race organizers are also trying to make sure their volunteers are ready to go a week later.

“We’re just confirming everybody as we speak. Our vets are our main concern. They take time off from their practices to volunteer for this,” Murray said.

All of this depends on snow showing up — on a timeline that coincides with forecasts and schedules.

“It will, it always does,” Morning said. “That’s where humans have to make plans, and the weather doesn’t have any plans.”

A schedule of events for the Peninsula Winter Games is available at www.peninsulawintergames.com. For information on the T-200, visit www.tustumena200.com.

Cool catch — Fishing’s still hot, even when winter’s not

“Is it a cross-country skiing trip or a fishing trip?” I ask myself.

Both, of course. And what better way to spend one of our now-lengthening winter afternoons, than partaking in the two activities I enjoy most this time of year?

I’ve discovered that fishing, despite the cold, is a year-round sport. With the upper reaches of the Kenai still flowing and an estimated 15 percent of the trout population overwintering in these waters, there is simply no reason to put away the fly rod. Of course, one must prepare for the hardships of cold, and possibly wet, conditions.

I’m the first to admit that it appears somewhat crazy to even consider fishing when the mercury plunges so low your glasses regularly fog, the guides on your rod ice up time and again and when the mere thought of tying on a new fly is painful.

But there are reasons that inspire such madness. Perhaps the sense of urgency, of adventure, that comes with life in extreme weather, even in a place you know well. Maybe it’s also fisherman’s intuition, whispering that, as the mercury begins to climb even a little bit after the overnight freeze, the trout will become active and begin feeding.

Also, the long ski to the now-braided waters below Skilak Lake reveal a changed world. Not only has the water dropped significantly, but with the motorboats of summer long gone, it’s now supremely quiet. So quiet you can hear the brush of an eagle’s wings as they sweep the horizon, darkly silhouetted against the muted light of midday.

And there is not another soul within view. Even the most heated war zones in the summer battle for sockeyes have been relinquished back to the spirit of the river. The only footprints encased in the frozen ground now are a few wayward paw prints from restless bears that, like us, don’t know any better and have left the comfort of their dens for a day on the river.

This late in the season, our best hope for action might be a flesh fly, mimicking the decaying flesh of last autumn’s salmon. And if we spot some of the late-run silvers that continue to trickle into the river well past the first of the year, we might fish behind them with an egg pattern or egg-sucking leech. With less water in the system every pocket becomes more pronounced, the river easier to read, every hole ours for the taking.

It’s often a test of will. Just when fingers are beginning to numb and feet stiffening, that’s when the fly quietly drifts over the edge of a riffle, skirts the abyss of slow water, and suddenly stops. All at once the dull, muted rhythms of winter are interrupted by something spectacular. Fireworks burst at the surface of the pool as scales merge into a mosaic of black dots and a swirl of pink. Cold hands and frozen feet are instantly forgotten amidst the sudden sweet panic of playing a large fish.

It’s at moments like this that each one of your senses, every aspect of your being, is tied for an instant to the river. And it’s this that keeps us coming back, when the river is too low to float and the launch sites piled high with snow, skiing to our favorite destinations, warmed by our memories as well as the hopes and spirit of the river and the fish yet to be caught.

Winter fishing basics

The best thing anyone can bring winter fishing is patience and a good attitude. By late fall and early winter, many resident rainbow trout have headed to the nearby lakes for winter, and those that remain tend to be slightly less active. Often a fly needs to be placed right in front of their noses in order to entice a strike.

The next most important ingredients for a good time are warm clothes, and plenty of them. Cold-weather survival experts agree that dressing in layers is essential, starting with polypropylene underwear, followed by polar fleece, a warm coat and a wind shell. For waders, many winter fishermen have turned to the heavy neoprene variety favored by duck hunters. My Cabela’s neoprene 1,600 boot-foot waders are probably the warmest piece of equipment I own. The downside is they are heavy, and can be like wearing a pair of leg weights if you are walking a long way. It’s also easy to work up a sweat, which in cold-weather conditions can be deadly.

You don’t need a large selection of flies this time of year. A few standbys will do. Start with “old” flesh flies, in brown, white and cream — flies that resemble the remains of last year’s salmon carcasses. Also carry a variety of egg patterns, egg-sucking leeches and perhaps a few muddler minnows and sculpins.

Most of all you just need the desire to get out there, wet a line and enjoy this unique time year.

Dave Atcheson teaches a fly-fishing class each spring, starting in March, at Kenai Peninsula College’s Kenai River Campus, and is the author of the guidebook “Fishing Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula.”

Spurred on — Climbers test luck on 3rd volcano summit

By Clark Fair
Redoubt Reporter

At 11,070 feet, Mount Spurr stands about a thousand feet higher than Redoubt and Iliamna, and because reaching it would require traveling a greater distance inland from the coast, Craig Barnard, Rory Stark and Tyler Johnson changed their usual modus operandi.

They decided to charter a plane from Merrill Field in Anchorage to Tyonek, take mountain bikes to roll up the maze of logging roads leading out of town and up the Chak- achatna River drainage toward the volcano, and to give themselves at least five days for the round trip.

On a Friday morning in early June, they boarded a single-engine Cessna Skywagon piloted by Spernak Air, and after a short flight they were unpacking gear in Tyonek and preparing to maneuver about a 40-mile maze of backcountry roads that would lead them up along the Chakachatna to its confluence with Straight Creek.

“It was crazy,” said Barnard, the least experienced of the three riders. “These guys were flying. It was all I could do to keep up. And I was hot for every break. I was, ‘Oh, a break! Come on! This is supposed to be fun, guys.’”

Near the confluence, they stashed their bikes and began following the creek, crossing and re-crossing its chilly waters to avoid prying their way through thick tangles of alders. Once, Barnard, who said the water sometimes moved so fast he could feel himself starting to float, tumbled into the stream.

“I bit it. I was on all fours,” he said. “Your legs are numb all day long. And then just in time to start feeling your legs and stuff, you plunge into the river again.”

Eventually, after camping for a night on a gravel bar to avoid all the bears in the area, they reached the source of Straight Creek: a swath of ice they called a “dry glacier” because its dense main vein was topped by a thick carpet of rocky debris.

Johnson called the up-and-down, boulder-strewn traverse of the glacier “tedious.” Stark said it was “just like a moonscape.” But, after day of such travel and a night on the glacier, they exited onto a southeastern flank of the mountain, and it was here that their real troubles began.

The clouds moved in. The light flattened out. Warmer air began to deteriorate the snow.

At about 8,000 feet, according to Johnson, they “got up onto the ridge, and, man, it was super steep. But it was the only way we could see to connect our route to the summit. We’re like 3,000 feet from the summit, and the snow at that point was so soft where you could stick your ski pole all the way up to the handle. Like 4 feet of mush.”

Stark painted an even more severe picture: “There was a cornice on one side of this ridge and then a really steep drop with crevasses running down the other side. This snow, it was just ready to rip. I mean, real sort of unstable snow conditions.

“I pretty much figured if we tried to traverse that ridge, we’d break a slide on it and go into one of the crevasses. And if you stayed high enough to be away from that, then you’d be hanging over the cornice on the other side, which is a cliff. It was pretty untenable.”

They sent Barnard out ahead for a closer look, and even though he said he was “disappointed” to turn back, he knew it was the right call.

“It was such a good decision to turn around,” he said. “Their vibe was totally right.”

They descended to 6,000 feet and camped.

On Monday, they worked down the full length of the dry glacier and camped along Straight Creek. On Tuesday, they reached their bicycles and trundled back into Tyonek, where they called Spernak Air. By Tuesday night they were all at home.

Johnson said they were all disappointed by failing to summit, but they decided to take a practical perspective: “The (other two) trips were so perfect that it was kind of nice to throw in three-quarters of a mountain in there. Nobody’s that lucky.”

Johnson added that he had no regrets.

“They were the cheapest trips I’ve ever done, and the most rewarding,” he said.

In the months to come, the trio would have many more rewards but also more difficulties.

In October, Johnson, Stark and Stark’s brother, Will, flew into Katmandu in the Himalayas and climbed then skied down Cho Oyu, the world’s sixth-highest peak.

Just before the end of the year, Stark and Johnson were skiing high on Silvertip Mountain on the Kenai Peninsula when Stark, for the second time in his life, was swept away by an avalanche.

“It was horrible,” he said. “I broke my femur in three places, and my tibia was just shattered. For about 6 inches it was just bone fragments. And there was a piece of bone coming through my leg, and I lost a lot of blood, so I had to have a transfusion.”

Stark was rescued by the 210th Rescue Squadron of the Air National Guard. In November, he had surgery to remove 20 screws and some metal plates from his leg. Sometime after this Christmas, he said, he hopes to start skiing again.

In March 2008, Johnson and a pair of other Anchorage racers finished second in the Alaska Mountain Wilderness Ski Classic. And in July, Johnson and Barnard won the summer version of the race. They plan to compete in the winter classic again this March.

“It was mainly for the adventure,” said Johnson, speaking chiefly of the volcano trips but also about the men’s shared love of the outdoor experience. “It’s not just the mountains and the skiing. That’s fun, but I think for all three of us it’s just the adventure of going out and doing something different, and rolling the dice. If it works it works. If it doesn’t it doesn’t.”