Saw my First Bear Since Winter

AKBill

AKBill

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AKBill
So I work at a mine in Alaska, boat to an island then bus up to the mine. Boat ride and bus ride are about 40min each. Figure 1 1/2 hours each way. Boat leaves 5am and we get home about 6:30pm.

Saw my first and second brown bear of the summer today. Alaska Brown bears are big, this guy stepped over a guardrail on the mine road like nothing, didn't miss a stride. The winter is dark nothing to see so I nap. Summer is a little different. I counted 56 deer and 10 Brown bear on the road one day. Road is about 18 miles long.

Anyone enjoy the wildlife pictorials on the way to work? Also saw whales breaching the other day.

Long day, hard work but the scenery beautiful....:) If I get lucky and get a few photos this summer I will post them...:)
 
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I'm usually dodging deer in the road at least once a week, but yesterday it was a big jackrabbit. Both not wanting to clean rabbit guts off the bumper of the Yukon and also just to be nice to the poor creature, and since the idiot rabbit couldn't decide which way to run and ran three different directions (all in the road) before I got to him, I chose to do a little off-roading at about 40 MPH and slowing across a driveway outlet (gave me room to go around the darting rabbit) and through a massive half of a truck sized water puddle on the other side before angling back onto the road.

Only concern I had was whether the puddle was deeper than I thought. If a little deeper (it was!) big splash and zero vis (it did that). If a lot deeper, a hard hit to the right front suspension and tire (it wasn't).

The Yukon was nice and clean before I did that. Found mud on the roof this morning. LOL. I doubt the people at that ranch house with the driveway were looking out front, but if they were, they got a Dukes of Hazard kind of show from me and the Yukon plowing through their puddle. LOL.

And the rabbit lived to get run over in a few more days, if he keeps hanging out on the 50 MPH paved road... this time he was in between hills... next time, someone tops a hill, he's doing that dart back and for thing, he's toast. Or he'll be served on toast.

Yukon still tracking straight, and the original shocks at 148,000 still seemed to do their jobs along with the big coil springs. Ha. No bouncy. That would have made it a wilder off-road excursion. Wheeee.
 
Surprisingly, wildlife in the road around here (other than squirrels, rabbits, and the occasional woodchuck) is not that common. I did have to dodge a deer once, a couple of years ago, and they are reportedly ubiquitous but I've mostly seen them while hiking. Once in a great while I see one as roadkill. There was an alert out about turtles crossing the road last week, but I've yet to have to brake for one. Fishers are another local denizen you see once in a while, though I've only seen them deep in the woods.

Black bears are always a possibility here, though I've yet to see one (not something I'm hoping for). Ditto moose, for which there are road signs in several places on the interstate. That was something that surprised me when I first moved here, as I expected their habitat to be pretty much limited to Maine and areas north of the border.
 
Dead rabbit flattened and quartered on that road this morning. Guess he just never learned to run away from the big scary noisy thing with headlights.
 
Last summer while on Engineers Cutoff road an otter ran out in front of me. It was shear luck that I missed him.

I saw several bears during spring at Hoonah and Kake. A few times I had to wait for the bear to clear the runway at Hoonah.

I do yield the right of way to bears....

Too busy this summer to go back to Alaska, maybe next summer.
 
Zeldman said:
I do yield the right of way to bears....

Too busy this summer to go back to Alaska, maybe next summer.
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Had a bear run in front of me landing Gustavis, not real close but got my attention. Look me up if you ever get back to the Capital City..
 
AKBill said:
Had a bear run in front of me landing Gustavis, not real close but got my attention. Look me up if you ever get back to the Capital City..
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Will do.

I am wondering if we crossed paths last summer and didn't know it.
 
Wife and I stayed in town today to catch up on garden and yard chores. Wife was weeding a bed at the side of the house when the dog ran to the neighbors. Wife turned, dog chased a large adult blackie out of the garage, and the bear was about 30' behind my wife when we I looked up and saw it. No threat but still cool to have bears in the hood, and this is right in suburban south Anchorage.
 
I remember a newspaper article about 7 or 8 years ago in ADN that the author stated there was at least 1000 bears living in the city limits of Anchorage.

I must say they do hide well.

The bears are what keeps bringing me back to Alaska.
 
Down at Kake they built the fence to keep bears out and apparently once the dumb things get inside they take a while figuring out how to get out.

I had one run in front of me, maybe 15 feet while taxiing out and another time I had a 2 hour "layover" there and was napping on the wing and I heard something rustling around....this city slicker got back in plane and fired it up to scare it off. I was a lot more vigilant after that.... Ex LAB pilot
 
Getonit said:
Ex LAB pilot
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Boy that LAB thing turned out to be a sad thing. To this day they still have planes parked all over SE AK. I'll bet there are 20+ planes sitting and corroding, don't know why they didn't sell them when they lost their certificate. The cost to keep their hanger and all those planes has to be enormous. Planes have been sitting over 10 years I bet.
 
Stewartb said:
I have a bikini girl coffee stand between home and work. I've seen plenty of beats. I never get tired of girls.
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Ahh you must appreciate boobs too. I can't post any pics, but geez, a chick in a bikini gets ya banned. What's the world coming to....
 
AKBill said:
Boy that LAB thing turned out to be a sad thing. To this day they still have planes parked all over SE AK. I'll bet there are 20+ planes sitting and corroding, don't know why they didn't sell them when they lost their certificate. The cost to keep their hanger and all those planes has to be enormous. Planes have been sitting over 10 years I bet.
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That's how much money they made by being nice to the folks in the area. I have heard some great stories about Mr. Bennet.

Yeah, a shame they let all those planes just rot away, although the family claims they are all airworthy.
 
Getonit said:
Down at Kake they built the fence to keep bears out and apparently once the dumb things get inside they take a while figuring out how to get out.

I had one run in front of me, maybe 15 feet while taxiing out and another time I had a 2 hour "layover" there and was napping on the wing and I heard something rustling around....this city slicker got back in plane and fired it up to scare it off. I was a lot more vigilant after that.... Ex LAB pilot
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I think the fence must be down now. Last year I had more than a few bear on the runway encounters.
 
AKBill said:
Maybe when they parked them, not today..:( Had a few Black Tail feasting on my lawn this morning..:)
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Their definition of airworthy is subject to interpretation.....I was there in 2000 i never had any maintenance issues with the planes. Although I did wonder how they could get an annual done overnite.....when they were shut down in 2008 it was quite clear what was being done and not. But yes they should have sold the planes then instead of holding on to them, maybe this topic needs to go in rotting planes thread. It was certainly an interesting organization. The old man was supposed to give me a checkout into glacier point, he rolled up on his Harley wearing his David Clarks, but he never plugged them in. The training didn't go well as the old man would shout at me....that didn't go over well with me and I said **** this and took us back to Haines. The next day Lynn checked me out...while he was a hard ass at least he could temper his message a little to the audience.

Who is servicing SE AK now? I saw that wings recently shut down? I stalk the news sites and a friend also told me. It was an experience I will never forget, really wish I could do it again....as I sit in an office all day now as upper management.
 
Getonit said:
Who is servicing SE AK now?
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Alaska Seaplanes is doing a good job, they have a good mix in there fleet. Beavers, Caravans, 206s, a few twins. Gota run, hope you get a chance to return..:)
 
AKBill said:
Alaska Seaplanes is doing a good job, they have a good mix in there fleet. Beavers, Caravans, 206s, a few twins. Gota run, hope you get a chance to return..:)
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How many twins do they have? Last year Seaplanes only had the one Chieftain, which was one of the nicest I ever flew. I guess landing only on pavement had a lot to do with it staying nice.
 
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