Kodiak Mountain Goat Hunt

The Alaskan hunter Christmas (the date draw results come out) rewarded me with a Kodiak Mountain Goat tag. I have been putting in for goat hunts for the past 7 years, and this was the first goat tag I have drawn. Until this hunt, I have never hunted mountain goats before, but it isn’t because of lack of opportunity. You don’t need to draw a tag to hunt mountain goats in certain areas, because there are registration and general harvest hunts (where anyone can hunt).  I actually planned a couple different goat hunts in those open areas before, but they were both cancelled from hunting partners bailing on me. I could not let that happen with this hunt!

If you don’t know about mountain goats, they live in the most dangerous terrain of any animal in Alaska. They are often on top of the vertical wall, sharp rock faces, high above where anything can get them. If I had to venture a guess, I would say that mountain goat hunters have the highest percentage of injury/death among hunters due to the terrain they live in. This makes goat hunting even more challenging.

I put a feeler out to some of my friends to see if anyone was interested in going. I got the generic… tell me more… I can go... [so and so] would go for sure… I’m interested… etc. Nobody truly wanted to commit. I then talked to my neighbor who is just getting into hunting up here and he was really excited about the opportunity, so we decided to start planning.

The plan was to take the Alaska Marine Highway ferry from Homer to Kodiak sometime in October and hunt for 10 days out of the truck while spike camping on the mountain. The ferry schedule wasn’t released until the beginning of September. At that time, I talked with my neighbor about the best time for him to go on the hunt. This is when he told me he couldn’t go. SURPRISE! To be honest, it didn’t surprise me. I am so accustomed to people dropping out of hunts that it is actually expected now, and I would be more surprised if someone did not drop out of the hunt.

I had a talk with Danielle about my situation. (Her concern for me hunting solo is one of the main reasons I typically avoid going by myself; I know it really bothers her and I hate to make her worry too much) We decided that this hunt would be okay to do by myself. Even tho it was on Kodiak where the terrain is terrible, the weather is notoriously dangerous, and it houses some of the biggest bears in the world, because I was base hunting out of the truck and I would have a satellite texter, Danielle was not as worried (or so I’m told). I think she also felt bad for me too knowing how much I was looking forward to the hunt. So it was on!

Day 1

The ferry was scheduled to leave Homer at 10PM on a Sunday. I left the house at 3:30PM and stopped once to fill up with gas. There was barely anybody on the road since it was a Sunday afternoon (the time when everyone is going home from a weekend). I ended up timing it perfectly to grab some dinner right before I arrived at 8PM for boarding.

There were about 20 vehicles lined up to get on the ferry. We were in designated lanes for some purpose that I’m not aware of. My lane was last to get in the long line of cars driving onto the ferry.  The line moved extremely slow, but I soon realized why. The ferry had a unique lift it was using to load the cars. There was a small, level ramp that connected the ferry and dock. Two cars would drive onto the side of the ferry in a single line and then stop. Once both cars were on, the lift would engage and the floor area that the cars drove onto would slowly drop down into the hull of the ferry. The hull was huge. It reminded me of the ground floor of a parking garage, but with higher ceilings. Once at the bottom of the lift, the operator would then spin the plank to allow us to drive off and into out designated spots (and boy did they pack us in there). Once in our spots, we were told to engage the parking brake. The workers put chalks around each tire as well as strapped the truck down.  We had to take what we needed with us because we couldn’t access the car port while the ferry was moving.

This ferry is known as the Tustemena. It was not a new ship, built about 50 years ago, but it was still very nice. The general boarding areas had your choice of bench seats or reclining seats with plenty of leg room for tall people :) There was also a theatre area, bathrooms and showers, a bar, a small café, bunk rooms (cost extra), and plenty of viewing decks/areas throughout the three levels.

I claimed one of the bench seats. I blew up my pillow, put in my ear buds with music playing, and quickly fell asleep to the gentle rocking of the boat. 

Day 2

I woke up to an announcement overhead that we were docking at Port Lions. To my surprise, it was 8AM. I ended up sleeping better and longer than I thought I would. After exchanging passengers, we were back on the water again. We then made another quick stop at Oozinkie to exchange a few more passengers. Next stop, Kodiak around noonish.

The short ride to Kodiak was beautiful. It was a sunny, clear day. The water was like glass and there was a very slight breeze. It was a brisk morning, but it wasn’t too cold to keep me from being outside the ferry. I took a few pictures but mostly just absorbed the scenery.

As we approached the ferry dock, we were greeted by numerous seagulls, various other sea birds, families of otter, and a very large sea lion. I was impressed by the docking of the ferry. It was very smooth and seemed like it would be a difficult task to pull off.

Once the car port was open, I gathered my stuff and headed for the truck. The off boarding worked similarly to onboarding, just in reverse. I drove off the ferry and right onto the roadway. It felt weird leaving without checking out or something, but I guess that’s how it works.

My first task was topping of the gas tank. Once full, I immediately headed south. I knew exactly where I was going. One thing I didn’t plan on was how long it would take me to get there. There was a lot of road construction happening this time of year. Speed limits were reduced and there were a couple flagging/ pilot car stops that took an extremely long time. I eventually made it past all the construction and pulled into my parking area around 2PM.

Although goats were on my mind, my stomach would not leave me alone until I filled it. I made some lunch and sat down to eat it while I glassed the mountains. I quickly spotted three different groups of goats. While I was eating, I pondered what my next move should be. Goats are typically predictable animals. They don’t venture far and they have a somewhat repetitive pattern to their daily activities. They will often bed in a particular area, graze at a particular time, and move around between expected rocks or grass patches. Knowing this, I contemplated just staying at the truck for 24 hours to get familiar with their routines. The weather was supposed to be nice for the next five days, so I could afford the time to study them.

I decided that I was too anxious and I didn’t want to spend the additional time studying them when I knew they wouldn’t move too far anyway. I finished my lunch and turned my attention to packing my bag for the hunt. I gathered three days’ worth of food with the intention of returning to the truck by then if I didn’t have a goat yet. While I was packing up the rest of my hunting gear, I soon realized I forgot to pack a key item… my sleeping bag! Forgetting a sleeping bag isn’t a show stopper like forgetting the gun or the license, but it would make for a very uncomfortable hunt.

(Skip this paragraph if you’re in a hurry) Let me tell you a story about the blue fleece blanket. One day I was headed to the dump when I noticed a garbage bag on the side of the road. I thought that it must have flown out of someone’s truck, so I decided to pull over and add it to my load. Before putting it with the other garbage, I took a peek inside. To my surprise, it wasn’t’ garbage. There were two, very large, clean fleece blankets. I couldn’t throw them away now, so I kept them and put them in the back of my truck for general use purposes. Over the last year, we used them many times from furniture protection, to padding on the ground for a baby’s bassinet to lay while camping, to covering items from sight in the truck. Little did I know I would actually need to use the blue fleece blanket on a future mountain hunt.

I decided that I would sleep with all of my warm clothes on, cover myself with a blanket, and then use my emergency tarp as an outer layer. It’s a good thing I had a blanket in the truck. I grabbed the blue fleece blanket and stuffed it in my pack.

After loading up the pack, I locked and secured the truck. I then sat down to glass the goats some more, and plan my approach. At that time, a road construction worker pulled up to my truck and chatted with me for a bit. He was a super nice guy. He told me about the patterns of these particular goats around afternoon to evening time. He also shared a couple stories about successful hunters this year pursing the same group of goats. He made sure I knew there may be some day hunters up there looking for deer.

I enjoyed our conversation, but I couldn’t chat long because I had to get up the mountain before sunset. So we bid each other farewell and I took off toward the mountain. There was supposed to be a trail to the top of the nearest mountain, but I unfortunately could not find it. That meant I would have to bust brush up the mountain. And let me tell you… A steep Kodiak mountain is not a fun place to go off trail. The hike in was miserable! If there weren’t alders to push through, there was waste deep brush with thorns that hugged and pushed back my feet and hips because it was so thick. It was so thick that I couldn’t see my feet or where the ground would be for my next step. Add that to a very steep climb and this resulted in many falls and frustrated breaks… Did I mention it was hot and sunny out too?

After a couple hours of struggling diagonal up the mountain, I came across a creek. Creeks usually mean thicker brush, but luckily this creek was rocky and muddy while shaded from alder overgrowth. I was able to climb this creek a lot easier without the huge resistance of brush. It was steeper, muddier, and more slippery than my original path, but I used branches as hand holds to pull myself up and prevent me from sliding back down.

The creek eventually peaked and ran dry as I reached the top of the first mountain ridge. I stopped here to glass for a while. I took another mental note of where the goats were and what time it was in case I needed that information for the next day. I also formulated three plans for hunting the goats the next day. Plan A involved hiking to a dip along the mountain to my North where a goat was currently resting. I assumed there would be no goats on the face of the mountain facing me and I would find this goat tomorrow morning sitting just on the other side of the ridge. Plan B involved hiking toward the tallest peak in the area, which had 3 goats on it at this time. I would hike to the only area that had grass and wasn’t too steep to climb, cross the southwest ridge, and then find a route to the peak… hopefully finding a goat along the way. Plan C involved hiking a long way to a ridge line to the south, which had a dozen goat on it. I would start with the same route in Plan B, and then scurry along the ridge until I got closer to the goats, and then plan my hunt from there.

After planning for a little while, I heard brush rustling behind me. During my entire ascent, I was loud and often yelled, “coming through… here I am” but I was quiet and still for an extended period now. I called out, “Hello, I’m over here!”. I got a response of, “Hello?” Relieved, I told them I didn’t care what was behind me as long as it wasn’t a bear. We then talked for a short while, yelling back and forth, because we couldn’t see each other through the thick brush. I asked them what they were hunting for and they told me both goats and deer but they didn’t want to go after the goats in the tall mountains in front of us. Now that I think about it, I should have asked them if they took a trail to get where we were!

They continued in the opposite direction and I made my way to the end of the bowl at base of the mountain ridges. On my way, I realized that Plan A was going to be a bust. The goat I saw earlier had a kid with her. This pair was now off limits. It looks like Plan B was now my primary mission.

The elevation toward the back of the bowl eventually got high enough to get above brush line where it opened up to tundra. Although I only had a few hundred more yards to go, it was still a welcomed sight. I easily found a good camping spot soft with moss and very level. I put up the tent as the sun was setting and climbed in as soon as possible. I wanted to get out of sight in case some of the goats from Plan B decided to peak into the bowl and get surprised from my presence.

I ate my dinner, packed my bag for the next day, set my alarm, put on all of the clothes I had with me, and covered up with the fleece blanket before I went to bed.

Day 3

Sleeping (or attempted sleeping) was miserable. It was a very cold night. My watch has a thermometer in it and it was 28 degrees when I woke up. Regardless, the adrenaline of an upcoming hunt is more powerful than the strongest coffee. I downed my breakfast and was on my way.

I couldn’t go right at the goats as I originally planned due to it being too steep. I had to go to a lower pass on the ridge and then attempt to come up behind them. I didn’t think the climb to this pass would be too difficult either since it was all grass. I was quickly introduced to the difficulty of walking on wet/half frozen tundra grass. The dew from the night before really drenched the mountainside. It was tough, but it was manageable.

I eventually made it to the pass along the ridge. I had no idea what was on the other side so I dropped my pack ad camo’d up. I crept to the edge and peaked over. To my surprise, there was a goat 150 yards away! He had no idea I was there. Unfortunately, he was in a bad spot to shoot. If I shot him, he would have easily rolled down the steep hill he was on and there is no telling when the rolling would have stopped. Because of this, I couldn’t risk killing a goat that I could not retrieve, or possibly get myself in a bad situation trying to retrieve it. So I sat and watched the goat hoping he would continue his path toward me and end up in a better area for shooting.

While I was watching that goat, I was shocked to discover a second goat that walked out of the small creek valley between me and the first goat. This guy was only 100 yards away. As he rose out of the valley, he was in some perfect grass for shooting and retrieving. The only issue now was getting a good shot on the goat. The goat was facing away from me. He would take two steps away, eat some grass for about 10 seconds, and then repeat. He leisurely continued this process and path, always facing away from me, until he disappeared over the next ridge. Luck would have it that the first goat I saw also wanted to go in that same direction, so shortly after the second goat disappeared, the first goat slid behind the same ridge as well.

I didn’t know what to do at this point. I knew there were goats in this area, and possibly more than just those two. I didn’t want to pursue them and accidently bust them out of the area entirely, however, I didn’t want to be waiting all day for goats to appear in this area that I was unsure was part of their daily pattern. I was hoping one of those two goats would eventually return. I decided to wait, justifying the decision with me having a week to hunt and there was nothing pushing me to get done earlier.

After a few hours, the sun rose high enough over the mountain where it completely blinded me from viewing the area for a while. As a result, I sat hidden in the shade, watching the nanny and kid on the other side of the bowl, until the sun rose a little higher. Once it was high enough to allow me to look back over the edge, I took a peak. There was a goat! It came from the direction the two earlier goats disappeared from and it was in a great shooting location.

I steadied my rifle and took aim. Although I could see clearly with my eyes, the sun was beaming directly into the rifle scope, making the shot somewhat more difficult than I anticipated. It took two shots, both of which were followed with the unmistakable THUD of impact. The goat dropped in the brush and couldn’t move. It laid there for a little bit, and then did the death role backwards. It only rolled once before getting caught on a rock and bushes.

I gathered my items and made my way over to the goat. The first thing I noticed when I got up to it was that it was a nanny (female). Dang it… I wanted a billy (male). I know those first two goats were billies; I thought this was one of them returning from where they originally disappeared from. Oh well. She was a large and beautiful old lady!

I had to get her into a spot where I could take pictures and field dress her. Just below the rock she was hung up on was a fairly flat grassy area that would be perfect. I walked down there and put my pack and gear in the grass. I then returned to the goat to get it unstuck. I must have had a serious brain fart because for some reason I thought that as soon as she was over the rock, she would magically stop rolling once she got to the small, flat area. I forgot about a thing called momentum (apologies to my high school physics teacher). As soon as I pushed her over the rock, I realized my mistake… I should have held on to her and walked her down. Instead, she went tumbling down toward the flat area 50 yards below me. It was obvious she wasn’t going to stop rolling on the flat area. As a result, I took off after her, running down the grassy mountain. I was freaking out inside because I didn’t know what the terrain below the flat grass area looked like. Plus, the further she rolled, the further I had to pack her back up the mountain.

I caught up to her rolling. I couldn’t just jump on the goat or else I would have went rolling with it. Also, the horns are extremely sharp and if I attempted to grab anything but the horns, a flailing head/horn combo would likely result in some kind of impalement.  I quickly decided to softball slide (remember the dew and slippery glass) next to the goat and reach for the base of one of the horns. It worked, for a second. The momentum of the body still rolling with me holding the head stationary resulted in my arm getting twisted and me having to let go. This at least slowed it down. I had to stand up, run it down again, and repeat the slide/grab for the horns. This time I was able to grab a horn with each hand, and stand up to allow the body to sweep down the hill with the head facing up. I finally got the goat to stop rolling.

We were now on a slightly less steep incline and I decided to leave the goat to retrieve my gear that I left up at the first flat grassy area a couple hundred yards above us now. When I got to my gear, I heard the worst sound… the goat was rolling again. The goat actually was not on a flat enough surface to prevent rolling further, another stupid underestimation on my part. I couldn’t see the goat due to the distance between us so I just hoped for the best.

I had my fingers crossed as I approached the goat’s last rolling area. Luckily, she only rolled about 50 more feet until she stopped in some bushes. I identified another flat, grassy area immediately below the goat that she could be moved to. Only this time, I personally walked her there myself.

It was surprisingly hot and sunny, and it was only going to get worse. I had to take quick pictures and get to cutting promptly. It was a little more difficult skinning a goat than I thought. The hair was so long that after each cut, I had to untangle the hair above it to open up the area. This was also the first goat I have shot so I was getting familiar with its anatomy as well.

The goat didn’t have as much meat as I was expecting. Her long and puffy hair was misleading, as well as the large amount of fat on the body. After dressing out the goat, I loaded the pack with the meat, filled my water in a stream, and headed back up the mountain toward the ridge pass. The pack was heavy, but it didn’t include the gear and camping equipment left with the tent.

I soon returned to the tent, only falling once during the descent. It was about 3PM at this time. I had a decision to make… stay the night or head back to the truck? I liked the idea of getting the meat set out to cool and clean further, but I liked the idea more of getting back to the truck where I could avoid sleeping with a kill among brown bears. I then proceeded to pack up camp. While I was unbuckling one side of the rain fly, I heard a SNAP. I looked at the tent and saw that one of the poles broke in half, and at the same time, ripped a huge hole in the rain fly. Good thing I wasn’t planning on camping another night, the slightest weather would have resulted in the same malfunction.

Once the pack was loaded with all camping gear, it became very heavy. It was reminiscent of my recent sheep hunt in August, but slightly lighter. I then proceeded to head toward the truck. I decided to take a different route then the way I came up. The return route was definitely easier (still horrible), but easily took more than four hours to complete with very few stops. I was rushing against daylight the whole time and knew I had very little time to waste. I ended up arriving back at the truck at dusk.

As it got dark, I prepared the hide and meat for cooling. I laid out the hide on the ground and placed each piece of meat on a table I set up under the truck topper. I then stuffed myself with food before I retreated into the truck for the night. Since the meat was taking up the bed of the truck, I was forced to sleep across the back seat of the truck. I am way too tall to be doing that.

It dropped to 37 degrees overnight, a perfect temperature for chilling the meat and hide.

Day 4

I slept horribly again. Most people can’t comfortably lay across a car seat, especially a tall guy like me. But that wasn’t the main reason I slept so poorly. I couldn’t sleep because I was cramping up all night. It seemed like the slightest movement of my legs resulted in a muscle over exaggerating a contraction for a good 10 minutes. I couldn’t move because I would cramp up, but I couldn’t sleep because I was too scrunched and needed to move. It was a vicious cycle that often resulted in me sitting up and massaging my leg vigorously.

The cramps eventually went away, but I woke up with a headache. I was definitely dehydrated. I chugged a couple Powerades to help me hydrate. It was about 7AM at this time and my attention shifted solely on the meat. I was prepared for an early kill and brought all my butchering items with me. There were still too many unknowns to know exactly what to do with the meat and hide though. I didn’t know if I would have a freezer available. I didn’t know if I could get an earlier ferry trip home. I didn’t know if I would need to completely flesh and salt the goat hide. Regardless of those unknowns, the meat had to be cleaned, so that is what I did for the next four hours.

I set up shop beside a small creek under the mountains in order to be shaded from the sun. I removed all dirt, hair, blood shot areas, fat, and unneeded tissue. I separated the muscles into different bowls (steaks, roasts, and burger) and placed them in the cooler (without ice). Right when I was finishing, the sun rose over the mountain… perfect timing!

I then packed up everything into the truck and headed for town. I needed to get ice in there as soon as possible. On the drive to town, I called the ferry system. They could only get me home two days earlier than planned, leaving me with six days to worry about the hide and meat. I knew that my only option would be to freeze everything.

I stopped and grabbed some ice, and then headed for a local state park. In preparation for freezing the meat, I wanted to make sure it was packaged first. I set up a wrapping station in a shaded parking lot and packaged all steaks and roast. The burger meat needed to be grinded first, so that was just placed in large bag to be frozen until the grinding could occur. All cuts were wrapped and placed in the cooler.

I then shifted my attention to the goat hide. It still had the skull in it and it needed removed. As I was removing the skull from the hide, a California tourist stopped to take our picture. We chatted for a short while but she eventually went on her way. I was later approached by the park ranger who said I could continue to do as a please as long as I didn’t leave a mess (no problem).

Since I was going to freeze the meat, I decided I would freeze the hide as well (no need to salt). I put everything in the cooler with the intent of finding a freezer for it to live for five days. My first idea was asking the transporter that flew us in to our spring bear hunt to see if it was ok to place the cooler in their freezer. To my surprise, they were more than happy to share some space for my cooler. SCORE!!

With the goat in the freezer, I didn’t have to worry about hide or meat maintenance for the remainder of the trip. I was now free to explore the island for the rest of my time on Kodiak.

I had four days to do whatever I felt like. I used two of those days to see and explore as much of the island as I could (I won’t go into detail about my explorations, but I will add detailed captions under each picture I post below). The other two days were supposed to be rainy, so I decided I would work remotely and save my vacation days. When that time came, I didn’t really want to work… I just wanted to get back home to see Danielle and Ashton.

I started wondering if I could get on the ferry earlier, even tho it was considered full. Perhaps they had a waitlist for individuals needing on the ferry when it was full? I knew the next departure was Saturday. I showed up a couple hours before the ship was scheduled to depart, and to my luck, there actually was a waitlist. The representatives said they have never had to turn anyone away that was on the waitlist (fist pump)! I hurried to pick up my cooler, returned to the ferry, and was allowed to board :) My return trip was secured and I was homebound. Another great adventure in the books. 

We arrived in Port Lions right at sunrise.

 The town is small most of the housing lines the shoreline. 

 This is the offloading dock with sunrise.

 Our ship had two of these totally enclosed emergency boats. I think they each fit 35 people. I wouldn't want to be in the same life boat as my mom if the ship was sinking... talk about the ultimate crop dust!

 This is offloading dock of Oozinkie. It is a little smaller than Port Lions.

 Leaving Oozinkie. 

 Homes line the shore as we approach Kodiak. 

 Downtown Kodiak coming up. 

 I'm not sure what these sea lions were laying on, but it looked like some kind of floating island. 

This sea lion was snorting like a mad man right next to our ship. 

The docks... so many commercial fishing boats!

 Arrived at Kodiak.

 In the hull of the ship waiting to drive off. 

 One of the many bays on my way to the hunting area. 

 Those furthest peaks are my destination. 

 These were the Plan C goats. 

 These are the Plan B goats. 

 Crazy ridge edges. 

 Another Plan B goat (small white dot in the middle)

 Zoomed in further

 And further

 Plan A goat

 And the kid now makes Plan A off limits. 

 This is the opposite side of the bowl from where I spike camped. 

 Looking out the bowl. 

 The mountains above me from spike camp.

 This is what I saw when I first peaked over the ridge after hiking the mountain. 

 The darn sun was blinding, but this was a good, grassy area to drop a goat. 

 A view from the ridge I traversed. See that mound at the end of the peninsula shooting in the bay? I would climb that a couple days later (pictures below).

 Another view from my traversed ridge.

 I found a rock that was collecting goat hair. It looks like goats bedded down here often. 

 The goat fell in place and didn't take the feared tumble. 

 This picture is vertical. It shows the steepness of the rocky edge and grass mountain side. I would have to cross it to get to the goat. 

 

A beautiful 12 year old nanny. I'm standing in this picture... just kidding :)

This is the view goats get to enjoy. I took this panoramic from this kill site.  

 Can you see my tent in the bottom, middle of this picture?

 The damage!

 There's no way I could have stayed another night in this thing. If I was in a pinch, I did have a repair kit that I could have mended it temporarily. 

This guy was supervising my camp tear down. 

 The infamous blue fleece! 

 A look back at the bowl.

 Sunset as I rush off the mountain.

My meat cleaning station.

THIS IS THE END OF THE HUNTING PICS... The rest of the pictures are of my time exploring the island 

Monashka Bay... on my way to the end of the road north of the island.

 Harvesting wind power... such a good idea that should be implemented everywhere! Unfortunately, these didn't spin for three days straight due to the gorgeous weather. I have no doubt that these typically spin like crazy and produce a bunch of power. 

 One of the many baseball sized jelly fish that I found along White Sand Beach. 

 White Sand Beach scenery. 

 More of White Sand Beach.

 Even more White Sand Beach. 

 I picked up some shells for my mom from White Sand Beach. 

On my way to the end of the road south of the island, I cam across this herd of cattle. No big deal for Kodiak... cattle often roam.  Also... see that white truck in front of me. They had surf boards in the bed of their truck. 

 This bull was not a happy camper. He was pretty stubborn but eventually moved out of our way. 

 Not only do cattle roam the island, bison also free roam around the far south end of the island. These guys were EVERYWHERE. They too were traffic stoppers. 

 I arrived at the end of the road south of the island, which ends at Fossil Beach. This is looking East. It was low tide when I arrived. I had the entire beach to myself for the day. It was very peaceful and tranquil exploring the beach without a worry, schedule, or plan. 

It was oddly calm for being the open ocean of the Gulf of Alaska. 

 There were whales feeding everywhere in the bay. No breaches, just countless blowhole clearings.

 Seaweed corner. I avoided exploring this area because it was slick as snot!

 Let the exploring begin!

 Looking west. You can see my truck in the middle, right of the picture. 

 I'm not sure what this guy is, but there were a bunch of them under every rock that was turned over. 

 Here is an example of the gems hiding under each rock. 

 This is why the beach is called Fossil Beach. Many rocks contain ancient fossilized shells and critters. 

 I was excited to find this shell, but I was disappointed to discover that it was still alive and securely attached to the rock. 

 Amoeba? 

 Check out this giant squid I found on the beach!!! Actually, it' just a bunch of sea plants... got ya!

After leaving Fossil Beach, I made my way to Surfer Beach. It was aptly named because there were a handful of people trying their luck at catching waves. The waves weren't particularly big this day. I think large tide shifts result in the best conditions for surfing.

Most of their time was spent sitting on the boards, waiting for the waves to get big enough to ride. 

 They got a couple descent rides in. 

 More bison.

 Hello pretty lady.

 I decided to put my 4-wheel drive to the test and venture out to the Pasagshak Peninsula. This was a a very bumpy, dirt road that wound down the peninsula until it got the the base of the mountain at the end of it. The road ended over this cliff into the ocean.

 Looking toward the end of the peninsula from the end of the dirt road. 

 The water was a pretty teal color here. I think it mostly had something to do with how high on the mountain I was and the sun being out. 

 On top of the peninsula mountain looking East. The tip of the finger you see in the picture is where Fossil Beach is.

 Mountain top scenery. 

More mountain top scenery.

 This is a look up Pasagshak pass. 

 More mountain top scenery.

 And even more mountain top scenery. My truck is in the middle left of this picture but I don't think you can see it with the size of this picture. 

 The sun was really shining during the drive off the peninsula. 

 I found a surfer on the wrong beach (not Surfer Beach). He was trying to catch waves from the bay as they emptied into Pasagshak River. 

 I decided to check out the headwaters of the Pasagshak (Lake Rose Tead). There were lots of spawning salmon and this very interested bald eagle. Actually, there were eagle pretty much everywhere, but this guy let me take his picture. 

 This is Lake Rose Tead with a backdrop of the mountain. This lake was a huge spawning ground for salmon. I met some neat gentlemen here fishing for silver salmon from the float tubes. They were catching a few. They said they fish this time of year every year and this was easily the worst silver salmon fishing they have ever experienced.

I left my windows down in the truck while I was exploring the Lake. Evidently a bird got into the cab and decided to leave me a little present.  

 It was a pretty sunset. Another group of fisherman came in at this time with their single catch for the day. Believe it or not, they asked me if I had a fillet knife they could borrow. I lent them my fillet knife and gave them a hard time for not bringing one... however, we had a good laugh when I told them about me forgetting my sleeping bag!

Old's River in Kalsin Bay is famous for salmon fishing. I decided to check it out for myself one morning. It was very cold and frost was on the ground. There were a handful of fisherman, but very few fish were being caught. I spent half a day here and I didn't catch anything. I only saw one fish landed, and they were tossing roe. It wasn't because the fish weren't there, they just weren't biting. I couldn't get a picture of it, but looking in the water off the bridge you could see about a hundred, large silver salmon just hanging out. Locked jaw salmon seemed to be an issue for other fisherman for the last week or so too.

 Some die-hards closer to the mouth of the river. 

 My fishing spot for the day.

And then there was this guy. This eagle sat on a tree right above me for the entire day of fishing. I think he wanted me to catch a fish just as bad as I wanted to catch one. Maybe next time pal!

 This is a panoramic of the bay that fed Old's river. 

So the last night on the island I decided to sleep close to town. I picked a spot on a look out above the city. At about 2AM, my truck started to rock. It woke me up and to my surprise, there was banging and huffing coming from the rear of the truck. I immediately knew that a bear was trying to get into the truck. He must have smelled the blood from the goat back there. I quickly grabbed my keys and hit the remote start on my truck. As that was going off, I shined my flashlight all around the truck looking for the bear. I never saw him so I assume the truck starting scared him off. 

You would think I would have a difficult time going back to sleep... not me. There are always bears out and if I worried about bears all the time, I would never sleep while I'm hunting or exploring (plus, the bear being attracted to my truck was actually my fault, although I didn't really have a way to clean the blood until I got home). I didn't check for damage or anything until the next day.  

 The damage to to truck wasn't too bad. I was fortunate that the bear somehow slid the slightly open sliding glass window and didn't just break it to get into the back of my truck. After he he slid the window, he busted through the screen. In the process, he scratched up the side of my truck (no biggy, it's a scratch haven anyway) and dented in some of the seal areas next to the sliding glass. I think I spooked him off before he had a chance to do much damage. It's a good thing I was in the truck and not in a tent or we might have had a dead bear on our hands.

The picture of the paw print is actually on the opposite side of the damaged window. That means this bear was on his hind legs trying to get into my truck on the other side before he got in on this side. 

 I chatted with some locals about this and they were mentioning how these encounters seem more common this year. They were speculating that with the horrible silver salmon run, bears are more hungry and looking for other sources of food before winter hibernation. 

What a great way to end the trip!