First trip of the year to the cabin

[NightTrain]

Yesterday a buddy of mine and I decided to make a trip up to the cabin. The NOAA site said the water level was good to go... but it wasn't.

Still, we were there with a boat, so it was our duty to give it a whirl. The boat is a 16' with a 90 HP Yamaha, very nimble and lots of power for such a small hull. It's my buddy Lee's boat, and I'm teaching him how to run a river without beating the hell out of equipment.

This kind of an extremely low water level is ideal for showing him the ropes.

This is the launch in Talkeetna, and usually the water is halfway up the concrete slabs you can see here. The water to the right is about 2 inches deep, so we couldn't launch there.

[NightTrain]

We backed the boat up about 300 yards down the riverbank until we could get the boat floating in a deeper bit of water. The water is barely enough to get your ankles wet beside the truck there, the boat launch is up to the right in front of the truck.

[NightTrain]

Finally got her in. Next we float down to under the railroad bridge where it's deep, and get her up on step.

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Heading up the river. I was way too busy to take pics where the water was just a trickle, so this is pretty much the only area where I took a few shots.

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Still not quite spring there, even though there's lots of leaves sprouting all around my house right now.

[NightTrain]

Made it up without touching once, but I really had to make that boat dance a few times. There was a lot more ice than I anticipated. Parked in the usual spot below the cabin.

[NightTrain]

Lee and my son Tanner. I let him play hooky so he could go up with us.

[NightTrain]

I'm always nervous about bears breaking into and tearing up the cabin in the Spring before we get there, but as usual it was good to go.

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Last pic from the trip yesterday. When the water comes up another 6" - 8", I'll take the big boat up.

We ended up "rocking out" on the way down, I was talking to Lee and explaining something and missed my turn... we hit but I chopped throttle right before we did, we skipped across the gravel bar and I powered on when we reached the other side again. Sucking gravel through the Jet Unit is hellishly hard on it, so I always chop power before impact.

I screwed up my perfect record for the season!

River - 1, NT - 0

[LongTermGuy]

`....Good stuff NT ...Thanks for the pic`s...and explanations...Did you have the cabin built in that location?

[jimnyc]

Damn, I still wanna get there badly. Every time I see your cabin I just wanna hang there on the porch with a beer, walk down and do some fishing, come back and enjoy a fire at night - and some peace and quiet, and just hope that I don't get eaten by a bear, or worse, bit by a 1/4 spider that will send me into convulsions!

[LongTermGuy]

Damn, I still wanna get there badly. Every time I see your cabin I just wanna hang there on the porch with a beer, walk down and do some fishing, come back and enjoy a fire at night - and some peace and quiet, and just hope that I don't get eaten by a bear, or worse, bit by a 1/4 spider that will send me into convulsions!

`Ya know Jim...I too can definitely handle that...The bears and spiders we can handle / avoid...