Pecos Wilderness 2010

My Dad, brother and I have talked for years about doing a wilderness pack trip but we've never gotten around to doing it. This year we finally did it. We spent 6 days in the Pecos wilderness in the Mora Flats area northeast of Iron Gate.

Below is the beautiful valley we camped in. We camped on the Rio Valdez just above the junction where it and the Rio Mora join up.

This trip was a great time of getting together with old friends and family and enjoying being away from all the noise of daily life. The wilderness was so peaceful and quiet.

My dad and brother were there. Also friends Jim, Mac, Darren and Jared.

Mac packed a little on the heavy side. He had all the weight of his pack on his shoulders so the first 1/2 mile about killed him. After that he got his waist strap adjusted and had a much easier time. He hauled his guitar a total of 8 miles! It was fun to have it around the campfire but it got heavy.
Here's Jared getting his pack situated.
Here's Jake adjusting his new Osprey pack. It was really sweet.
Jake and Mac ready to hit the trail.
I left Honolulu on an overnight flight Friday and finally got to Albuquerque 11am the next day. We did a few things in Albuquerque, stopped by Darren's new house and made it to the trail head around 515. I'd gained about 9500ft of elevation and only got about an hour of sleep on the plane. I was still stoked and ready to go though.





Here was our first glimpse of Mora Flats on the way in. The trail skirts the east side of hamilton mesa for a long ways as it drops into Mora flats. The views are amazing.

Here's Jared taking it all in.
Jake catching some pictures.

Four miles from the trailhead we reached camp. Dad and Jim had come in the day before. They set up a temporary camp and found a campspot they liked better. They waited for us to get there before moving camp. We wound up getting in later than expected so we all slept under the tarp and put off moving camp til the next morning.
Here's "Colorado" and "Stitches", the gray in the background.
Colorado again.
Jake, Jared, Dad and Jim waiting for a big ol' pot of cowboy coffee to boil.

Our temporary tent worked fine. We had a rainless night so that made it even better. The ground was sloped a little so we kept sliding feet first downhill during the night.

It had been really wet during the weeks before we got there so it was almost impossible to find dry wood. We had alot of smokey fires.

Stitches and Colorado
The early morning that first day reminded me how much I'd missed the Rockies. This is the meadow looking south.

This is the meadow looking North.

We cooked up a big ol camp fire breakfast of sausage, bacon, eggs, tortillas and of course lots of cowboy coffee.
Right out there in the meadow is "Julia", Jim's 36 year old mule. That's right, 36! She did as well as anybody on the trail and carried her weight.


We moved up the canyon a little ways to the north and set up the wall tent. Then we all relaxed for a while.



Up the canyon to the north was beautiful. The canyon started to kindof box up the further north you went.
Jake and I took a hike up the canyon the first afternoon and took lots of pictures.


The recent rains and summer sunshine had sure made everything come to life and bloom.

During the middle of the week we got to see a helicopter rescue. A group from a church in Lubbock came in and camped a 1/2 mile south of us. They had several men sponsors and about 15 boys ages 10 and 11. They brought in the gear to do a zip line for the boys. They had some kind of accident on the zip line and one of the boys got hurt. One helicopter flew over mid afternoon but couldn't land because of elevation and temperature. Then a rescue team of about 8 or 10 people came in on foot and took care of the boy. They decided he needed a helicopter instead of being carried out so they radioed another chopper. It flew in and landed in the meadow between our camps. They were quick. That chopper wasn't on the ground more than 5 min and they were off to the hospital. Never seen anything like that before in the wilderness!


The aspens were beautiful as always.








The horses had all the grass they could eat.



We ate alot ourselves. We made big breakfasts everyday and a big supper. We snack for lunch while we were out hiking and fishing.

Boy was the fishing good! We caught about 25 fish. Lots of 6 and 8 inch trout and an occasional 10 or 12 inch.
Not big fish, but they sure hit hard and fight good...and they eat good too! We cooked up a bunch of trout on night for supper in the fire.

Jared came in on Saturday and had to head out to go back to work on Monday afternoon. Darren came in on Monday afternoon and hiked back out on Wednesday. Jake, Mac and I loaded some of our stuff and hiked out with Darren so we'd have less to carry when we packed out the next day. We went into Glorietta to visit some friends who were at student week for a couple hours then hiked back in.
Finally on Thursday morning, after a great week, it was time to load up the horses and pack out. It was hard to leave after such a great week!

Here's Colorado loaded and ready to go.

We had a great camp spot. The wall tent was great too.

On the trail headed out.



A quick break to take a breather and adjust tack. The breast collars for two of the horses got left at home by accident so when we'd start uphill the saddles would try to slide back off the horses' withers a little and then start twisting to one side or the other. We won't forget the breast collars next time.



We saw quite a few blue grouse on the trail during the week.
We also found some wild raspberries to eat. Boy were they good.



Here are some mountain roses all budded out.

We were thrilled to be able to put our packs on the horses on the way out. Here's mac the traveling musician with his "rainproof" guitar.
Back at the trailer.


Jim loading up Julia. She's quite a faithful friend. We didn't have to hobble or tie her or anything at camp. She would never get more than a couple hundred yards from camp.
Julia, Stitches and Colorado ready to head home.
I took these beautiful pictures on the way out.

Solo Backpacking trip 07/30/10

Last Friday I went on a quick overnight solo trip up the Waimano Trail. I took my stuff to work in the trunk and hit the trail right when I got off.


The trail is almost entirely through the forest. It was thick and narrow at times and at other times it was wide and easy going. The trail follows an old hand dug canal that was built to direct rainwater down out of the mountains to the flats to water sugarcane fields.

Trail was dry and the skies were clear on the way in.


Lots of cool plants. I saw a big mongoose too. I came around a bend in the trail and he bolted off into the bushes.

I camped in this beautiful grassy saddle. It's fairly narrow and drops off a pretty steep edge into the valley.



This picnic shelter was built by a local boyscout chapter. The materials must have been brought in by helicopter because the trail was way to difficult to have carried them in even on horses. The poles were too heavy to carry anyway.
There was a backdrop to my campspot of huge trees! They were really cool but when the wind would get up they would make some creepy noises as they rubbed together and moved in the wind. Once in a while one would sound like a dog bark. Another would sound like a woman moaning or faintly screaming. Talk about spooky! Not really the way I like to be woken up out in the woods by myself at midnight. ha ha. Even if I'd been scared enough to go home I wouldn't have because the trail goes back through those trees. ha ha
I had a good time. Spent some great time with God, reading the bible and praying. It was refreshing.
I did miss my hiking buddy...my wife Regina. She is on the mainland this week visiting family.

"Big Bird and some green heads"

My friend Josh brought down three sandhill crane in the Rio Grande valley this January. If you've never hunted crane before, they are about like shooting down a 737 and be sure they're dead before you walk over to them...they put up a heck of a fight and are notorious for flogging people. Way to go Josh. Congrats!
These mallards and mallard/mexican duck crosses are also from the Rio Grande valley.

Rio Grand Duck Hunt - Jan 09

On closing weekend of the '08-'09 duck season, my friends Jared, Abe and I went out for one last hunt on the Rio Grande. We'd been talking for a long time about float hunting the river in a small boat. Jared has a little boat so we decided we should just go for it.

Jared and I drove up river and floated down while Abe sat in some brush on an island down river with his dog spike.

We built a blind on the front of the boat to break up our outline. Worked decent, but it needed to be taller. The other problem we ran into was shallow water. His boat didn't draft much water at all but it would still run aground pretty often. It definitely made the trip longer and more labor intensive. We floated several miles. I bet we pushed the boat at least a mile of that. This ruined a few shooting opportunities because we had to get out and push several times when we were almost close enough to shoot. The ducks would spot our movement and flush out of range.

Later in the day, near dark, we went to a spot and stalk method like we normally use. We spotted a couple ducks down river so Jared got out and walked up shore. He took my single shot 10ga. He snuck up on the ducks and they flushed perfectly. He dropped a nice hen mallard. That was the last time that shotgun was fired before I oiled it up and packed in away during our time in Hawaii. Might be a few years before its fired again. I'm glad it retired on a good note. Good shot Jared!

Here's the view from our boat. It was a beautiful day and we had a blast. Any day outdoors is a good day.

Dalhart Pheasant Hunt - Dec 07

In 2007 my dad and I got an invitation to hunt Pheasant in Dalhart TX. The panhandle of Texas offers some of the best pheasant hunting in the country. Admittedly it's probably not as rich as South Dakota, but if everyone in your group limits out every day they hunt...what's the difference? The first morning we hunted the farmer took us to an old silage pit that had grown up with weeds. Earlier that year, during corn harvest, he'd pulled alongside the pit with the combine and dumped a little corn in it. We got out of the truck and while we were loading our guns about 25 pheasant flushed out of it! One guy managed to fire one shot and missed. We all stood there with dumb looks of disappointment. That was more birds than we'd flushed in years of hunting pheasant combined! Not only did these guys not seem to be phased by all these birds flying away untouched, it became clear that they had no intention of going after them out in the corn stubble. Just said, "we'll find plenty more. No need to wear ourselves out trying to walk through that stubble." We'd never been afforded such a luxery! In eastern NM if you flush anything you better go after it, no matter where it lands, because that might be the only pheasant you see all weekend.

We hunted two days and limited out by noon each day. We killed 27 roosters in all.

We hunted corners of mostly corn fields and a few wheat fields.

It was a once in a lifetime hunt for us. We're used to hunting all weekend in hopes of bringing home two or three birds in Eastern NM. Sometimes you hunt all weekend and come home with none! It was a real privaledge.

Sea Monster!!!

Working around the docks here at Kewalo Basin in Honolulu has some exciting things that come along with it. I get to meet lots of people from all over the world and see the most amazing fish that the sport fishing boats bring in each day. Here's the most amazing I've seen. This blue marlin was brought in by the Maggie Joe this afternoon. It weighed in at 795 lbs!!! It was roughly 12 feet long. I've never seen anything like it in my whole life. For size reference, compare it to the Ford super duty pickup below. Amazing!







The customer fought this thing for an hour and a half to get it to the boat. The crew worked another half hour to man handle it up into the boat.

I think this thing qualifies for "sea monster" status...it's way beyond just a fish.

Lots of people, including myself, posed for a picture only wishing we'd been the one's sitting in the fighting chair reeling this monster in.

Shortest Career Ever!

I'm currently waiting on some federal engineering job applications to bear some fruit. In the meantime I'm beating the bushes trying to find a temporary job. I thought it would be awesome to get a job as a deck hand on a sport fishing boat.

Last week I went down to the docks and met a skipper and his deck hand and talked fishing with them. He didn't have a job to offer but I talked him into taking me out for the day so I could try it out and learn the ropes of salt water fishing in the open ocean.

I met these guys at the docks on Sunday morning at 5:30am. and we headed out to sea by 6am. The customers of the day were 6 navy guys who'd come in on an aircraft carrier a few days earlier. Everyone on the boat was an experienced sailor...except for me, the farmboy misfit. ha ha.

Here's a cool view of Waikiki and Diamond Head. Diamond Head is the volcanic crater sticking up on the right.

As we started pulling out of the bay, Lane the deck hand, started showing me how to set eveything up. Their set-up included 6 poles: 3 on outriggers trailing 150' behind the boat and three more trailing 50' behind. Everything was fished top-water.

Check out this hook! I measured my hand for reference: my palm is just shy of 4" across. That's a huge hook!

Here's one of the reels. Roughly 6" round and 6" wide. Wound with 120# test line!

Okay, back to the story. Within an hour of leaving the dock I got really sea sick. Basically I puuked my guts out over the side of the boat for 7 hours and felt horrible for two more hours. The only time I felt decent was the hour we were in calm water heading away from the island and the hour we were in calm water coming back to the island.

All this to say, the decision is simple: as much as I love to fish, I don't care if I ever feel that miserable again in my life. Guess I'll find a construction job. ha ha. The navy guys assured me if I'd go two or three more times I'd overcome sea sickness. Said guys do it all the time on their navy ships when they're new. Honestly, I don't love fishing enough to get that sick two or three more times!

We did catch fish!! Here's about a 30lb. Mahi Mahi, also called a Dolphin fish. Brings about the highest price on the market here for eating. Picture doesn't do this one justice. They're beautiful when you first catch them. Their sides are neon green and yellow. We threw this one in ice after we got it in the boat and the ice did funny things to the color.

We also caught two barracuda that measured 24" plus. They had a wicked mouthful of razor sharp teeth. We hooked a Blue Marlin too. Deck hand said he should've weigh between 100 and 200lbs. As soon as one of the guys got into the chair and started fighting it, it came off. Of course the biggest one got away. It was awesome though while it was on the line.

We also saw dolphins, flying fish and a huge sting ray like the one that killed steve irwin the crocodile hunter. This thing was like four feet wide and about 5' from the tip of his nose to the tip of his stinger. He was haning out under the boat in the docks.