Hope, AK

We headed out camping again this week... this time to Hope, AK. It really could be a half hour drive but it's across the Cook Inlet so you have to drive ALL THE WAY around the water to get there, but still only an 1 1/2 drive. Hope is an old mining town that up until the 1964 earthquake that rocked Alaska, it was pretty thriving. Unfortunately it got swept away so now only 147 people reside in Hope. We have had many people tell us they love Hope, and it's a great place to bear hunt. Jeff got us 3 bear tags so I was pretty optimistic we would come home with at least one. Meg, Terrance and little Channing joined us for the first day we were there and then Jeff and I enjoyed our first campout alone, it was soooo relaxing.


The dogs face was too small to fit any human sized head it (except Channing), so Jeff had to turn sideways!!!







Jeff and I were kinda bummed Meg and Terr brought their tent and didn't wanna join us in the trailer but they sure loved their new tent and really enjoyed having there own space, especially with little Channing. After we set up camp, we walked around, started a fire and started our first Dutch oven meal, Cowboy Stew. It was pretty darn good, then of course we enjoyed our smores... and then it started raining so we enjoyed the rest of the evening in the trailer playing games.




The dogs get so excited when we go new places, they sniff and sniff and run around like crazy. They then start rolling around and act all psycho and Jeff and i get the biggest kick out of it.



Jeff doused the fire with gasoline so here he is trying to throw lit newspaper... needless to say every time he threw the paper the flame went out before it hit the wood... haha, way to entertaining to watch.



The dogs were just watching us enjoying the campfire from the trailer... it was starting to sprinkle and they are a mess when it rains... cute puppies!




The Next morning we woke up, had pancakes, bacon and eggs(Jeff really misses his mom's camping meals, so I tried to cook like his mom, but she truly is the best :).The weather was phenominal today so we decided to walk around Downtown Hope, which was all seen in about an hour!!! It was funny, all the signs for the stores and museum said, "Open most days from 12-4 pm", way too funny. Jeff, Terr, and Meg even got a tour of the historical mining museum, I on the other hand "had" to stay outside with the dogs (i'm not big into museums) We then walked back to camp, took a nap then helped Meg and Terr pack up to head home. We were so glad they came, even if it was just for one night. This is just the first of many campouts together.
The Hope social hall... let this just tell ya how happening this town is :)





Hope historical mining museum
This old guy was soooo excited to take everyone through the museum, you can tell this is his life.

This old geezer was Terr's dream come true. We had seen his pic the night before and Terr said if we go gold panning he better be there, and guess who was there the next day! Too bad it wasn't really gold panning or we would've partaken in the fun!!!


Jeff and I then took off to Bear Hunt... we drove for about 4 hours, glassing the hills and Mountain side and saw nothing (not even Moose, wolf, eagles...nothing). Jeff had got on a blog prior to us going to Hope to get a feel of how many bears are there. Some guy just 3 days before us said he ran into 2 bears just riding his bike on this trail we were on. We knew they had to be somewhere, cuz there was Bear Scat EVERYWERE!!! But it was mid day, pushin 70 degrees, so we decided to head to camp, eat dinner and then head back out that night.

Some ugly thick hunting country


If only I could read their mind.... "Bear hunting is long and boring" If only they new how fun it was to stare into binos for 4 hours


Unfortunately we had no luck our first day out. We were driving back down the mountain, Jeff looking for firewood along the way and me in a daze from being so tired straining my eyes all day... when low and behold a black bear was running down the trail 60 yards in front of us. Sadly we had to stop for Jeff to get his gun and hop in the back of the truck while I drove. We lost it around one for the bends and tried to look for it but the brush was too thick and it was getting dark. So the one and only bear we saw we didn't even get a chance to shoot. But have all summer to go again. Here was the view coming down off the mountain at 1100 pm.

Here we are back at camp waiting for our dinner to finish on the grill. We loved this time together, and loved watching the sun set... Hope isn't very entertaining but it sure is full of beauty all around.