Exploring more of the area...

In 2006, I made a trip up with both of the guys to see our land and do some exploring. On the morning of the day we met with the grading contractor, we took a hike up Round Mountain. The guys had already made this hike all the way to the top of the mountain on their scratch-and-burp trip in 2004. Time restraints kept us from getting all the way to the top, but we did hike a good ways.  Here, James and I point to the trailhead sign that describes the trail as "strenuous" and warns of bears.

Jim and James on the trail:

Our property is only about 15 minutes from the ocean at Cook Inlet. The beach is not pretty at all. There is no sand, and the beach is a mud flat that can trap you and you can drown in the tide, so for safety's sake, you can only walk where there are gravel and rocks. But ocean is ocean, and we're right near it, which is still pretty cool. We walked the trail at Captain Cook State Park there, which was very pretty and wooded. Right outside the park, we saw a small black bear, but it hurried into the woods before we could get our cameras out and take its picture. Here's me and James on a high rock on the beach:

As a little bit of proof that bears really ARE roaming around all over the place in Alaska, here are two of the ones the guys saw when they were fishing. Fortunately, the bears were far more interested in fattening themselves up than they were in any of the humans nearby.

It seems there's a limit on the number of photos I can put on each entry, so I'll have to add the next couple pics separately....