The three hunters with their moose!
This weekend we went camping. The plan was for the girls to hang around the campsite and do some hiking and the guys were going to go track down a moose they had seen a couple of weeks earlier. It worked! I have to say, us girls were quite shocked when the guys came back at 6:00am and said they had killed a moose. Not that we didn't think that our men were excellent hunters...its just that they left around 4:00pm on Sunday evening and it got dark around 9:00...so they only had a few hours to hunt. But, they found that moose! Brian, Devin and Matt. They had spotted him two weeks earlier when they had gone hunting at this same spot. But it had been just before dark that they spotted him, so they knew that they wouldn't have time to get to him before it was too dark, plus he was ACROSS the river from them. So, they borrowed a boat from a friend and made plans to go back this weekend. They left the campsite at about 4:00pm. I went to bed around midnight, thinking that they must have just gotten too far into the woods before dark and thinking that they would show up any minute. I then awoke to the sound of 3 very excited men at 6:00am. They had apparently shot him (Matt being the shooter! It was his first animal to ever shoot!! a single shot to the neck dropped the moose to the ground instantly) around 7:00pm the night before and spent all night skinning him and bagging him. They were about a two hour hike from their boat, so they left the meat on the mountainside with plans to sleep a little and return with extra help to get the meat. So, we called a good friend in anchorage, Josh, and had him come and bring some big packs to carry the meat out. I decided that I would go with the guys to get the meat just because I had never really done anything like that. I was planning on maybe helping carry some of the meat if I needed too...however, I was not planning to carry about 67 pounds of meat in my pack on the steep 1 hour hike back to the boat!! But I did and it was a blast! There were six of us. Each guy was carrying about 80-100 pounds of moose meat and Matt was carrying the moose rack and cape. Once we got back to the river we loaded it (and all of us) into the raft and floated about two miles along the river back to our waiting car. Talk about an Alaskan adventure! It was so much fun. Moose meat is excellent eating. So we are going to have lots of moose to eat all winter and I can't wait!
Brian and Matt with the moose.
Devin and Matt with the moose just after killing it.
Me and Matt on the hike out with all the moose meat.
The guys all taking a break from the hike.
Floating the river with the moose.
Matt and the moose rack.
Me on the river. I had to take a picture of myself since I had the camera and all the guys were paddling :)
On top of the hunt we also camped all weekend. Matt and I along with Courtney and Eli camped from Friday to Monday with other families coming and going throughout the weekend. Camerron, the Sloan family, Ryan (and Jen and Hailey briefly), the Rafeedie's, the Cook's and the other Cook's. It rained a lot of the weekend. So we had our tarps all set up so we could sit by the fire and drink hot chocolate and play cards while it rained. We played a lot of spades and some shanghai. Some people don't like rain on camping trips...but I love it! One of my favorite things to do is sit under the tarp and listen to the rain. We had a great weekend with some wonderful friends. God has blessed us so richly with out friends here!
This was our campsite.
Courtney and Eli hanging out around the campfire.
Jen and Hailey were sick. But they came to hang out with us for a little while anyway! So glad they came out.
Amanda, Cadence and Avery on our little walk down to the river.
Devin, Sarah and Cadence cooking breakfast burritos.
Matt and I down by the river...you can't really see how gorgeous it was...but trust me...it was.
Here is the view we were trying to get in the pic.
Me and Matt after hiking up to get the moose and floating the river down.
