July 20th:
no miles: Dall Sheep!
(Joseph) After a very comfortable night sleep on a soft couch, Rob and I dropped off Deb for work at the hospital and headed out to the Turnagain Arm, a shallow inlet south of Anchorage. I’ve been told that this far north the tides are much more extreme and fast than they are in the south. But it wasn’t until today that I could really see what people were talking about. The waters seemed to flow more like a river than an inlet. You could see the water in the inlet just rushing into the bay very rapidly. Within a half hour, what was water right up to the edge of the road was now vast mud flats.
It
was around here at a place called Baluga Point where Rob and I noticed
people gathering and starring up at the hillside. Among the tan colored
cliffs were white animals, sticking out like clam shell on a dark sandy
beach. It was easy to see that there were sheep up there. Yet we were
not satisfied with how far away they were and wanted to get much closer.
I remember nudging Rob amoung the crowds and quietly asking him, “Do
you think its ok to walk up there and get up there on top of those cliffs?”
He was thinking the same thing so we began scouting around for a route
to get up on top.
There were no signs saying, “Do not Climb” or “No Trespassing,” but there was a single railroad tie leading to what lead to an animal path. So I thought to myself, “Well, if someone is going to go to the effort to help one get to this animal path, then I guess we should go check it out.”
The trail turned out to be pretty easy to walk on and within a few minutes we were way up above the crouds up above the cliffs. We spent the next hour or two tracking and stalking the Dall Sheep and sometimes getting a bit closer than we were comfortable with. To check out more CLICK ON THE VIDEO LINKS.
