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mooseoutfront

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Everything posted by mooseoutfront

  1. Lightning is the major cause. Pure stupidity is the other. People truly are morons...especially the tourists. For some reason their brains go full aggy when they get up here.
  2. Absolutely no prior experience. She was reading in the paper about the firefighter shortage expected this year. Then she heard basically the same story on NPR and decided to sign up and take the classes online. She passed her pack test (carrying 45 pounds of gear 3 miles in 45 minutes) and got her red card as they call it. This qualified her to start training. She wanted to go the aviation route. Not many women in that line of work so she basically got a job immediately. She wants to be on the line fighting a fire on the ground at least once just to see what it is like, but the aviation thing came along so quickly that she couldn't pass that opportunity up.
  3. Appreciated Had a buddy that lost just about everything last night. He and his wife live about 12 miles out off the road. They are old school. Can't get to their place in a vehicle, you have to either atv or snowmachine out. He traps during the winter and then they get their PFDs. That's all the money they have coming in. Since the woods are scorched there will be nothing to trap out his way for years. I really don't know what they are going to do to live.
  4. I don't know what info you were reading, but the Denali Borough had record snowfall this year. Like 3 to 4 times what we normally get. It surprised me how quickly things dried up though. I thought we'd be slogging to our cabin through the mud into July. I've seen the mud last way longer with way less snowfall. The prevailing theory is that we had so much snow on the ground that when the really cold temps hit (30 to 60 below) it insulated the ground and the ground didn't freeze hard like it usually does in winter so the ground was able to absorb the extra water quicker. Makes sense to me. We've also had very little rain so far this summer, couple that with the warm temps (it's been in the 70's and 80's in my neck of the woods with one day reading 92) plus all the lightning storms we've been experiencing it was only a matter of time before something close got set off.
  5. Clear fire is up to 23000 acres. It’s mainly pushing South now, which is good for me. Bad for the folks that live that way though. Lots of homestead cabins out that way. On a side note, my wife got her red card this year to be an emergency wild land firefighter. She got a job in Fairbanks in the aviation section. She’s filling the planes that are fighting the Clear fire with retardant. It’s kinda personal to her now. Her goal is to get on a helicopter crew to do bucket drops before the end of season.
  6. Mostly freight, but the summer season has a lot of folks traveling by rail. They have glass top cars so people have unobstructed views. I’ve never done the trip, but I hear it is awesome
  7. Thanks for the well wishes. Part of living in the woods we basically go through every summer. Summer is my least favorite season because of the fires, bugs, road construction, constant daylight, and tourists.
  8. Fucking fires man. The smoke is ungodly right now. If anyone is interested, here are a couple of links to see how many fires are burning: https://blm-egis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=32ec4f34fb234ce58df6b1222a207ef1 http://smoke.alaska.edu/current_fires.html The Clear Fire (Fire 346) is about 8 miles from our cabin. We had ash dropping out of the sky yesterday. Air quality is for shit.
  9. The Nenana
  10. Fire season is in full effect. Smoke is rolling in.
  11. Got lucky this weekend and stumbled upon a garage sale where a guy was moving from Alaska to Wyoming. Because of Canada's assault weapon ban you can't transport .223/5.56 through Canada to the US. He was selling his stash cheap. $5 for a box of 20. I scored 400 rounds for $100. He limited buyers to 20 boxes in order to spread the wealth. He must have had close to 5000 rounds on the table to sell.
  12. The flip side of this conversation: Wife: What time do you want dinner? Me: Whenever you want is fine with me. Wife: Why can't you ever help me and just make a decision? Me: Fuck me, Walter.
  13. FYI on the Honda EU2200i: They run like shit in temps below 20 above zero unless you get the cold weather conversion kit. I had an old Honda 2000 and that thing ran like a champ at any temp. The new 2200's are over engineered. The carbon monoxide detector is overly sensitive and will shut the generator down unless it is very well ventilated. Like in the open ventilated, not even under an overhang or up close to a side wall unless there is a good breeze.
  14. Hit 80 degrees this weekend. That’s hot for us. Magnum had to find some shade.
  15. Finally caught some sunshine Mud season is here. Water is rising
  16. There is no hardwood up here. We have spruce and aspen and birch, all of which produce acrid smoke which is not palatable. People use alder to smoke fish, but alders are basically just bushes. No big chunks that you can go low and slow with for a long smoke on a brisket. People have electric smokers and they use smoking chips or pellets that can be bought, but chips are expensive as shit. Plus I don't have electricity. I'd have to run the generator for at least 14 to 16 hours to smoke a brisket and I'm not doing that.
  17. I wonder if he did anything to provoke the attack? The wife and I were in Fairbanks this weekend enjoying the hotel rates before they skyrocket for the tourists. Lots of military transitioning in and out of Alaska right now and there were a ton of newbies at our hotel. A big group were getting their instructions in the lobby when we checked in. The two notable things I heard them told were that the weed shops were off limits and to not interact with the wildlife. People really need to be told to not interact with dangerous wild animals?
  18. Magnum is enjoying the spring temps.
  19. It’s the never ending winter. Woke up this morning to 6 inches of fresh snow.
  20. They don’t put bourbon in it or nothing?
  21. We’ll check it out. Thanks for the tip Brat.
  22. I’m going to Las Vegas for work in a couple of weeks. My wife is tagging along. It’s going to be her blackjack money. But to answer your question, 2 cases of LaBatt
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