A Great Day in Alaska!

[CallawayMT]

Last weekend I was in Alaska taking the Professional Land Surveyors exam to be licensed in Alaska. I took the opportunity to contact NorthWes to see if he was interested in spending some time exploring. We ended up spending about 13 1/2 hours together with him driving me all over the Kenai Peninsula. We were lucky to have a beautiful spring day and took full advantage of it.

 

I always enjoy visiting the Initial Points whenever I am within reach of them. Alaska is a difficult state to get around and the terrain and foliage makes it even tougher, but I needed to try for the Seward Meridian. We did go down to Seward and were able to find the meridian mark. It was about a 1/2 mile hike through snow and Devil's Club, but well worth the hike. You can see that adventure which I logged here: Seward Meridian

 

That was the icing on the cake, but the real enjoyment was getting to meet another person with common interests and sharing stories. Over the years I have met up with SevenThings, SixThings, BuckBrooke, SquareNail, WinterTime, KayakBird and almost Kewanah(we have conducted business together without actually meeting). I have had email conversations with many others in this forum and may meet others down the road. My kids are old enough to not worry about anymore, but it has always been a family joke that I would meet in person with people I had met over the internet even though we always taught our daughters the opposite.

 

Some of the things that I really enjoy about this forum.

Happy Hunting,

Kurt

Edited April 16, 2011 by CallawayMT

[+NorthWes]

When CallawayMT contacted me with an inquiry about looking for the Seward Meridian, my first reaction was 'no way will the snow let us get up on that hillside'. We ended up with a one in a million day for our hunt - warm sunshine, lowest snowpack in twenty years, no wind - all of which contributed to his success at walking out into the woods straight to a piece of Alaskan history. I was intrigued with the notion of finding the initial point for the Seward Meridian, from which all of southcentral Alaska's property surveys originate. I was even more interested in meeting the guy behind the 'CallawayMT' moniker! I wasn't disappointed on any score. It's always fun to show off Alaska to visitors, but Kurt's already been across more of our state than most Alaskans ever visit. Still, we were able to poke around a few spots most visitors never see, and I had more fun than I could possibly imagine. I echo Kurt's comments about how much delight we can find in actually meeting up with the folks we see and respect here in the forums. My thanks to Kurt for inviting me out to come along on a special quest, and for being so much fun along the way.

 

Here's a few photos from our day's journey. My apologies in advance to Kurt for putting a face to his online persona!

 

CallawayMT looks across Portage Lake from the berm alongside the parking area while we

wait to drive through the several-mile-long Anton Anderson Tunnel enroute to western

Prince William Sound's seaport town of Whittier.

 

CallawayMT gets a closeup photo of UW7512 INGRAM. The view is east across tidewater

to the head of Turnagain Arm, just south of Anchorage AK.

 

Arriving on site, CallawayMT stands in the center of the area bounded by four huge bearing trees.

 

One of the massive bearing trees, showing the 1911 blaze. Kind of surreal.

 

This is one of the prettiest special marks I've ever seen... after CallawayMT excavated it

from under several inches of snowmelt/groundwater ice.

 

CallawayMT at Earthquake Park, with Anchorage's high-rises reflecting the 9pm sunset

onto the waters of Knik Arm. We had a great day of conversation and sightseeing, and I

was treated to this kind of smile all day long!