Yakutat- 4 years

Mark worked in Yakutat Alaska for a few weeks in April.  He works here several times a year and spends every evening and weekend fishing on the Situk river for Steelhead.  This year for our anniversary I flew down for the weekend, along with Mark's co-worker's wife Beth, and stayed the weekend.  Grandpa and Grandma Slocombe were so wonderful to take Hunter for 2 days.

Mark fishing after work.

One of Troy's first fish. He has never fished in his life and is new to Alaska. Mark had to give him a lesson in holding a fish correctly for a picture as well as the whole art of fly fishing.  They are really hard to hold on to so I can't really blame him. 

Then the wives arrive and they had to do something other than fish all day. It was pretty rainy but we decided to get out anyways. I wanted to see all the beaches that Mark had talked about for the past 4 years.

There were huge waves at most of the beaches. A lot of people even go surfing here but that was not on the agenda.

We found tons of starfish stuck to the rocks.  They were orange,purple, and blue and really cool to look at and touch.  We also saw thousands of birds that were migrating back up through AK. 

We decided that I couldn't come to Yakutat and not go fishing. The weather had turned decent and we made a 3 hour trip to the river (2 hours included driving and hiking along and through the river and 1 hour of fishing) . I had 3 or 4 on and landed one awesome steelhead!  For one hour of fishing I think that was good.  Mark even submitted my photo and I was front and center on an Alaska fishing website that he often goes too, he was pretty proud!

This gets me excited for the summer! 

This is the Monti Bay lodge where we stayed. It is nicely renovated and comfortable.  The vans on the other hand are very stinky fishing vans but they got us around just fine.  We got to attend Easter church in the branch and about doubled the size of those in attendance. The meetings were nice and we were able to help contribute with prayers and Mark prepared and blessed the sacrament which he hasn't gotten to do in a long time.

A trip out to Cannon beach.  If it had been about 20 degrees warmer you could have been in California!

Old cannons from WWII.

And the women leave and its back to the river.  It was really fun to have a weekend away. Grandma and Grandpa were beat by the time I got home, Hunter is one busy boy! Thanks for a wonderful 4 years Mark, I love you more today than I ever imagined!

Mt. Saint Elias once the clouds finally burned off. Too bad this was after I left!