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Post by SSO JOAT on Jul 9, 2014 12:02:51 GMT -9
Keeping options in mind. We have time to put this together, but time is flying by and we are already on the downhill slope of 2014 with the days getting shorter.
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Post by NorthWes on Jul 17, 2014 10:07:51 GMT -9
Yup - and are we trying to tie this to the last Girdwood CITO in any way?
Recap what dates you have available, Scott - at last glance I saw Sept 11-12?
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Post by SSO JOAT on Jul 17, 2014 17:09:06 GMT -9
I was kinda thinking along the lines of doing a highway CITO coupling, since Sept is the best month for wrapping up the last highway event. Still wide open to ideas.
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Post by barnacle9 on Jul 18, 2014 12:28:40 GMT -9
I wish I had a definite schedule. In a normal year, on the weekend of September 13-14 I would be just wrapping up my season, with the responsibility of winterizing the boat before I could go anywhere. This year, there is a very good chance that I will be done earlier than that, and even if I haven't completely finished putting the boat away, I could probably sneak away. The key word of course is probably. Still, it seems like that may be an ideal weekend for planning this series - I just hope I can participate!
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Post by NorthWes on Jul 23, 2014 12:05:09 GMT -9
No worries - we're still in the conversation phase.
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Post by TheFirefly on Jul 25, 2014 14:19:00 GMT -9
What are folks thoughts on locations? Homer to Girdwood? Girdwood to Homer? Skip Homer, stop in Kenai? Stick around Girdwood? Seward to/from Girdwood? Somewhere else?
Last year's Russian River campout was the first weekend in October. Were the gates open longer last year, or was that location on a different closing time?
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Post by SSO JOAT on Jul 30, 2014 18:15:24 GMT -9
The gates start closing about when the snow shows up. They have the parks open from just before Memorial Day to a little after Labor Day, though the end point is subject to the whim of the park ranger in charge of the area. I doubt there will be campgrounds (or at least very many of them) still open by the 2nd weekend of October.
I haven't been feeling a lot of HOBO excitement this year, so I'm wide open to suggestions. My calendar is full of things to do, so finding the right weekend is the hard part. The locations aren't too hard to work out when we know who is going to be the most involved. I think that something running from Homer to Seward would be a good run for a full weekend.
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Post by NorthWes on Jul 31, 2014 14:06:50 GMT -9
Good series of parks from Homer to Seward too. I know what you mean about weekend calendars...
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Post by barnacle9 on Aug 14, 2014 19:26:55 GMT -9
It is now almost certain I would be able to participate in mid-September, and conversely less likely mid-October would work for me. Just curious what other people are thinking . . .
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Post by NorthWes on Aug 15, 2014 15:56:44 GMT -9
It seems as if we'd get more involvement in September...
Alex McClain (USFS maintenance mgr) is excited we're interested in doing this again - he brought it up during a visit to our shop here today.
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Post by TheFirefly on Aug 19, 2014 5:17:38 GMT -9
September is okay with me, probably later in the month rather than earlier. I have interest...but have just not had/taken the time to focus on this.
I had someone recently suggest to me that August in Alaska should be renamed "Panic". You panic because you know summer's ending and you haven't gotten done all the adventures you wanted to during the long days. You don't have veggies harvested yet, much less canned/frozen/dried. You haven't put up enough fish yet. Berries haven't been picked yet, and again haven't been canned/jammed/frozen. School's starting, and everything that comes with that. The lawn needs mowing before the snow flies, the shed needs to be cleaned enough to get the lawnmower in and the snowblower out. And that's just the basic stuff! I can definitely see her point. August has been a bit overwhelming this year!
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Post by SSO JOAT on Aug 24, 2014 20:50:10 GMT -9
How does the weekend of September 13-14 sound for people? It is the only potential weekend I will have available in September.
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Post by TheFirefly on Aug 26, 2014 13:45:41 GMT -9
Sept 13-14 looks good for us!
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Post by barnacle9 on Aug 26, 2014 23:11:07 GMT -9
I can commit to that Scott - just got word my season ends around the 5th. Let's HOBO!
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Post by SSO JOAT on Aug 27, 2014 4:41:36 GMT -9
Awesome. Let's do it. I'd like to aim for Russian River Campground for Saturday night Sept 13. Now we just need a Saturday pickup route to layout ahead of that and then a Sunday route to end with. I'd like to tie in a leg over to Seward this time around. For those coming in from further away, we could probably organize a camping site for Friday night and even Sunday night to encapsule the whole weekend. That could be a 3-night base camp out of Russian River, or it could be true HOBO form and be a moving campout along the way. After watching Seth put together his Cabela's tent, maybe a base camp would be more convenient. I'm going to be tied up in Soldotna until after 7pm Friday, but if we are basecamping at Russian, I can come up after that with an 8:30-9pm arrival time. We'd want to start any Saturday activities a little later in the morning anyway to allow travel time for attendees coming in from Anchorage and such. So, with a big weekend plan, it could look something like this: Friday night camping social event 9pm Saturday morning breakfast social event 9am (optional, and it may need to be eliminated if GLR thinks it looks like "event stacking", which TPTB are cracking down on) Saturday CITO route - perhaps a repeat of the run up the Seward highway between Turnagain Pass and the Y. Saturday evening camping social event 6pm Sunday morning breakfast social (again, optional and with weigh in from GLR) Sunday CITO route - Run Seward highway all the way to Seward Sunday evening - closing event... dinner event in Seward? another camping event back at Russian River? We'll need to work rough details out quickly as these events will need to be pushed to publish by this Friday. I've already contacted our FS guy about the basic idea and he's all for it. So, I don't see much of a problem in getting something pulled together that runs entirely on the Chugach NF. If we are going to branch out to other things, such as within Seward, contacts will need to be worked out quickly.
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Post by TheFirefly on Aug 27, 2014 5:40:54 GMT -9
Yahoo!!
I like the idea of a Friday night camp as well as a Saturday night camp.
I don't think we really need an evening social plus a breakfast social. Maybe one Friday night, and one Sunday morning?
I don't know that we'd camp again on Sunday night...I'd love to, but if the Mr is along, he may need to be back at work early Monday.
I love the Russian River campground, but having just camped there this last weekend, I can vouch that the place is clean, just like we found it last year. Especially if we're focusing on the Seward Highway for CITOing, is there a good campground a bit closer to or on the Seward Highway? A base camp is nice for the kids, but adding an hour of driving each way from the base camp to the days events gets a bit long. (Our tent is a quick up/down, so HOBOing and moving the campsite is doable.) :-)
I like the idea of beginning or ending in Seward.
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Post by barnacle9 on Aug 27, 2014 8:58:55 GMT -9
I am up for base camp or multiple camps - gotta get some practice setting up my fancy tent :-) I'm excited about doing this again - hopefully we will see a good turnout in spite of the late notice!
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Post by SSO JOAT on Aug 27, 2014 10:27:11 GMT -9
Cooper Landing is in the middle, and we can choose from the following:
Cresent Creek (9 sites) on Quartz Creek Road at Cresent Creek Quartz Creek (45 sites) on Quartz Creek Road at Kenai Lake Russian River (83 sites) on Sterling Highway at Kenai & Russian Rivers
Between Turnagain Pass and Cooper Landing we have the following:
Bertha Creek (12 sites) at Seward Hwy MP 65 Granite Creek (19 sites) at Seward Hwy MP 63 Tenderfoot (35 sites) at Seward Hwy MP 46
Between Cooper Landing and Seward we have the following:
Trail River (91 sites) at Seward Hwy MP 24 Ptarmigan (16 sites) at Seward Hwy MP 23 Primrose (8 sites) at Seward Hwy MP 17
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Post by akgh519 on Aug 27, 2014 16:31:26 GMT -9
I would choose tenderfoot and trail river...midway between the two areas suggested to pick up. Beautiful newer campgrounds...and water...I like being near or on the water...
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Post by SSO JOAT on Aug 28, 2014 7:11:30 GMT -9
Sounds like a good plan to me. They are the bigger campgrounds, so there should be plenty of open space this time of year. I'll have to contact our FS guy to verify our ability to bypass the camping fee ahead of the Sept 15 end of reservation season. Given that we are cleaning up their stuff, it shouldn't be a problem.
So, to summarize the current plan that is developing...
Friday night, meet at Tenderfoot Campground for a fire-side social event. I'm going to suggest we start that at 8:30pm to allow folks who work on Friday enough time to get there.
Saturday morning, we can informally hang out around camp if we don't want to do a social event. Then we can all pack up camp and prepare for the CITO run. I'm thinking we do similar to last year by meeting at the T-Pass pullouts and organizing a leap-frog system. To give campers a relaxing morning to break camp and also allow non-campers time to drive in, I think we start this CITO at about Noon. We can make the leap frog run from T-Pass all the way to Tern Lake at the Y. I'm figuring about 4 hours total for this CITO, which will cover about 30 miles of highway.
Saturday evening, we can go to Trail River campground and have a campfire social event starting about 6pm. That should allow plenty of time for travel and camp setup.
Sunday morning can again remain informal with plenty of time for breakfast and breaking camp. Then we can run another leap-frog CITO by returning to Tern Lake and working our way down to Seward. Again starting at Noon and figuring another 4-hour block of time to tackle the last 38 miles of highway.
Total of 4 events if we do it this way and they are each distinct enough to not worry about "event stacking" issues.
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Post by SSO JOAT on Aug 28, 2014 11:44:04 GMT -9
Given the late hour (a Friday 9/12 event must be pushed to publish by tomorrow), I'm going to take the above 4 event plans and push cache listings for them. It is still possible to alter the listings and even completely change their locations after they publish if we have to. But it will be important to get basic listings published right away. So, I'll be catching up on some newsletter items today and then pushing forth with these 4 event listings.
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Post by barnacle9 on Aug 28, 2014 13:35:50 GMT -9
Bought my ferry tickets, so I am several hundred dollars worth of committed on this one :-)
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Post by SSO JOAT on Aug 29, 2014 19:09:25 GMT -9
Four Events Pushed to Publish... September 12 @ 8:30 PM coord.info/GC5BY8D Tenderfoot Camping Social Event September 13 @ 12:00 PM coord.info/GC5BY9Y Turnagain Pass Leap Frog CITO September 13 @ 6:30 PM coord.info/GC5BYAA Trail River Camping Social Event September 14 @ 12:00 PM coord.info/GC5BYAT Seward Highway Leap Frog CITO Our reviewer is traveling, so it could be a little delay before they are published.
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Post by barnacle9 on Aug 29, 2014 19:26:46 GMT -9
Good job Scott! Thanks for putting this all together - I know it is a lot of work - looking forward to that weekend!
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Post by TheFirefly on Aug 30, 2014 19:42:31 GMT -9
Awesome!! Two new-to-us campgrounds, a chance to hang out with fun cachers, barnacle9's smoked salmon, and even get on over to Seward before the Parks offices close to let the kiddos finish up their Junior Ranger packets.
Seth - I saw your note about possibly getting to the Tenderfoot campground early. If it is possible to get the campsites figured out early, we'd appreciate it (and can even try to be there early to help facilitate as well.) The girls are usually well asleep by 8:30pm. :-) They often are up later when we're camping, but having our tent, etc set up sooner rather than later would be nice.
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Post by SSO JOAT on Aug 30, 2014 20:28:26 GMT -9
There is a chance that my prior commitment for Friday has gone away. If confirmed, then I'll be up there way early as well (as I'd like to paddle around Summit Lake for awhile and maybe wet a line).
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Post by barnacle9 on Aug 31, 2014 16:58:06 GMT -9
Hmmm - might have to think about bringing my kayak - good idea Scott :-) Cathy - I expect I'll be there well before 5, so I can have my tent set up by 830 - hopefully things will be wide open for us
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Post by SSO JOAT on Aug 31, 2014 21:40:59 GMT -9
You think you can get that thing set up in only 3-1/2 hours?
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Post by barnacle9 on Sept 4, 2014 11:41:02 GMT -9
Looking at plans for a night in Seward, Hotel Seward will still be on summer rates, meaning the cheapest room with bath is going to run about $140 after tax. Not sure if they have any deals for Alaska residents. On the bright side, the campground will still be open, and hopefully won't be incredibly crowded. If the weather is nice, I will probably plan on staying there (very nice tent only section near the water). However, in lousy weather after two nights of camping I might opt to spend the money for the room or go cheaper with a Euro-style room (few amenities, bath down the hall). At any rate, I do plan to stay the night in Seward, then another night elsewhere before heading back to the ferry on Tuesday. Should be fun!
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Post by TheFirefly on Sept 15, 2014 19:35:28 GMT -9
What a fun weekend! And productive, too....some great CITO accomplished. Thanks to all the planners and participants! :-D
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