I help lead a boy scout group. Last December we got together to decide our high adventure activity. We made a list of ideas. I was really hoping that the young men would choose kayaking out of Whittier, Alaska. But one of the leaders proposed kayaking on Lake Louise. He described beaches, coves and beautiful weather. Before I knew it, the young men reached a consensus and decided on the Lake Louise kayak trip.

I have to admit I was skeptical. But I was proven wrong. This last week (June 28^th through July 2) we completed the trip. Yes, there were beaches. Yes, there were coves. No, the weather wasn’t great (the weather in Alaska is always a gamble). So here’s how the trip went down.

Kayaks and a Chase Boat

The people. We had four young men ages 14 to 17 and four adult leaders. The kayaks. We had three two-person kayaks and one one-person kayak. And a chase boat. We had one chase boat to carry the gear and to scoop up anyone that capsized their kayaks (we didn’t have anyone capsize a kayak, but trained for it at Goose Lake before the trip). We could have done canoes; but I recommend doing kayaks. I think they’re much more stable and fun. The spray skirts keep out the water and rain; plus the kayaks cut through the waves just fine. I also recommend having a chase boat. The boat can help with navigation, and relieve much of the load on a kayak. A little side note—the chase boat was able to follow us around for five days on a little over seven gallons of gas.

The Lakes and the Weather

You’ll see on the map that the trip actually involves a series of three lakes. The first is Lake Louise, the second is Susitna Lake and the third is Tyone Lake. We did all three lakes. Lake Louise is the largest of the three. We didn’t spend much time on it and went straight from the boat launch to our first camp just to the east of the channel to Susitna Lake. We launched at about 1pm and hit some windy weather and had to make our way through some waves. We then worked our way through the channel and spent most of our time around the middle island in Susitna Lake. Lake Susitna has a lot of little coves to explore and the water was much better.

But watch out for shallow water. Our chase boat hit a few low places and banged up the prop. We also went from one end of Lake Tyone to the other. We didn’t do much exploring on Lake Tyone because we mostly focused on getting our miles in. It’s worth seeing though.

As for the weather, we didn’t get a lucky break. The weather blows over the lakes which meant pockets of sunshine, lots of cloud cover, and a daily shower. It rained for half of one day during the longest portion of our kayaking trip. The spray skirts and good rain gear kept us dry. We were hoping to get a few of those hot interior summer days, but didn’t get lucky.

The Camp Sights and Fishing

Yes, there are beaches in interior Alaska. I didn’t know what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised. We camped at two spots and stayed at a cabin. We called the first spot camp sushi, the second spot camp wasabi, and the third spot camp sashimi—all in honor of our leader who served a mission in Japan and loves Japanese food. The beaches are wide enough to set up a tent. They aren’t Hawaii beaches, but good enough to enjoy. If the weather is nice, you can swim in the lakes. I took a bath in one of the lakes and the water was cold. I imagine it’s much better on sunny days. We didn’t have any problems with crowds.

We spent most of our time kayaking, eating, and sleeping. We did a little fishing and caught some grayling and whitefish. The chase boat did some trolling, but didn’t catch any lake trout. We looked for some streams along the west shore of Lake Susitna, but didn’t find any.

Fifty Miles and Navigation

Here’s how the trip went down (the average speed includes our stops along the way, so we were probably going closer to 4mph to 6mph. You can see on the map our actual course according to our gps.

Tuesday: Miles: 5.6; avg Speed: 3mph

Wednesday: Miles: 9.7; avg Speed: 3mph

Thursday: Miles: 17.1; avg Speed: 3mph

Friday: Miles: 11.7; avg Speed: 3mph

Saturday: Miles: 8.9; avg Speed: 4mph

The Verdict

Overall it was a great trip. It’s definitely a workout, but a lot of fun. It’s also probably a lot safer than kayaking in the ocean or a glacial lake. I highly recommend it as a high adventure for a group of young men older than 14 years old.

So how did you do with your picks. Probably not too well. Don’t feel too bad. Over 5.9 million people filled out their brackets on ESPN.com. How many picked the final four correctly? Two. Yep, that’s right only two people. NPR says:

If the 5.9 million entries in the ESPN.com challenge chose their Final Four teams entirely at random and then just filled in each team’s path to that point however they wanted, around 70 people would have picked this group of teams.

I find it interesting how much time we spend trying to predict what’s going to happen. Just think about how much time is spent in the media discussing how things are going to turn out. Nobody knows. Not even the experts. Yet there I am reading the articles. It’s fun, but a waste of time.

The question I have is why do we listen to all the so called “experts” make forecasts about the market, oil and gas prices, politics, etc. It’s all just talk.

Jason Fried on Design

The whole photo montage of the Christchurch earthquake.

Driscoll Middle School played a big trick in a football game. One that has been viewed over 12 million times on YouTube. It only takes 27 seconds to watch.

This looks pretty innocent. My first thought when I watched it was “heh, heh good one.” But my favorite sports writer, Frank Deford, doesn’t think so (Middle School Trick is No Laughing Matter). Come to find out that the adult coach planned this all out and took part in the trick. Frank says,

… it was only the other team’s kids who were embarrassed and belittled by a children’s coach being a wise guy, a bully of sorts. It wasn’t genius at all. Sure, it was legal, but it wasn’t fair. Laugh at kids being outslicked by a grown-up, and you’re cruel. That isn’t sport.

So there was more to the story. There always is. And it isn’t nice. I guess i need to be more careful when I see something that looks like genius..

Since that time I’ve had the urge a number of times to write a blog. But I always struggled with whether I would write in my professional capacity as an attorney or would write more personally. I have a lot of thoughts about the practice of law and the legal industry to share. But I don’t really want to mix my professional life and my personal life.

So, I’ve settle on just writing about my personal interests. I’ll write about my experiences in Alaska, my interest in WordPress, my attempts at design, running, cross country skiing, and the likes.

I’m determined to keep this going. I introduced my wife to blogging about five years ago and she has faithfully and regularly posted to her blog Scribbit since that time. So I’ll try to be more like her.

This is one of those rare companies who have found their story and know how to build their company around it. They do a much better job at telling their story then I do, so I suggest you make a visit to their about page to see how it’s done.

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