This
Month's Newsletter
Holiday
Discount
Christmas is just around the corner. If your still
stuck for gift ideas, how about an Alaska trek? Give
your loved one a gift that will provide memories for
a lifetime. In keeping with the season we are offering
a 10% price reduction on any treks booked before Jan.
1 on groups of 3 or more.
We often get folks wanting to do
trips in September to enjoy the fall colors and avoid
crowds. But in the Wrangells it can get a bit dicey
flying into the backcountry by mid September due to
the early arrival of snow in the region.
So we're adding this all new Kesugi
Ridge trek into the Denali Country in mid September.
Kesugi Ridge is "across the street" from Denali National
Park and boasts the best views of Denali to be found
anywhere. This is a six day trek that includes some
extras not found in our other treks - such as an
overnight stay in Talkeetna and a flightseeing tour
around Denali! Check out the trip
details on our site.
This trek will be offered only
once in the 2006 season so sign up early as it will
fill up quickly.
Last month we introduced our new
Explorer Series with the Martin
Creek exploratory trek and got a very strong response.
That trip will also be offered only once during the
season so again, get your space reserved early if you're
interested.
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This is rugged country in Wrangell-St.
Elias and we really put our gear through the paces.
One item that sure takes a pounding is our trekking
poles. I consider myself lucky to get a pair to last
an entire season. So durability is a consideration
but not the only one by any means.
I'm always trying out new poles
in my search for the perfect solution. In 2005 I tried
out a new offering by Black Diamond: their Contour
trekking poles.
I used a similar pair of poles
from Black Diamond several years ago. Like the Contours
they also employed the Flick-Lock mechanism. This mechanism
worked great on the top pole connection, but the lock
on the lower, thinner pole sections always seemed to
slip and adjusting the lock in the field required a
tool of some sort. So I gave up using them.
Black Diamond must have been reading
their mail because they have now improved on the Flick-Lock
implementation. With the Contour, and related Switchback
model, the Flick-Lock has been replaced on the lower
connection. The bottom sections now extend then just
snap into place and are not adjustable. The top sections
still use a Flick-Lock which works great on the thicker
pole sections. It's much quicker and easier to adjust
these poles than the traditional twist-to-tighten style,
especially when it's cold and wet. There is plenty
of range to adjust pole length and you don't need two
adjustable connectors.
The snap lock can however be a
bit difficult to unsnap, especially when you have gloves
on, but this is not a huge problem.
A bigger issue with the poles is
that the pole tips are much too long. It won't be much
of a factor for trail hiking, but when you get on to
softer ground like Alaskan tundra the pole tips sink
in several inches to the basket. That's a bit more
grip than is needed or desired and has even resulted
in broken tips.
So with a few caveats I recommend
these poles. If Black Diamond would just shorten the
tips they would be perfect.
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Ice fishing at Triangle Lake
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Ice
Fishing, Etc.
I hope you all are having a better
winter than we are getting so far in the Anchorage
area. Nice dumps of snow are followed a week later
by temps in the forties and all the ski trails turn
to mess of mush. Then it refreezes and turns to ice.
Looks like another up and down year for us in Anchorage.
I can see bare ground in the back yard.
On this recent ice fishing trip to Triangle Lake the
snow had all melted off and the ice was covered by
about an inch of water. No matter the fishing was still
great. We had to put on crampons to walk around on
the wet ice. It was such a warm afternoon that we didn't
even wear gloves most of the time. The fish were biting
nicely and we caught our limit of nice raibow trout
in less than 90 minutes. They weren't real big but
they were certainly tasty. Gary almost lost a rod when
a fish pulled an unattended rod through the hole in
the ice. Fortunatey the fish threw the line or that
rod would have been a goner.
Well that's it for this edition.
See you next month.
And Happy Holiday to you!
Greg Fensterman
info@trekalaska.com -
www.TrekAlaska.com
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