Day 2 on the Copper River - Beautiful Weather

Wednesday, August 22nd –We slept well, using the rather luxurious mattress pads provided by Copper Oar. OK, one leaked (Fred’s) but this was easily dealt with by blowing it back up when we woke up in the middle of the night.
We began our mornings by packing sleeping bags, pads, and personal gear into our designated dry bags, then wandered out to join Dale and Allison in the kitchen. .

Coffee was ready at 7am, followed by breakfast at 7:30. Most days Dale and Allison would fix a cooked breakfast of eggs and bacon, or omelets, or a breakfast burrito…. with biscuits or cinnamon rolls magically appearing from Dale’s Dutch oven. A couple of days, when we needed to get on the water quicker, we would have granola with assorted toppings. We always had some sort of melon or fruit to go along with breakfast.
After breakfast, we would busy ourselves with taking down our tent and carrying our bags to the staging area, where the guides would  then pack the rafts. The packing was something that the guides did not want any help with. They were responsible for making sure that everything was in its place, and ‘help’ would just slow them down.
While the guides worked, we were told to busy ourselves with finding  ‘wish rocks’….ones with a band of lighter colored rock running all the way around it. These rocks would be cast into the river with  wish for good weather.

It must have worked….today was an absolutely gorgeous day! I took lots of pictures….not knowing if the next day would be miserable and rainy.

Fred and I rode in Allison’s boat. Each day we would swap up who we rode with and who rode along with us, so that we took turns getting to know each other.

As we would progress downriver, we would see more and more snow on the mountaintops.

The snow fields build up each year with more snow falling than can melt over the summer, forming glaciers. The glaciers in this area are too numerous to be named.

We stopped along the river for a short hike up to this waterfall. A good chance to stretch our legs….and beautiful!

We passed these two swans swimming along. Until this trip, I don’t think that I had ever seen swans in the wild.

We had lunch along the way, stopping at a beach where Dale and Allison would then pull out all the ‘fixens’ for sandwiches, with chips and cookies and cold drinks to go along.

We stopped by early afternoon, and set up camp in this meadow. We were warned that this area had been known to have some bear activity, though we did not see any bears, nor any real evidence of them. We always give a shout out to the bears….”Hey bear” whenever we would go looking for a ‘bush’, we just paid more attention in this campsite.

The weather had been so clear, that we did not even bother to put up the tarp over the kitchen. Tonight, Kate helped with the cooking, using her recipe for lemon baked salmon.

Using charcoal briquettes and his old Dutch oven, Dale turned out amazingly moist and rich brownies. He really is a master of the art of Dutch oven cooking! I paid attention….trying to learn a few things. I think that I will have to practice this when I get home.   : )

The moon rose in the sky, as we enjoyed our second evening on the banks of the Copper River.