Weekend activities

Pike's Peak from Northwest.


Burned area from 2002 forest fire.





Couple of nice rainbows.

Copa Mundial

I won't bore you with my analysis of World Cup 2010 except to say GO USA!!

I love soccer for a lot of reasons but while kicking the ball around with Mason the other day I realized that soccer is really awesome because you can eat while playing it.

Life has come full circle

At around age 14 or 15 I remember spending a good half day thinking about how to use all the tools in the garage to make a knife. I spent the second half of the day doing something else and life went on. Nearly two decades later I have learned to appreciate a nice knife and finally got around to making one of my own. I can cross it off my bucket list.

For my first knife I was swinging for the fences but I think I pulled it off. I'm really happy with how it turned out. Now that I know I can pull off the big one I've got some smaller ones ready to go.

3/16" 1095 carbon steel
~17" overall length
heat treated to 57 RC
White denim Mycarta w/ red liners
Brass pins and lanyard tube.
Hand finished blade and handle to 400 grit.

Since I'm hours from good fishing......

I'm still trying to make knives.

My humble shop. Yeah, it's a mess. I started cleaning it out and didn't finish.





My knives. The top two are back from heat treat. The top one is 3/16" 1095 carbon steel @ 57 RC and the second is 1/8" 1095 @ 60 RC. I cleaned them up a little and put a quick edge on them to see how they cut/chop. I'm pretty happy with them. I need to get them handled.

The bottom four are new ones I ground while waiting for the first two to come back. They are all around 4" blades from 1/8" O1 carbon steel. The third one down is a Kephart style blade, the fourth just a nice drop point, the fifth a spear point and the last I made to be more of a skinner. I need to do a little more sanding and the O1 blades will be ready for heat treat also.


At this point I plan on making the handles with homemade ivory denim or linen micarta with red liners and either brass or nickel silver pins and lanyard tubes. I made these slabs for the big chopper out a pair of white denim jeans I got at a thrift store. I'm making some more for the other knives out of my old church shirts.

SHOT Show

I fulfilled the birthday wish I've had for the last five years or so. I got to attend SHOT Show; the Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Tradeshow in Las Vegas. It's the biggest tradeshow of the year for anything dealing with cool outdoor stuff. In my case it's ground zero for Big D's Trifecta: guns, knives and flashlights. It was awesome. I was in shock and awe. I carried my camera around for 5 hours and had so much fun handling all the new products that I didn't take a single picture. Not one.

Coolest souvenir of the day? GLOCK playing cards!

Best Meal? In-n-Out!

Best Knife of the day? RAT Junglas Machete!

Best gun of the day? Rifle Dynamics MAC-11 SBR w/ Bulgarian side folder or Arsenal Krink.....but how do you pick from so many? LWRC REPR....or M6A2...and on and on...

Best Flashlight of the day? Surefire UB3T or M3LT. INSANE.

I'm also tryind my hand at knifemaking. I've got a couple ready to send out for heat treat.


I'm going to try handling them with homemade denim micarta.

Holiday Pondering

God created the Earth and on the 7th day he rested, but on the 8th day He made guacamole: and it was so, and He saw that it was good.

The 9th day was flyfishing. Just sayin'.

There's a first time for everything

I channeled my inner Chevy Chase.





Incidentally, we started a new family tradition called "Christmas Hammer". Can you find it?

The Swedes aren't so bad after all.

Who knew?

And all this time I just thought they made good fish.

Adventure Flyfishing

I love flyfishing and I really love flyfishing in solitude. Places I love to fish tend to involve long or strenuous hikes in order to get away from people. I've been to a few of these places lately and was blessed for the effort. First is my flyfishing eden, revealed to me by a trusted friend and revealed by me to only one other person so far. That is all I can say. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

The hike down.

Fishing along the clifff walls.

Pretty Cutthroat.

Another nice cutthroat.

Yet another.

The catch of the day. Beautiful fish. Congrats Nate.

Happy Fisherman.

I've been in Colorado at my new job now for a few weeks nursing a broken heart over leaving Montana. But when life gives you lemons you make lemonade for the hike into your new fishing spot. I had a few priorities for my first month here. I needed to find a place to fish. Finding a place to live could wait. My research paid off and the first spot I tried is pretty good. This river is full of monster Rainbows and Browns. Sorry about the poor quality cell phone pictures.

Thickest fish I've ever caught. Took 5 minutes to land it.

Same fish as above. Heavy.

Pretty bow.

Another fatty.

Preparedness

I am preparing my Primary lesson.

I just programmed Adam-Ondi-Ahman in my GPS.

The address is

Adam and Holders of Keys through all Dispensations
c/o Adam-Ondi-Ahman
23500 Koala Road
Jameson, Missouri 64647

for anyone who is interested.

Sacajawea Peak - Lots of Pictures

Now that we're leaving Bozeman I'm trying to do the last few things I've wanted to do but haven't had a chance. I wanted to hike Sacajawea, the tallest peak in the Bridger Range. I can check it off my list now. I took a lot of pictures.

Here's the view of the West side of the Bridgers from my driveway looking roughly North. Black arrow is Hardscrabble peak. Green is the saddle you hike up. Red is Sacajawea. Blue is Naya Nuki.

This is the view of the East side of the Bridgers from the the road you drive in on. Naya Nuki on left. Sac in the middle. Hardscrabble on the right.

View from the bottom of the cirque looking (West) up to the saddle. Yep, still a little snow.

Another view of the saddle.

This is the north ridgeline/face of Sacajawea. The peak isn't visible here yet.

View looking back down the cirque (East). My camera couldn't handle the bright morning sun so the picture is kind of dark.

Looking South toward Bozeman from the saddle.


Looking North toward Hardscrabble from the saddle. I originally planned to hike Hardscrabble also while I was there and then come down past Frazier Lake on the North side but I didn't have the time. Download Google Earth and check out Fairy Lake and Frazier Lake at the base of these peaks. Very cool. I also was looking forward to seeing the Mountain goats that hang out up here. I didn't see any on Sacajawea and I didn't spot any looking over to Hardscrabble. In looking at the pictures when I got back I think I might have caught a couple in this picture. Probably my imagination and wishful thinking. Can you see them? Click to enlarge the picture.

Looking North past Hardscrabble from the ridgeline to the peak of Sacajawea. Frazier Lake is in the cirque below the green ridgeline.

Looking rougly North again toward Hardscrabble from Sac ridgeline. I think I got a goat over on Hardscrabble in this picture also. For a size reference look at the trail going down the saddle. If you look close there are two people with two dogs halfway up.


Sacajawea Peak looking South to Bozeman. The wind was raging up there. Pretty cold too. I signed the logbook and took some pictures and video. I spent a few minutes out of the wind on the warm rocks and headed back down.


Sacajawea Peak looking Southeast to Naya Nuki.

Sacajawea Peak looking East.

Headed back down to saddle. Taken to prove I was really there. No pictures from Google.

While I have no love for "P-Diddy" or Mr. Kutcher it appears we do share a common trait. From this point on let no one attempt to make fun of my geeky flashlight hobby without considering who they are indicting along with me. It may still be geeky but it is no longer uncool.

Mr. Kutcher is a little behind the times with the Surefire E2d Defender. I would recommend he upgrade to the E2dl. Mr. Diddy is a little more current with the Novatac 120 in Desert Tan. He still loses though cause I'm rollin' the original HDS Systems EDC Basic 42 XRGT. Who's the OG now, Diddy?

Fun

Bead Head Hare's Ear Nymph: 89 Cents
Benchmade Griptilian: $65
Anesthetic: $2
Scalpel: $5
3.5x Loupes: $900
High Speed drill: $600

Spending a very successful evening fly fishing on the Gallatin River: Priceless.

Saturday's Hike

View from the top.



View looking down.


The RATs!