Fall Photos from Nome, Safety, Solomon.

7.62 Precision · Post by **7.62 Precision** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 4:15 pm

I thought about you guys, and thought you might like to see some of the places I have been this fall. I posted some photos from Tununak earlier; these are from the areas around Nome.

http://762precision.wordpress.com/7-62-precision-blog/

Sandhill Cranes Heading South

Sunset over the Bering Sea

When Man Tangles with Nature

Blueberry Cobbler?

Dredge Skeleton in a Dry Creek

Mining Claim Cabin

The Bonanza River Ferry

An Old Dredge

Dredge Controls

The Council City & Solomon River Railroad

Phantom Smoke in the Fading Light

Nath · Post by **Nath** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 4:29 pm

Stunning

thank you.

N.

Sixgun · Post by **Sixgun** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 4:42 pm

Photos like that could only come from Alaska. Very nice.

Being from the east coast makes me think it will only be a matter of time before some entrepreneurs figure out a way to get that old steam locomotive down this way and put it in a museum.

What's the mystery?.....my first look at those dredge controls made me think they were old Trapdoor Springfields that someone left behind.

-----6

BrentD · Post by **BrentD** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 4:46 pm

Sixgun wrote:What's the mystery?.....my first look at those dredge controls made me think they were old Trapdoor Springfields that someone left behind. -----6

you weren't the only one. I had to look three times before I realized they weren't rifles.

model55 · Post by **model55** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 5:17 pm

Great talent with the camera but leave the cobbler alone looks like it came out of the south end of something.Great pics.

OldWin · Post by **OldWin** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 5:43 pm

Awesome pics 7.62.

That is one of my favorite things, to see old relics left behind like that. Don't know why but I'm facinated by it.
My son sends me pics of that stuff up there. He was on Shemya island and its covered with old military equipment and derelict boats. Good stuff!

Lots of old relics in the woods here from the logging days. Steam locomotives in the middle of the woods, donkey engines, Lombard tractors, even a crashed B52.

2ndovc · Post by **2ndovc** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 6:21 pm

That's some COOL stuff!!

Great photos, thanks!!

jb

octagon · Post by **octagon** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 6:58 pm

Beautiful. A pile of those cranes are headed to my place in Texas, and season opens Nov - Jan. You have to have a special permit, and the Boy and I will try for some this year. He can, by the way do a dead on crane call that will make you duck your head and look up. My Cuzbro says they are ribeye in the sky. I have rarely seen em get in range, but I know where they are feeding close to where we hay the cows by the cow tank. I have some mean shells ready on the off chance we see em, I did see a crane Mojo, but have not bought one yet.

I have a plan to ease up to Alaska for a few years when the kids all go to college, I am working the wife on this plan...

ollogger · Post by **ollogger** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 7:39 pm

That was very nice!! Thank you!!

ollogger

BrentD · Post by **BrentD** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 7:41 pm

Whenever I see photos like those, I try to imagine what the place would have looked and sounded like when those relics weren't relics but in the midst of their being used. Sometimes, as with these, that is very hard to do.

Brent

BigSky56 · Post by **BigSky56** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 7:57 pm

the mystery is wheres the railroad that brought the engines and flat cars, are they narrow gauge or regular. danny

Griff · Post by **Griff** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 8:11 pm

Gr8 pics!

RIHMFIRE · Post by **RIHMFIRE** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 8:16 pm

excellent photos....
wonder how much gold went though that equipment.....

yooper2 · Post by **yooper2** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 8:23 pm

This link has a couple photos of a dredge in operation and the dredge now.
http://www.coppercountryexplorer.com/20 ... orch-lake/

It's touching shore and you can climb out into it. There are stairways going down into the water that are pretty cool as well as all of the equipment, lots of graffiti from college kids too.

Eric

wm · Post by wm » Thu Oct 30, 2014 8:32 pm

yooper2 wrote:This link has a couple photos of a dredge in operation and the dredge now.
http://www.coppercountryexplorer.com/20 ... orch-lake/

It's touching shore and you can climb out into it. There are stairways going down into the water that are pretty cool as well as all of the equipment, lots of graffiti from college kids too.

Eric

Hey Ive been there........very cool place to hike and explore

Wm

Old No7 · Post by **Old No7** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 8:48 pm

I KNOW what the mystery is gang..........
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Why aren't we all living up in Alaska too?!?!?

Stunning photos -- thanks!

Old No7

Malamute · Post by **Malamute** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 9:10 pm

BigSky56 wrote:the mystery is wheres the railroad that brought the engines and flat cars, are they narrow gauge or regular. danny

You made me curious. Found this Danny,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_Ci ... r_Railroad

Udy · Post by **Udy** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 9:28 pm

Very Beautiful photographs, as are all you post. You have a talent behind the lens for sure.

AJMD429 · Post by **AJMD429** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 9:54 pm

Man, if Obongo-care makes me go belly-up with this 'doctor' gig, I think I'll change my name to evade my creditors and move to Alaska...

Pretty awesome scenery.

1894c · Post by **1894c** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 11:54 pm

thanks for sharing...I really appreciate it... :)

7.62 Precision · Post by **7.62 Precision** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 2:25 am

Now for the mystery location. This place has great significance. Can any of you figure it out?

Make a guess, post it here, http://762precision.wordpress.com/mystery-location/ and if you are the first to get it right, we will do something cool for you.

EDIT: Moved the mystery location to its own topic: http://www.levergunscommunity.com/viewt ... 99#p701199

So who can guess the significance?

7.62 Precision · Post by **7.62 Precision** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 2:34 am

octagon wrote:Beautiful. A pile of those cranes are headed to my place in Texas, and season opens Nov - Jan. You have to have a special permit, and the Boy and I will try for some this year.

I have a plan to ease up to Alaska for a few years when the kids all go to college, I am working the wife on this plan...

You should see them there - they are all you hear all day long, thousands of them belting it out as loud as they can from horizon to horizon. There is no way to capture it with a camera - the sky is full in every direction, and they are stacked up at different altitudes. You watch the clods on the horizon to guess the weather still you realize the clouds are actually cranes.

As you make those plans, talk to me, I can gee you some ideas, but be careful; some people never leave . . .

7.62 Precision · Post by **7.62 Precision** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 4:04 am

BigSky56 wrote:the mystery is wheres the railroad that brought the engines and flat cars, are they narrow gauge or regular. danny

It was the first regular gauge railroad in Alaska. Alaska has some really cool and wild railroad history, and even today, there is some pretty cool stuff. The Alaska railroad is the last regular gauge railroad on which both freight and passenger trains use the same track. It also has the longest tunnel that is used by both trains and cars driving on the track.

I have always loved railroads. When I was three, I lived in a tent in Skagway. We lived on a hill and just behind the tent was a cut for the White Pass Yukon railroad. I used to sit on the edge of the cut above the railway everyday and wait for the train to pass under me. The engineers would lean out the window, wave up at me, and sound the whistle.

Also when I was three, I traveled out of Alaska to visit relatives back east. The first half of the trip was on railways. It must have been right at the end of any of those railways carrying passengers. We were several days on trains and then flew the rest of the way. I first tried a soft drink on the train (a 7-up) and since I did not have one again until I was seven, it was something that always seemed like a big deal to me.

The first dolly garden I caught was off of a railroad bridge, leaning against the rusty wheel of a flatcar.

Since then, I have worked several jobs directly with the Alaska railroad, blasting alongside of existing tracks, blasting for new rail beds, etc. I blasted granite in Curry for the railroad for ballast. Curry is now a ghost town, but was once the most popular destination in Alaska. It was a booming resort town at the midpoint of the Alaska Railroad, and even President Harding visited (it has been speculated that his death was triggered by a bad case of food poisoning contracted at the Curry Hotel). You can visit Curry by hopping on the Hurricane Train, which is the last whistle-stop train in the US.

We imploded the Moody tunnel, which was the last of the original tunnels still in use from when the railroad was built. I made the Discovery Channel on that one - my three seconds of fame. That was a fun job, but a sad one, too, to obliterate such history. Where the tunnel was, there is now a through-cut.

7.62 Precision · Post by **7.62 Precision** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 4:24 am

Oh, I also brought along leverguns, of course.

Mine Tailings

Blueberries and blued steel

An old mining claim

My rifle at . . . well, you'll have to figure it out!

And this one, too.

Gobblerforge · Post by **Gobblerforge** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 6:09 am

I long for rusty iron. It breaks the heart to see all the waist. Was it your families claim?
Gobbler

FWiedner · Post by **FWiedner** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 6:25 am

That's kinda awesome.

TedH · Post by **TedH** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 7:50 am

Wow, what an amazing place to spend some time. Thanks for sharing.

BigSky56 · Post by **BigSky56** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 8:45 am

Malamute thanks good google-fu
7.62 I have a railroad, its obliterated now, that goes thru my place for the logging and gold mines the in the area they used a shay engine thats in the process of being restored at the local museum. there are a number of goldmines and a couple still working in the area. most are serviced with 2477 roads, 2477= they predate the USFS, that they cant shut down one goes along my place to a wilderness trailhead where families mined till the late 50's in 2 hardrock mines and one crick bed that they had coffer dammed and a flume to carry the water around the workings I found down in the brush a 32 ford sedan jacked up and they were using the rear wheel with a belt as a donkey engine. danny

w30wcf · Post by **w30wcf** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 8:58 am

Awesome pics!

Thank you for sharing.

Not relevant to your travels but in looking at your pics I thought of this song by Jim Reeves...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgAvHo6vpe4

w30wcf

BrentD · Post by **BrentD** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 9:03 am

Gobblerforge wrote:I long for rusty iron. It breaks the heart to see all the waist. Was it your families claim?
Gobbler

I don't see waste, I see history. Without that rusty iron, the past would be totally forgotten.

Sixgun · Post by **Sixgun** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 12:02 pm

I know, its where Soapy Smith and his gang holed up.

-------6

7.62 Precision · Post by **7.62 Precision** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 12:43 pm

BrentD wrote:
Gobblerforge wrote:I long for rusty iron. It breaks the heart to see all the waist. Was it your families claim?
Gobbler
I don't see waste, I see history. Without that rusty iron, the past would be totally forgotten.

Not my family's claim, though I wish it were, Gobbler.

I wish there was a way to preserve some of this stuff, other than photos. Every year there is more pieces missing, more wood fallen off the dredges, more chance that some kid will build a fire in one and burn it down. This time the entire starboard wall of that dredge had fallen off into the pond. The last time I was in it the wall was intact.

I would love for my children to see this stuff with their children and grandchildren, but I know it will be gone by then.

Brent, the waste that I see with the collapsed building in the photos is that no one could find a way to protect it. It collapsed maybe 15 years ago (I never saw it standing) but still had some structure, and you could see it above the willows. You could still see the structure of it. Just recently, someone has removed most of the roof tin, and used some equipment to push some of the structure off the foundation. A lot of the wood is stacked up off the side. I suppose that either someone is trying to clean it up, or someone is trying to take it apart and dig under the floor for artifacts or gold. Everyone always has stories of hidden gold . . .
It is sad to see this kind of history deliberately destroyed.

7.62 Precision · Post by **7.62 Precision** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 12:45 pm

Sixgun wrote:I know, its where Soapy Smith and his gang holed up. -------6

Soapy Smith didn't make it that far west, as far as I know. He hung out it Skagway.

BrentD · Post by **BrentD** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 12:49 pm

7.62, time marches on. Preserving that stuff in perpetuity would be impossible, so your photos and others will have to do. centuries from now, the archaeologists may unearth some of it with their patient paint brushes and dental picks - or 25th century tools of some sort we can't imagine.

What will be left of our generation? Lots. But will anyone find it romantically intriguing or interesting? Maybe, maybe not.

7.62 Precision · Post by **7.62 Precision** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 1:16 pm

BrentD wrote:Lots. But will anyone find it romantically intriguing or interesting? Maybe, maybe not.

We are not living in a time when many men are attempting great feats and struggles in which failure is likely and death is the likely result.

Unfortunately, there is not much romantically intriguing from our generation, but probably much that will be both interesting and puzzling.

Judging from the walk through the grocery store last night, future archeologists with their picks and brushes might conclude that we were a strange culture that worshiped little plastic sword-bearing turtle-gods of war.

BrentD · Post by **BrentD** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 1:37 pm

7.62 Precision wrote:
BrentD wrote:Lots. But will anyone find it romantically intriguing or interesting? Maybe, maybe not.
We are not living in a time when many men are attempting great feats and struggles in which failure is likely and death is the likely result.

Unfortunately, there is not much romantically intriguing from our generation, but probably much that will be both interesting and puzzling.

Judging from the walk through the grocery store last night, future archeologists with their picks and brushes might conclude that we were a strange culture that worshiped little plastic sword-bearing turtle-gods of war.

It is easy to be cynical of the current society. Perhaps deservedly so. But I suspect that some of that was true of every generation. I suspect the guys in the mining camp weren't much impressed with any idea of being romantically linked to that equipment that they probably cursed everyday. I doubt they considered that they were doing great feats or struggling in life-death battles against nature. They were just miners working hard, probably drinking hard, and maybe looking forward to having a bit of fun on the Outside when they quit for the season or whatever. For sure, they never thought anyone would pay big bucks and waste vacation time looking at their busted equipment and shacks in such a god-forsaken place. I bet they would be surprised in a major fashion at all of this.

Only the succeeding generations can judge the current generation effectively. And they will, but we won't be here to learn what they decided.

Ben_Rumson · Post by **Ben_Rumson** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 2:04 pm

Great pics...Reminded me of this...."There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold.
The arctic trails have their secret tales".......

The rest of it here http://www.wordfocus.com/wordactcremation.html

7.62 Precision · Post by **7.62 Precision** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 10:15 pm

No more guesses on the mystery location?

Here is a hint: it is in western Alaska, in mountains near Nome.

Udy · Post by **Udy** » Sat Nov 01, 2014 3:50 am

Solomon River Railroad to no where for fetchin up supplies to the miners across the tundra to the turn of the century strike in Nome on the anvil creek.

Iditarod trail shelter remains

7.62 Precision · Post by **7.62 Precision** » Sat Nov 01, 2014 1:21 pm

Nope, not an Iditarod shelter.

Here is another hint:

The ruins are the remains of a framed wooden building (normal in the area due to lack of trees for cabins), just up the hill from a creek. The lumber would have been shipped in, mostly, though some of the framing timber may have been cut by local sawmills from driftwood logs.

The willows are now grown up around the remains of the building so that no trace of it can be seen from outside the willows. Surrounding the building on three sides, but especially on the uphill side where there was a side door and behind the building are huge mounds that are covered with moss and willows. They look like they could be just part of the hillside. When you walk on these mounds, though, you will hear the crunch of glass under the moss. These mounds are formed from thousands of bottles. Scattered around are old tins, stove parts, shovels with the handles rotted away, steel wash basins and tubs, cigar tins, broken china, etc.

It is the kind of place where you can feel the history . . .

7.62 Precision · Post by **7.62 Precision** » Sat Nov 01, 2014 1:38 pm

Moved the mystery location to its own topic.

rjohns94 · Post by **rjohns94** » Sat Nov 01, 2014 1:51 pm

Launching point for "north to Alaska", the trade building for the gold rush prospectors setting out? Or, location where drugs were delivered for the diphtheria breakout, delivered by sled dog team?

bdhold · Post by **bdhold** » Sat Nov 01, 2014 2:28 pm

Post by **Ysabel Kid** » Sat Nov 01, 2014 4:45 pm

That is one beautiful place!

AJMD429 · Post by **AJMD429** » Sat Nov 01, 2014 9:18 pm

octagon wrote:Beautiful. A pile of those cranes are headed to my place in Texas, and season opens Nov - Jan. You have to have a special permit, and the Boy and I will try for some this year.

Never knew you could hunt them...

I hate to ask, but do they 'taste like chicken'...???

hfcable · Post by **hfcable** » Sun Nov 02, 2014 3:51 pm

what a treat! thank you !! i have only seen the railroad from the air.

got to find time to get to more places and not just work all the time.

octagon · Post by **octagon** » Sun Nov 02, 2014 9:32 pm

AJ they call em "ribeye in the sky" if there weren't a kajillion of em I wouldn't fool with em. Due to years of drought, the deer numbers are gonna be thin this year, hunting Sandhills is a good enough excuse to get out of the house as any, we will go for some bass with topwater/ultralight rigs as well.

As the weather cools, we will fire up the chainsaws and start on the fence lines in between hunting and fishing.

7.62 Precision · Post by **7.62 Precision** » Sun Nov 02, 2014 11:33 pm

hfcable wrote:what a treat! thank you !! i have only seen the railroad from the air.

got to find time to get to more places and not just work all the time.

The great thing for me, I get paid to go places like this!

hfcable · Post by **hfcable** » Sun Nov 02, 2014 11:39 pm

7.62 Precision wrote:
hfcable wrote:what a treat! thank you !! i have only seen the railroad from the air.

got to find time to get to more places and not just work all the time.
The great thing for me, I get paid to go places like this!

well, i love my work......but even so i am really jealous !

in 3 or so years, God willing, i will work fewer hours or even 1/2 time, then i can get out and do the things i have been missing.......if it isn't too late.

Bill in Oregon · Post by **Bill in Oregon** » Mon Nov 03, 2014 10:02 am

More please, sir!