Paxson Lake BLM, site 9, Our Own Eagle’s Nest

Day 49  Tuesday  August 1, 2016             Paxson, AK         Paxson Lake BLM Campground, site 9
72 towing miles              11.4 mpg

Fortunately, we had a short drive today.  Had lots to do before we leave the Glennallen area.  We left the campsite at 09:30 and drove the 400 ft. to the dump station.  That’s usually a 15-20 minute activity.

Four miles down the Glenn Highway we pulled over at a scenic pullover because it’s the first cell signal we get going towards Glennallen.  Marsha had some phone calls to make and I called my mother in Massachusetts for her birthday.  Then we stopped at the Glennallen IGA for the usual groceries.  We got eight days of camping at least before we get somewhere where there is a real grocery store.  Then we gassed up at the Tosoro station where the Richardson Highway and the Glenn come together.  It’s got to be the busiest gas station in Alaska.  It always has lines at all its pumps and most of it is RVs.  There is not a real gas station for a hundred miles in either direction.  By the time we did all this it was noon before we headed north on the Richardson towards Paxson.

We arrived at the Paxson Lake BLM Campground at mile 175 of the Richardson Highway at 13:30. We set up in a pull through on site 9.  It’s only $12 per night but only $6 per night for us geezer pass holders.

The road leading to the campground.  Paxson Lake in background.

 Right after we got set up we saw an eagle’s nest at the top of one of the spruce trees in front of our site.  Every now and then a juvenile, full grown eagle, would pop his head out.  When I first watched him in binoculars, I was amazed at how big he was.  He was all alone in the nest.  Marsha got some zoom shots.  Every now and then he would stand up and flap his wings like he was trying to take off, but never did.  He must have been lonely because no one came to feed him and he was calling out for his mama quite often.  Never saw any parents come the whole rest of the day.  It was so fascinating watching him while we sat in our chairs under the awning. 

View out the front door of the camper.  The nest is the dark

spot at the top of the shorter spruce in the center of the picture.

Now can you see it?

There is a little trail to the lake and we walked down to it.  There was a little cove there and there some sandpipers there walking along the shore.

The cove that the little lake trail led to.

We sat on the bench and watched these guys.

 While sitting on the bench there I looked across the lake to the opposite shore with my binoculars, looking for moose.  Didn’t see any moose, but saw two bald eagles on the opposite shore.  It looked like they were eating something, most likely a fish.  I wondered if it was the parents of the eagle in our nest.

Later, I walked from the campsite to the boat ramp.  Met a guy from Monroe, MI there who is now an Alaskan.  He came to Alaska in 2003 on a fishing trip and never went back.  We see that a lot here.  A lot of them were in the military here and never went back.

Paxson is a huge lake.  There were a couple of smaller lakes a few miles away and we took a ride to check them out.  One was Meier Lake.  It was nice but had houses on it and was near the road.  The other was Gillespie Lake but had a 1/3 mile trail to the lake access. 

Tomorrow we will launch in Paxson Lake.  The canoe has been on the truck since I put it there in my driveway. 

The host stopped by, who, by the way, has relatives in Grand Rapids.  He told me there is a pile of firewood in site 12 if I wanted to grab it.  And I did.

A very nice couple from Anchorage was walking around the campsite and we told them about “our” eagle.  We got to talking.  The guy was recently retired.  Both were real outdoorsy people (all Alaskans are).  They were tent campers and had a Kevlar canoe.  They were at Paxson Lake for four days to escape the city of Anchorage.

We love this campground.  It is wild, rustic, quiet, and has its own private bald eagle’s nest. 

Day 50  Wednesday  August 2, 2016       Paxson, AK         Paxson Lake BLM Campground, site 9

0 towing miles 

Stayed at the campground all day.  Needed a fire this 48^o morning.  But it was a nice sunny morning.  Unusual for Alaska. 

Fall is coming to Alaska.  The campground host said by October the snows will come.  In a few weeks the trees and bushes will be changing colors.  We now run the furnace in the mornings to heat up the trailer before we crawl out of bed.  But one of us has to be brave enough to go from the bed to the thermostat.  It's been in the low 40's in the morning and high 50's in the day.

Made corned beef hash and eggs on my new (this year) camp stove.  It is large enough for our cast iron skillet and a 9” frying pan side by side.

After breakfast, the eagle’s mother came and visited with some food.  They shared breakfast together, tearing the fish up, sometimes a tug of war.  The juvenile was bigger than his mother.  She left again after about ½ hour.  We never saw her the rest of our stay.

The mom showed up in the morning.

Having breakfast.

We went down to the boat launch at 11:30 to launch the canoe.  There was a boy scout troop there assembling and launching four rubber rafts.  They were outfitting for a four-day trip down the Wild & Scenic Gulkana River, which has its headwaters at the south end of Paxson Lake. 

We launched our canoe and I tried fishing for the grayling and lake trout that the lake is known for.  But I don’t know how to find where fish are in a lake.  I had a spinning rod with me (don’t tell anyone).  I was jugging a heavy spoon in deep water trying for lake trout with no luck.  I tried fly fishing near weed beds along shorelines for grayling.  There were caddis flies on the water and nothing was eating them.  Anyway, my efforts were fruitless.

We paddled to the other side of the lake and back.  The Alaska Range is in view on the north end of the lake and it was beautiful to be out on a lake in such a setting. 

We were out for 3 hours.  The boy scouts were still getting ready when we got back.

When we got back we had a mid-afternoon dinner of salmon, noodles, and corn.  It was wild caught Alaskan salmon, but not by me. 

We went back out in the canoe at 16:30. It was raining when we launched but we were in our rain gear.  It died down after we were underway.  We paddled south along the east shore of the lake.  Saw more sandpipers and saw some ducks on a rocky point where the male and female looked different.  I could not identify them on my bird app.  I’ve never seen ducks like that.  There were some other birds, about four of them that were harassing the ducks.  No pictures.

We got back to the put in, it started raining again.  There were two young men in their early 20’s who were assembling and getting ready for a four-day trip down the same river the boy scouts were doing, the Gulkana.  It seems like late in the day to start a river journey, but there is practically unlimited daylight.  One of the guys worked last summer on one of the fishing boats like on “Deadliest Catch”.  He told us how phony that whole show is.

We sat under the protective cover of the awning when we got back and watched our water soaked eagle.