Tustumena Lake Update

[Donkey Hunter]

Yep, the cliff house is gone. It went back in the 1970's. A propane leak ended up in an explosion and took the place out. There is nothing there, no remains.

There are two shallow places around Caribou Island. What they are is fingers of shallow water that extend out into the lake, its like an underwater ridge. On your map a few posts above where the "a" is on "Caribou Island" is one of them at that point of land on the Island. You'll need to swing wide out into the lake around that point to avoid the shallow spot. The other one in relationship to your map is the tip of Caribou Island on the far right. You'll see the rocks at that tip and the shallow ridge extends quite aways out there too and towards the glacier at the far end of the lake. I swing out a half mile from shore at the "a" spot, and at least a mile at the far right tip spot.

A few of my photos made it into that book. The one of the Dora, the Cook Inlet mail ship in the early 1900's and one of the cabins up in Devils Bay I took 30 years ago.

Thanks you very much sir, for contributing to the book and for responding to my post! I'm fascinated by this lake, the people that lived there in Bergs time, and those that continue to to this day. Now that I have a boat again, I think I will spend some time there, maybe we'll meet some day. I'll be the big red faced "kid" with a three legged lab/mutt and a little 16' Jon boat.

[tustumena_lake]

Tustumena.
Always enjoy your posts. Plan to explore the lake when I finally get the James Bay freighter from Whitehorse (hopefully soon). If you see a monster canoe trolling around in circles please flag me down. The canoe is fiberglass so feel free to mark all the big rocks. (grin)

I just found a picture of one on the internet. Now thats a canoe ! If there's no weather fronts moving through, just normal weather, what I'm telling you holds true...the best time to be on the water is early in the morning until noon to one pm. The winds can pick up that time of day and it gets a little choppy, not always but normally. One hour before dusk the winds will lay back down again. Once again a weather front moving through and all normals are off.

[tustumena_lake]

Yep, the cliff house is gone. It went back in the 1970's. A propane leak ended up in an explosion and took the place out. There is nothing there, no remains.

There are two shallow places around Caribou Island. What they are is fingers of shallow water that extend out into the lake, its like an underwater ridge. On your map a few posts above where the "a" is on "Caribou Island" is one of them at that point of land on the Island. You'll need to swing wide out into the lake around that point to avoid the shallow spot. The other one in relationship to your map is the tip of Caribou Island on the far right. You'll see the rocks at that tip and the shallow ridge extends quite aways out there too and towards the glacier at the far end of the lake. I swing out a half mile from shore at the "a" spot, and at least a mile at the far right tip spot.

A few of my photos made it into that book. The one of the Dora, the Cook Inlet mail ship in the early 1900's and one of the cabins up in Devils Bay I took 30 years ago.

[Donkey Hunter]

Nope, no gold nuggets this trip but if you find some shiny silvery looking pieces in the water don't bother. Its just me polishing rocks with my prop again.

A couple questions if you don't mind.

I've been told of a big shallow spot, or maybe a very large and somewhat flat rock, in the "middle" of the lake. Maybe somewhere north of Caribou Island. Is there any truth to that? I've heard that you can see it at certain times of the year when the water is clear and that it might be a couple hundred feet across.

Also, after reading the book about Andrew Berg, I set out to find all of the cabins (or their remains) that were talked about in the book. Do you know if the "Cliff House" burned down?

[Donkey Hunter]

Boud'arc: If you haven't already done it, pick up a copy of Alaska's No 1 Guide The History and Journals of Andrew Berg.

[Boud'arc]

Tustumena.
Always enjoy your posts. Plan to explore the lake when I finally get the James Bay freighter from Whitehorse (hopefully soon). If you see a monster canoe trolling around in circles please flag me down. The canoe is fiberglass so feel free to mark all the big rocks. (grin)

[tustumena_lake]

Nope, no gold nuggets this trip but if you find some shiny silvery looking pieces in the water don't bother. Its just me polishing rocks with my prop again.

Not much bear sign on the beach but thats normal its still early.

I guess the closest thing to a gold nugget I found was a note in the cabin the Homer folks that broke through the ice snowmachining last winter left me. It made my day.

[Donkey Hunter]

We made it to the yellow arrow in the picture below, and turned back at that point since we were just out to test the new boat. At work today I heard that another co-worker had made it to Devils Bay early last weekend, then the wind shifted and blew all the ice down toward the west end of the lake. Rumor is that they spent several hours breaking ice with their paddles before they could come home. I'll have to get more details later.

[Gerberman]

Find any GOLD NUGGETS??

[JOAT]

Now ya got me itchin to take a trip down there.

[tustumena_lake]

I made it through yesterday creeping along the shore until i found open water and headed up to the far end of the lake and spent the night. A little wind and what ice is left will get flushed out quick its not thick.

Yesterday afternoon going up. Its open past Caribou Island.


Here's where I came back through this morning and it opened up some pulling away from the shore. Its shallow here, but I made it.



Its officially summer.

[JOAT]

Uh yeah, there are some massive sandbars in T-Lake, especially along the east side of the river inlet. Props are just fine if you know where to go.

As for the ice... did you actually make it into the lake at all or is it still locked up?

[Donkey Hunter]

Still packed full of ice, (at least as far as I could see) and the water is LOW. We came off step to take a look at something in the woods and skidded to a sudden stop. I've heard about people hitting rocks far from shore on Tustumena, but never anything about sand bars!

I don't know how you guys with props do it.