A Three Ring Show

It's been quite the week. I feel like I stepped off the plane from Denali and hopped right on a whirl wind carnival ride. Jordan Lake came first, where Curt and I joined Tyson, Waylon, and Doyle in brushing out the 2 mile stretch of trail between that cabin and the one at Heckman Lake. The boys made a mess with their noisy machines, hacking through the jungle of salmonberry and devil's club, while I cleaned it up and made it look like a trail again. We got to take a helicopter in, as we were slinging a bunch of lumber for repairing boardwalk, but took a float plane out a day later than planned due to the weather.

The next stint was out at Wilson View cabin, and getting there was a perfect example of why it's called the Forest Circus. First, a front was roaring through and nobody was flying the day we were supposed to leave. Then the next day we had way more equipment than would fit on a single flight (in addition to four people), so I waited with Bo, a local kid volunteering for the weekend, while Curt and Dwayne headed out with the first load. Dwayne is another volunteer who manages property in Ketchikan and does contracting on the side. Two hours later some Fish and Game folks showed up for their flight with 13 days worth of food and a huge propane tank. Plan B was to have us jump on with them, but needless to say there was no space on that plane either. So we went to Plan C: the pilot drops them at Bakewell Lake, runs over to Hyder by the Canadian border, picks up some more folks, and finally comes to get us in Ketchikan five hours later.

Fair enough. I dropped Bo at his house and went back to the warehouse to plane some posts. At 1:00 I picked Bo back up, stopped by the float plane office, and discovered the flight would be at least another hour. I dropped Bo back off and returned to the warehouse. An hour later I called the Forest Service dispatch to check on our flight and learned that the company needed that pilot for a flight seeing tour and didn't have any more available flights for the rest of the day. Good thing I got to work at 6:30 that morning. Luckily, Plan D (hopping on the 7:30 AM flight the next morning) worked without a hitch and Bo and I reached the holy grail of Wilson View cabin.
As you can see the cabin above is missing a deck and is precariously balanced on some Lincoln Log lumber. Our mission was to replace the foundation and return the cabin to level ground. Dwayne orchestrated the event with professional ease, directing the three of us as we coordinated jacks, assembled a wheelbarrow, and dug out rotten posts. When it came time to mix the cement for the foundation he and I positioned ourselves on opposite ends of the wheelbarrow, shovels in hand, and proceeded to combine pre-mixed bags with water hauled from the lake. Dwayne is a big guy, well over 6 feet tall and about 300 pounds. I'm 5'3" on a good day and about 135 lbs with my Xtra Tuffs full of water, so the sight of the two of us going to town must have been pretty funny. The act of mixing cement is exactly that of paddling a raft: lock your arms, dig in hard, rock your whole body back, and keep in time with your partner. After a couple batches Dwayne looked down at me in wonder and stated, "You're the best cement mixer I've ever worked with". My daddy would be proud.

Flying out to Wilson View we got to see so much of the country you can't see from town.

Looking up one of the many inlets in Misty Fiords National Monument.

You can see why it's called Misty Fiords...

Flying up Wilson Lake on our way in.

Wilson Lake on a quiet morning.

On our way out the mountains decided to make an appearance.

The head of Wilson Arm, where the river dumps into salt water.

I love float planes!

Looking up Carrol Inlet on Revilligigedo Island.

You know you're on the home stretch when the cruise ships come into view. Ketchikan town on a beautiful sunny day.

The Denali Chronicles

Last week I took leave from my job of mucking around the woods in the rain and voyaged north to Denali National Park to muck around the tundra in the rain with my little sister. We had such a phenomenal time that I couldn't possibly put all my pictures on the blog, so please check out my special Picasa album for the full details.

I will tell the story of the Great Bear Encounter of 2010. It was Tuesday night (technically Wednesday morning) and the rain was still coming down. At 1:30 in the morning the two of us were half asleep, listening to the rain on our tent, and the rustle of our tent shifting around. That's funny, it doesn't seem too windy...All of a sudden two big paws came from nowhere to rest on the corner of the tent containing my feet. I sat bolt upright and roared, "IT'S STEPPING ON ME!!" Sarah immediately joined me in yelling, shouting, and bellowing as the feet rapidly disappeared. Breathless and wide awake now, we looked at each other in bafflement. "Maybe it was just a marmot", Sarah said. I looked to my right, through the mesh side of the tent, and saw a giant nose pressed up against the fly. "THERE'S A NOSE!!", I yelled, and the hullabaloo resumed, with the addition of shaking the tent and various expletives. The nose disappeared, but soon enough something was batting at the fly on Sarah's side. At this point we were both wondering what to do if it didn't go away. Neither of us wanted to open the rain fly to see what was on the other side. My trekking poles were looking like pretty inviting weapons but luckily the bear seemed to lose interest after that. We continued our noise making for a good 15 minutes anyway, and it was a full half hour before either of us felt brave enough to take a peek at the outside world. There was nothing there but rain and fog and the twilight that passes for night in northern Alaska. Neither of us slept very well after that.

The next morning the rain was still coming down, and even though our bodies were sound, the tent unscathed, and our food untouched, we decided to head back to the road. During our invigorating bushwhack through head high, interlocking willows we both decided we were way more scared of moose than bear. As such we sang and yelled and yodeled our way through the soggy bottom lands. It's a good thing we came out when we did because neither of us had much of a voice left.

The rain continued that day, and the next, but then decided to clear out for our bus trip on Friday. We saw a long-legged lynx, herds of Dall sheep, a tricolored fox, arctic ground squirrels, hoary marmots, caribou up the wazoo, four brown bears, three moose, two golden eagles, and a loon in an alpine pond. Mt. McKinley even made an epic appearance. It's simply massive, dominating the skyline and making the rest of the Alaska range look like foothills. Thank you, Sarah, for living in such a beautiful place and letting my come visit!

Some Quick Notes

I apologize to all of those who follow this blog with a passion (namely my mother). My time has been so tied up in adventuring that I haven't had a chance to write an update, and that adventuring has been full indeed. Last week I made the long trek up to Denali National Park to visit my little sister and her sled dogs. We had a wonderful time painting the park red; there were close encounters of the Ursus arctos kind, torrential rainstorms, baked goods involving avocados, and sightings of rare species such as lynx, tricolored foxes and (gasp) Mt. Mckinley. Good times were had by all.

The past couple days I've been out in the woods at Jordan Lake. The crew of us were brushing out the trail from there to Heckman Lake. I enjoyed picking up sticks while watching bald eagles fly down the river. We got back today, later than expected due to cloudy conditions (in southeast Alaska? That's crazy). Tomorrow we're back out in the field redoing a cabin foundation. I'm still foggy on all the details but I'll fill you in when I figure it all out, namely once I've been through it. Happy summer.

Momma Said There'd Be Days Like This

Every now and then you have one of those days where you look around and pinch yourself to make sure it's real. Wednesday was such a day, when Curt and I hiked up to Deer Mountain and Blue Lake. Our purpose (of course we had one, we work for the government) was to fix a cock-eyed stove pipe and charred patch of porch, as well as remove any garbage we found. It was a pretty tough and miserable assignment given the conditions that day and the terrain we had to cover (see images below). I'm still amazed by the fact that I weasel my way into jobs where I get paid to live out some people's trip of a lifetime.

Deer Mountain sits right above town and affords awesome views of the cruise ships, Tongass Narrows, and the airport on Gravina Island.
To get to Blue Lake you traverse this ridge north from Deer Mountain. This is looking southwest towards Dixon Entrance.

Blue Lake truly lives up to its name. The shelter there is a simple A-frame with few amenities, as opposed to the Deer Mountain shelter which is outfitted with oil stove, loft, and kitchen table, but the location renders all that irrelevant.

It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it.

The icing on the cake was after a day of hiking 11 miles up and around 3,000 ft peaks (starting at sea level, mind you) and getting paid for it, I had this delicious salmonberry pie to come home to. I'm the most bad-ass homemaker you'll ever meet.

Just Another Day At The Office