Humpback Photo Extravaganza

This week we all received a healthy reminder that we are indeed in Southeast Alaska. I was once again stationed with Tyson and his crew, in addition to Carl "Paparazzi" Kautz (kudos to him for most of the pictures in this edition), and our mission was to clear and brush the trail up to Humpback Lake. We went into the wilderness armed with loppers, axes, and cross cut saws, but only after the weather allowed our boat to sneak out on Tuesday. What a lovely day for a boat ride it was...
As a result of the rain all the waterfalls in Boca de Quadra were gushing with a vengeance.

All that water needed someplace to go, and the trail was often the path of least resistance. If you slosh fast enough, you can manage to keep most of the water out of your boots.

It was lovely weather for some foul weather gear.

Luckily for us the weather nymphs smiled on us enough to hold off during meal times, so I got to stay dry while preparing some killer falafel. Mmmmm, fried things....

The next day we split into teams: Tyson took Waylon and Doyle, while Carl and I worked together. One group took on the trail-gobbling shrubbery and the other attacked the downed trees. After removing one smaller specimen, Carl and I were faced with a rather large log that we chose to turn into a step, as removing it entirely would have required way too much effort. Here's before...

During (we used the cross cut to slice out the sides, then chipped away the middle with an ax)...

And the final product. A darn fine piece of trail building, if I do say so myself.

On the way back we discovered that the salmon leaping around at the mouth of the creek had made their arduous way farther upstream than we thought possible, flapping sideways through water barely two inches deep. Carl took the opportunity to fulfill his lifelong dream of catching a fish with his bare hands (in return for the stress it endured, he deposited it another 50 feet upstream. Happy spawning, my friend)

On our way home we got to travel in style in a De Haviland Otter, which comfortably seats eight in addition to the pilot and copilot.

Between the observation bubble and Tom Waits in the headphones, why would we travel any other way?

Flying is the only way to really appreciate this place. It never ceases to blow me away.

Weak But Not Broken

Friday's here at last and it's been one heck of a week. My fingers are having a hard time finding the keys, as my fine motor skills are somewhat inhibited by the labors of the day. We had a work party up at Perseverance (for overtime of course - how else do you get a bunch of slacker seasonals to put in yet another ten hour day?) that had all ten of us facing the monumental task of shoveling gravel from helicopter bags onto the prepared trail. Each bag held 2,300 lbs of rock, and there were 184 bags. I'll let you do the the math, but the team of us powered through and got 'er done.

I spent the rest of the week camping out at Ella Bay with Tyson and Waylon, brushing out the three mile trail up to the lake (pictured below). It's on the eastern side of Revillagigedo Island and since it's part of the Misty Fiords wilderness area there are no mechanized tools allowed. When it came to clearing the swathes of salmonberry, blueberry, and devil's club swallowing the trail, we did it all by hand, armed only with a pair of loppers and the occasional cross cut saw. I felt like a laborer in a Japanese garden snipping each individual blade of grass with a pair of scissors. And there's nothing like looking up from your path of plant carnage and seeing the enormity of a temperate rain forest to make your actions feel absolutely futile. We built some character on this trip and finished the trail to boot.
The trail was in variable condition but passed through some beautiful open muskeg valleys. There were plenty of salmon leaping in the saltwater, eagles and herons overhead, and rough skinned newts underfoot. Tyson told an anecdote about an unfortunate newt that crawled into a coffee pot one night, and the even more unfortunate campers who made coffee the next morning. Needless to say, all parties ended up deceased (rough skinned newts are deadly poisonous).

After two days of too hot weather, the wind picked up and blew in a front of thick clouds, cool temperatures, and sporadic showers. The sky Wednesday evening was gorgeous, looking over to Rudyard Bay from our beach campsite.

Our kitchen utilized some strategically placed drift wood. Waylon cooks up some stir fry as Tyson contemplates the view and the bugs.

Later there appeared an arc of rainbow that even had a faint twin. Pictures just don't do scenes like this any justice.

The boat ride back was cold, wet, and tumultuous. I slept for most of the way, as well as you can with the boat rearing like a wild thing underneath you. Top that off with a day of shoveling gravel, and I am good and ready for the weekend.

Return to Naha

From Naha Bay to Heckman Lake is a stretch of about six miles. I was there six weeks ago to hike and assess the entire trail and related cabins, three weeks ago to attack encroaching shrubbery on the section between Jordan Lake and Heckman, and now the past four days to complete the brushing process. It occurs to me that I've spent more time and energy there than any other site this summer, which makes this final trip a cause for bittersweet celebration.

This time around I had the chance to participate in the trail inventory with Jacob, the man in charge of monitoring use throughout the area. He checked through a painstakingly detailed list that included every log step, elevated boardwalk, and piece of natural tread, while I followed behind with the mile counter. The contraption consisted of a large wheel with small spokes sticking out at one foot intervals, a unit that clicked as it tallied each foot, and a metal frame of retina-searing orange. Imagine a spindly unicycle with handles instead of a seat and there you have it. I wheeled that thing from the dock at the ocean up, over, and down every single root and rock and stair, all 30,576 feet to Heckman Lake. The first day we got as far as Jordan Lake, then returned the next day to finish the task, for a grand total of 20 miles round trip. And then the fun really began, brushing and clearing the 2 mile section of trail closest to salt water.

Even while my back was aching from bending over to grab salmonberry and devil's club, I couldn't help but marvel at the place. The river was chock full of humpy salmon running up to spawn and the banks were teeming with wildlife. We saw seven black bears the first day, nine the second, a resident family of mergansers, and bald eagles up the wazoo, including a swimming one. Hiking back to camp one evening we came around a corner and suprised the eagle sitting on a rock by the river. It attempted to flee, but after three or four clumsy flaps failed to take off and sank into the water, "oh crap" written all over its face. With a look of forced nonchalance, the eagle turned around and stroked its way to back to dry land in a surprisingly graceful manner.

In other momentous news, on Saturday, 57 years ago, my grandparents got hitched, so happy anniversary to them. Congratulations, MB and PB, I love you guys!

Portland or Bust, Baby

Everyone needs a vacation now and then, even if my job doesn't really feel like work most of the time. Ketchikan is located in a beautiful corner of the world but the town itself has little to offer in the way of culture. When I heard my friend Tina was having a wedding reception in Portland the first weekend of August, I jumped on the chance to head south. My boyfriend Carl came along for the ride and the much needed mental break. We had a grand old time perusing thrift stores (see above), eating delicious ethnic food, and listening to outstanding music at the Pickathon music festival.

Readjusting to the lower 48 took a little bit of time. At the Seattle airport I had to go sit in a corner because all the people and stores and TVs were so overwhelming. The Pickathon gently eased us back into another way of life, where Xtra Tuffs and Carhartts were replaced with plaid shirts and organic bamboo fibers. After a Friday morning of people watching in Portland we headed out to Pendarvis Farm in Happy Valley to take in some musical vibes.

The event was well-organized with a relaxed atmosphere. There were five or six separate stages, which made it hard to decided who to listen to. The two main stages were covered with this amazing tent-like contraption suspended above the lawn.

Wood Stage was buried off in the forest, and we started out there listening to the Foghorn Stringband. Later we came back to catch the Punch Brothers, a bluegrass group from New York City all decked out in suits and ties.

In addition to music this was a celebration of delicious food. Gorgonzola fries, anyone? They were real big on sustainability, so the beer garden was populated by stainless steel cups instead of plastic ones, and the vendors used paper plates and bamboo utensils. There were more recycling bins there than I've seen in three months.

Hayes Carll performed on the main stage, and I had to buy a shirt because his name tickled my funny bone and a CD because his music was amazing. He sounds like the older generation of country singers, with some blues and rock mixed in for good measure. Other awesome acts included Martha Scanlon, a singer-songwriter from Montana, Megafaun, and Breathe Owl Breathe.

Carl and I enjoyed attempting self portraits while listening to music.

The musicians were just getting warmed up as night began to fall.

On Saturday we headed over to Selwood Park to celebrate my friend Tina's wedding with Shea. The main celebration was down in Mexico and this gathering was for all of us who couldn't make it. There was good food, some bumping techno beats blaring from somewhere across the river, and a radiant bride. Congratulations again Tina and Shea!

Now it's back to Ketchikan, which greeted us with a perfectly calm, misty Alaskan evening. In three weeks the parentals are coming to visit, and a month after that I'll be unemployed again. Happy summer to all!

The Voyage of the Lady Lund

The Lady Lund is one of the typical Forest Service craft that live at all of our freshwater cabins, and she was integral in our latest job of salvaging everything we could from Red Alders shelter. Located on Ella Lake, the shelter got on the wrong end of a landslide and now has a creek running through the middle of it. Our mission, based out of the Ella Narrows cabin 2 miles away at the other end of the lake, was to retrieve the Lady Lund and any firewood that was dry from the wood shed, and deposit it at our base of operations.

The views from the float plane were amazing. From the air you can see the trails left by ancient glaciers, lakes hopscotching down wide valleys and islands trailing into the sea. The peaks are worn and rounded by weather and everything is covered with a thick fur of vegetation.

Ella Narrows is almost impossible to spot from the air, nestled back under the canopy. It was wonderfully cool on a week where the island was seeing temperatures in the 70s (that's ridiculously warm when you're working in canvas pants and Xtra Tuffs).

The two mile row to Red Alders took about an hour, down one branch of the lake and up the other. As you round the bend you're treated to this view of an amazing alpine bowl, and the rock massif that towers above the shelter itself. If it weren't for the creek this location would be perfect. Curt and I divided our powers between the two boats piled high with cedar rounds and took off on the return journey.

Curt is in inexperienced rower, to say the least, so I let him get ahead as he zig-zagged spasmodically on his way back. The heat was sitting low and heavy on the water, blurring the horizon to a point where it was impossible to tell where the water ended and the land began. Gulls cried, loons giggled, mergansers cackled, and the mountains called back to them as my oars bit into the smooth water. The wood released the warm smell of cedar into the still air with every stroke. In and out, forward and back, again and again. My back and shoulders remembered the motions well from last summer. There's a meditative quality to repeating the same motion over and over; I had to shake myself from my trance when the Lady Lund finally scraped up on the rocky beach, and it was time to haul wood rounds once more.

It took two trips over two days to transport all the wood, and on the remaining day we fixed the wood stove at Ella Narrows. The stove pipe was held together by tin foil and disintegrated as soon as we removed it. Our replacement pipe happened to be the exact same size as the fittings (which means it didn't overlap like it should). Nothing a pair of tin snips and some muscles couldn't fix. Wood stacked, stove functional, boats stowed, we waited in the 84 degree heat for our ride out: mission accomplished.