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.