Ups & Downs

Wednesday, Oct. 5th

The past few weeks has been full of a lot of "Ups & Downs" for me. First, there was the emotional "ups & downs" of being a die-hard Dallas Cowboy's football fan. Talk about a roller coaster!! In their game against the Detroit Lions, first they kick butt and have a 27 point lead halfway through the 3rd quarter...I'm UP!! That's when we start the plunge until they end up losing the game by 3 points...I'm DOWN!! Good thing it's just a game and by Monday I was feeling OK again (if I didn't think or hear about it) but...I think it is going to be a loooong season.

Spaz "WAD"

Since I had some time off and Lori was working, I decided to go for a hike that I knew she would not really enjoy - heck, I wasn't even sure I would enjoy it - but I knew Spaz (Wilderness Adventure Dog) would so off we went. The day was sunny and cool with no wind...perfect for a hike "up & down" to peak 3920. I packed us some lunch and we drove 7 miles out the Haines highway to the trailhead and started up and up and up and up.

There were enough breaks in the forest where I could catch glimpses of the incredible views up and down the Chilkat Valley that it kept enticing me up the mountain.

Don't tell Lori but I took her bear spray along with me for the first time ever. An hour into the hike I start thinking about bears so I whistle for Spaz who is further up the trail. When I do, right next to me there is this loud rustling of the trees which causes my life to flash before my eyes and makes me jump so suddenly I almost fall off the trail. But I end up laughing out loud at myself as I realize I have scared an eagle I didn’t see from the tree next to me.

When we got to “7 mile saddle” we had lunch and the peak was in sight – covered with snow - and starting to cloud over. The alpine meadow at the saddle was lush and carpeted with muskeg which is very fun to walk across as it is so spongy it feels like walking on your bed. We had climbed over 3,000 feet in about 2 miles which is - trust me on this - very steep. It was like a slippery stair master the whole way.

The view was spectacular from this elevation as you can see from this photo looking down the Chilkat river delta and on into the Lynn Canal. I swear you could almost see Juneau - 80 miles away -  from up there. That is the Haines airport down there in the foreground.

The telephoto lens really highlights the Chilkat river channels through the mud flats

Spaz took this shot of me on the way down

As we had our lunch it started to cloud up so I decided not to attempt the peak. It wasn't because I was already sore and stiff as the tin man or because it was another 900 foot climb in a mile and a half or because Lori would be home before we got down and worry about us. Noooo, surely it was only because it was getting cloudy and we could die! So we headed down and down and down.

Saturday, Oct. 8th

We moved our belongings out of Patrick & Ivanca's house. If you remember from the picture in our last post, you know they have a 3 story house. The bedroom and our clothes were on the top floor - our food and bathroom stuff on the second floor - everything else including our truck was on the bottom floor so...lots of "ups & downs" on the stairs. We took almost everything over to our winter quarters on Dalton street which is a 2 story house so…you guessed it…more “ups & downs”. Cathy and Stan (the owners) would not be leaving for Arizona for another 10 days but were kind enough to let us move in anyway. Actually, Lori would be moving in as I was off to work on Annette Island for the next 8 days.

Monday, Oct. 10th

My trip to Annette Island was full of “ups & downs” of the altitude type. I flew out of Haines early Monday morning, co-pilot on a 5 seat plane (with a pilot that looked younger than my kids) that took me to Juneau on a beautiful 45 minute flight down the Lynn Canal. In Juneau I switched to a 737 which took me to Ketchikan after a side stop in Sitka.

In Ketchikan I went from the airport down to the dock because the 20 minute flight from Ketchikan to Annette Island was aboard a sea-plane. Pacific Air weighed me and all my gear, crammed it into the DeHavilland Otter and taxied into the channel. It is a very strange feeling being in an airplane and looking out the window at the “landing gear”, splashing as it skims along the water picking up speed until it lifts off and the sudden smoothness of flight sets in. It is equally as strange to be rapidly approaching earth from the sky when all you see under you is water. These planes are the coolest “boats” to be cruising the water in and I can’t help but wonder - can you water ski behind these?

Annette Island is Alaska's only Indian Reservation - home to the "Tsimshain" people - and is quite an interesting little speck of rock. You can check out its history from the early missionary times of the 1880's to its role in World War II as an important air base at this interesting link

http://explorenorth.com/library/yafeatures/bl-Annette.htm

Metlakatla is the only community on the island and is home to about 1,500 people. It seemed to be a nice friendly community that is proud of their culture and traditions. There was only one grocery store so prices were...well, not cheap. A regular size bag of Dorritos is about $7 and a 12 pack of soda is at least an arm and a leg. Beer is priceless cause it is a dry island and you can't buy any alcohol.

Fishing is a huge part of life...and death for the island's people. There are a lot of totem poles standing all over town like this one guarding the marina. They are all very different and all mean something to someone - I can only guess at their meanings. The tribe's people are all divided into 4 clans so your family is either an Eagle, Raven, Wolf or Orca and these can be spotted on many of the totem poles.

The "Tuck em Inn"

There is only one restaurant on the island and its called the "Tuck em Inn" because they also have 2 rooms to rent (the other hotel has 6 rooms). The inside walls and ceiling are covered with photos of fishing boats, fishermen and dead fish. The paper place-mats are copies of the nautical chart of the island and the surrounding waters. They had a very good halibut fish and chips special.

The company I am working for - SE Roadbuilders - has been working on the island all summer paving the 14 mile road that leads to the new ferry terminal that I was there to lay-out. They have a house they have rented right downtown for all the men to stay at since none of them live there. They call it...wait for it...the "Man Camp".

Sunset from the deck of the "Man Camp"

Ferries are a very important part of life in SE Alaska. They are in fact run by the state as the "Alaska Marine Highway System" and can often show up on Google maps looking like roads. Check out this link if you don't have anything important to do http://www.dot.state.ak.us/amhs/

The photo below is where a new ferry terminal will take shape over the next 2 years after blasting the rock away (50,000 cubic yards) to carve it out. Look close to notice my rod man Paul climbing over boulders and also notice the dump truck that looks small but is over 2 stories tall. You can Google Earth into the terminal site for a visit and then explore the island with this:

 Lat/Long =      55.267190°    and    -131.559995°

Low tide at around 7am

 Alaska has some of the more extreme tidal ranges in the country so people here always have to be aware of them. "Up & Down" over 16' this time of year. On this job they were certainly something to account for since the projects survey control had been set at the waters edge and 2-3 feet below high tide elevation. The arrow is Paul giving me a shot on one control point  about 250' away while the tide is down.

High tide at around 1pm

 Compare these two photos closely to see the tide range in just 6 hours. The tide is now up and the lath is marking the point where the tripod was set in the top photo when the tide was down. Paul is now under water and holding his breath at the far point waiting 6 hours until low tide comes again. Just kidding about Paul. But in the morning we did have a seal pop his head up about 15 feet away, just staring at us for a while trying to figure out what we were doing. I heard this was a great fishing spot and was jealous of the seal for trying that while I was working. The plans also had "eagle trees" spotted on them with protection zones shown for each.

Metlakatla on a foggy morning with the full moon looking over

As you can see in this picture, there can be a lot of low fog hugging the ground in the mornings this time of year. I was glad the weather wasn't too bad while I was there...it rained 6 of the 7 days...but only really hard on 3 of those. Considering they get over 200" some years, and October is the wettest, I felt lucky.

While I was standing on the dock watching my ride home land, the ferry was headed into the old terminal at Annette. It still seems kinda strange to have the runway and the highway both be in the ocean - there aren't even any painted lines to separate them! My trip back to our new winter quarters in Haines had a few more "ups & downs" and one of the "ups" leaving Juneau was delayed 4 hours waiting for the fog to clear. I obviously made it back safely and into the world of good (not great) internet connections and got this posted so...

...scroll "up & down" the post and hope you enjoy it !!