I'm finally caught up!

Where do I even begin? It’s been forever since I was last on here writing to you guys. So much has happened since the last time we spoke. Do I dare try to tell everything?

Let’s see if I can retrace my steps. I think the last time I was on here I was telling you about the Juneau Ridgeline. Well the next hike topped it! We went up the Grandchild’s peaks and hiked up that ridgeline. There was a pair of mountain goats that ran across the ridgeline right in front of us. If you look behind you, you can look out Mendenhall Valley. You can see Stroller White Mountain and Mount McGinnis. Turn to your right and you can see down into Eagle Valley. There’s Amalga Harbor, the EVC Valley, Windfall Lake, Eagle Beach, and Herbert Glacier. And just out past them were the mighty Chilkats in Haines. We were up so high and it was so clear you could see around the Chilkats to Glacier Bay.

At some point it was the fourth of July. Carrie and I were headed to Glacier Bay National Park for the holiday. Well that was the plan. We ended up running behind and I got on the ferry and Carrie didn’t. She had all my gear in her car so no clothes, money, food, or tent. That’s okay though! It’s Gustavus. When I got to “downtown,” Carrie’s little brother bought me lunch. His crew was working In Glacier Bay so I wasn’t entirely alone with nothing. A beer found its way into my hand and I headed off to the horseshoe competition.  After almost killing the competition, I mean, I almost actually killed someone, we watched the slow bike race. That’s my favorite Fourth of July event. Once that was over, we headed to the egg toss. We hung out having a great time for the rest of the afternoon. Then the events moved to the gravel pits in another part of town. I rode on the front of a 4 wheeler to get there. This even was called the grease pole. It’s a tree that’s been peeled and is being held up above a lake by a giant excavator. They put money in the end and Crisco up the pole. Well I did it! I didn’t get the money though. So I decided to go for showmanship and rub it in my hair. While I was in Glacier Bay I met the coolest guys (last night I was finally able to buy them a beer). One guy who is 49 and his best friend’s son, my age, they were from Montana and were kayaking from Wrangell up to Cordova.

The next big adventure was when I decided to hike Windfall Lake to Montana Creek to the Grandchild’s to Stroller White and then back down and out. I started late after work on a Thursday after spending 40 hours that week hiking around Perseverance Trail system for work. I headed out at 8 pm and power hiked to Windfall Lake arriving at 10. I set up camp in the dark and lay down for a restless night of sleep. The next morning I was up early and heading for Montana Creek. The section right after the cabin at Windfall was so overgrown I was just waiting to get mauled by a bear. But I was loud and trucked on to get to the Grandchild’s trail at 1. I had a pre-summit beer with Ryen as he hiked Montana Creek to Windfall before heading up at 2. I hiked really fast and came up out of the tree line at 3 to see dark clouds rolling in. It doesn’t normally thunder and lightning in South East Alaska, but it has been like crazy this summer because it’s so hot and dry. So I emptied what I could of water and food and hauled butt down the mountain. It took me 30 minutes to get down. I started trucking to catch Ryen as he made his way to Windfall Lake. Finally I broke out into the meadow and say wet foot prints on the board walk and knew I was closing in fast to someone. Then in the distance I saw a blue bag bounding across the meadow. I hiked as fast as I could and finally caught up with Ryen. We spent the rest of the evening hiking out and picking berries. I hiked 30 miles that day!

 

While all of this is going on, I’m working on our brusher crew at work. Each week, I’m hiking 40 hours a week all over Juneau. One of those days we had a close call. Our trail crew foreman was driving the excavator on Perseverance Trail. He was clearing a rock slide and dumping the rocks into the canyon below. On one of the turns the excavator tipped and he almost went over the edge. The next day all of us were working on Mount Juneau and I sent out a text that I’m going to use for this next section: Picture this; the air is choked with fog as the incredibly hung over trail crew starts their weary Wednesday. They were quiet as the eight of them climb Mount Juneau with brushers, McLeods, Pulaskis, and their dolmar full of fuel. The light rain pitter patters on their helmets as they climb 3500 feet, they think about how less than 24 hours ago their foreman was inches from death as the excavator tipped over and started down the canyon to the raging river below. Now above the clouds and fog, the trail crew swallows the pain of hiking with all their gear and raging headaches to begin the day of work. The next day we were up there again for another epic work day. It was super foggy; you can see the person working to your left and right but can’t see beyond them. You can hear the others working, but can see nothing. You’re cutting trail with a hazel hoe or Pulaski. There are four guys with big beards discussing which Disney princess they are.  This paragraph should be read with a Morgan Freeman voice. He narrators a lot of what Trail Mix does.

I decided to stay at camp this past weekend and had a surprise visit from Carrie. We headed out to Echo Cove to go fishing. After a couple of beers and watching the salmon in the water, seeing harbor porpoises, and losing lures, we decided to go around the corner. Many corners later we ended up in Berners Bay. We ran into a couple of porcupines and we wanted to see what else we could find. Carrie had kayaked out there before and said there was a river with tons of salmon just off the beach. So after agreeing to do everything wrong to increase our chances of seeing a bear we went towards the river. Carrie froze and I peered around her to see a sow and three cubs. And because it’s Berners Bay, they were grizzlies and not black bears. They were feeding and we stood there and watched them for what seems like forever. Then we crept around to see if there was a better view. I stood out in the open as mom called her cubs away. One crawled across a downed tree and sat in the middle and watched me. We had a moment; it was quiet in my mind as we starred at each other. Time slowed down and I thought hours had gone past, and then the little guy followed his siblings and mother up the hill away from us. Carrie said it was only minutes but it felt like eternity. We headed back to the beach and found a nice cliff to rest against as we watched the sunset behind the Chilkats. It was an incredible night. I thought nothing could top it, but I say that every time Carrie and I do something epic, and then we do…

The next afternoon we hiked up Sheep Creek. It was quite foggy but everyone said it was going to clear up. We came up to the weather station at the top to find a group that looked like they stepped off the pages of a Marmot catalog. They were incredibly lost and it didn’t take Carrie and me long to figure out they were a bunch of green horns and we would have to rescue them. They wouldn’t believe Carrie when she told them they were headed the wrong way so we let them go. After leaving plenty of rock trails and carrions we broke out of the fog to see the Taku Valley and a whole new adventure. We drank our summit beers and planned the next big trip. The green horns then came out of the fog and asked us if we found a dead end and I said we found a new beginning. We pointed them in the right direction and we all headed out together. That night at the bar by some miracle Fred and Brett from Montana were there. They had paddled from 24 hours straight and decided to turn around and come back. It was great to drink and to see them again. They are headed home for another adventure. I’m really privileged to do what I do, see what I see, and meet who I meet

 

 

Alright I guess I'll begin with hiking Mount Juneau in my underwear and nothing else. Its been incredibly hot up here in Alaska. Last weekend we broke record when it reached 85 in Juneau. So anyways a bunch of us hiked Mount Juneau and I started out with pants and a poly pro shirt. I had a pretty bad head cold so I was already having issues. When we left tree line I took off the pants and shirt and went straight up!

The next week I headed out to Admiralty Island, The Fortress of Bears. It has the highest concentration of brown bears in the world. We went out there to rebuild the tracks for the kayak tram. It looks like an old railway car on a small track. You load up your kayak or canoe and hike it in a mile and unload at the next part of your journey. We stayed out in a cabin in Oliver Inlet while we were there. We only saw one bear, a few deer, and we nursed a baby bird back to health. It was a really cool back country experience.

When I got back, Carrie and I hiked Mount Jumbo together. We were about 40 minutes from the top when we decided to turn around. There was this really cool meadow between all the snow that we shared a beer together in. It was pretty sketchy getting to the top and pretty windy so we turned around. On the way down, I slid on my butt through the snow. It was so much fun!

That night I walked back from the bar at sunrise, 3:30 am. It was a gorgeous sunrise. In the morning a bunch of us hiked Mount Juneau again. This time I summitted it and then we hiked along the ridge line for a few peaks and could see the Taku Valley and some of the Juneau Ice fields. The view was incredible. We slid down on our butts down to Granite Creek Trail in Yankee Basin and hiked out. The slid down was so awesome! I want to do it all day everyday. I said eat your heart out Wet N Wild! I'm sliding down a mountain!

The end of a trilogy

So its the perfect end to my trilogy. When I first came up to Alaska in 2011, I stayed in Mendenhall Campground for the night. The next morning Kevin and a few other crew leaders picked me up. After I filled out my exit paperwork, Kevin drove me away from the shop. That night I stayed in Mendenhall Campground. That's the way a trilogy should end, making that perfect circle back to the begining. My time with SAGA is over and since I've made that circle, I shouldn't try to make a fourth.

That weekend I went to Brewfest in Haines. The first night I stayed at Portage Cove again. In the morning I packed things down and went over to Carrie's spot and set up next to her. We went for an uneventful hike instead of running the five k. Then we tackled brewfest. On the way back, I got separated from my group and met some interesting characters before being scooped up by the youth core leaders. I went back to their camp for a while. This year I got a hand massage from a chick. If you didn't hear last year I had gotten a hand massage from a gay guy. I went back to my tent and slept until 3 am and saw an amazing sunset? sunrise?

Monday I started at Trailmix. Our current project is making Outerpoint trail wheel chair accessible. That week was gorgeous. A couple times we got to ride the tram up Mt. Roberts to do some work up there. That weekend I helped Carrie clean fiddle head ferns for pickling and hitch hiked for 4 hours. This past week I was a little under the weather so not a whole lot happening.

I'm way behind

Again its been awhile. The youth corps leaders got up here back in April. The weekend they came in, a few of us went and hiked Salmon Creek. At first it was just a steep hike up a road, then it went into the woods and went straight up. I think we gained 500 ft in elevation in a half mile or something like that. There was a cable to help pull ourselves along. Once we got up to the top, the lake was frozen over and the dam was massive. We felt so tiny. One of the new crew leaders came up with us and so we did a little ice breaker game, stuff your mouth with fiber bar and try to say your name, where you're from, and your favorite movie quote.

The next weekend we went to Juneau Jumpers (competitive jump rope team) and Contra dancing. What a night! So there's this song that a friend of mine kept playing and now its stuck in my head. "Let the fire's burn tonight, let the jugs of wine get drunk, let the truth be known tonight, don't let yourself go hide, go and sing to the mountains, go and sing to the moon, go and sing to just about everything because everything is you." I love Juneau, I don't ever want to leave. That day was pouring rain and one of the worst days since I've been here, but that song rang in my head and that friend explained how amazing it was to be here and I totally agree. Its this little locked in town that the only way in or out is by plane or boat. Its surrounded by mountains and all these islands. Once you've summited the mountains, there's thousands more and a giant ice field. It may rain a lot but everything is so green and big. The sun today has been out for just a few hours and the flowers are  coming out just because of it. Every turn there's a beautiful waterfall making it's way back to the ocean. And the community! Its that small Midwest community combined with hippies. Is there a competitive jump rope team back home that the whole town shows up for because its the middle schoolers? They even did an act in the dark with glow in the dark jump ropes! Do you go to the bar or contra dancing and make up 25% of the people there or know 50% of these people? When we went to the drag show during the intermission, I knew 3 out of the 5 guys they pulled up the stage to dance! I still can't get over that. I love this place.

Last week we hiked Peterson Lake and went to the Arboretum both we amazing. This week was chainsaw training for the new batch of crew leaders. Pictures will have to be uploaded soon. So I just saw I had a few questions so let me answer those. I've learned a lot about the first and second growth forests up here and formation of the land. I forgot to say I saw a porcupine this weekend and a river otter. The river otter was walking on land!

Struggling

Its finally here...the struggle to keep doing this. I don't know what to say or talk about. I haven't been keeping a journal this year and I miss talking to my leather bound friend every night. Put my troubles down on paper in front of me and see the memories I've had throughout the week. I'm not even writing letters this year either. I couldn't give a real reason I'm not. It's not like what I'm doing is overly exhausting. I'm going to bed early. I don't know what's wrong with me.
It's been so long I don't know where to begin...I don't want to talk about what's been going on in the office and the only memorable work we've done was doing stream stablization for Fish and Wildlife. It was a new idea for them, but something I had already done before with the Park Service. To keep the bank from getting eroded, one section we added dirt and planted willow, the second side was the part that was a repeat for me. What we did was dug out our bank then filled it with 3 foot tree rounds. After that we put in Willow and covered them with dirt and then repeated the process until it was at the level of rest of the bank. The hope is for the rounds to break down or suuport the Willow to grow along the bank. The rounds were either Alder (Nitrogen fixing) or Cottonwood.
So it started snowing again on Fridaty. Out at the EVC we had about a foot of snow. I really enjoy sleeping in my new dry tent and hearing the snow or rain on the rain fly. I also got a new sleeping bag so I've been nice and toasty!

Low Ropes

No questions this week! So another week has come and gone. There's still a foot of snow out by our tents, and our tents only. Everywhere else in Juneau the snow has melted. I guess that isn't true anymore since its actually snowing right now. I can't think of anything exciting at the beginning of the week, it was just training the jerks. Carrie's little brother is the best jerk I've ever seen. Yesterday was the low ropes course for the staff, field supports, and the crew leaders. We played a lot of awesome games. My favorite was the tank game. One person was blind folded (the tank), another person had their back to the "tank" and shouted out commands, the last person points to the commander to tell them what to shout. Carrie's little brother made me laugh so hard he couldn't hear the instructions that were being shouted to him. Then when I was the tank I went down to pick up the ball and Mark stole it from me and so I grabbed his leg to keep him from going away. We ended up having a wrestling match in the snow blindfolded until he pegged me in the head. That was my favorite memory from the day. The last bit was pretty memorable, too. We did one of those human pretzel things and I spent 30 minutes staring at Rob's butt. That was pretty great, it apparently touched my mustache (Carrie's little brother is narrating). Last night was first Friday and I got to hang out with Megs and John, which really made my night. That's pretty much it, until next week!

Happy Easter

"If you don't follow through with your dreams you might as well be a vegetable."
So to answer the question from last week, I had my day pack plus my expedition pack. I had to take 5 pounds from my expedition pack and put them in my day pack because my day pack was my carry on. I moved my Red Wings over and a can of chili and that brought me under the 50 pound limit. I couldn't close my day pack though!
I just realized there was a spellcheck button at the top of the screen so that should help out. Alright so I've wrapped up another week in Juneau. The snow has started melting out at the EVC (the Eagle Valley Center). This week we were camped out in the snow which is a little bit cold, but not to bad. Getting out of the tent every morning is the hardest. We had our chainsaw training this week. We got to spend the day with the god and legend, Peter Cross. Chuck Norris makes Chuck Norris jokes about Peter Cross. Peter Cross uses the trees he chops down for tooth picks. Peter Cross could drop a tree with his bare hands, but he'd rather waste gas. It was great working with him and learning from the best. It took him 5 minutes to buck a 60 foot tree, limb it, and drag the limbs into the woods.
The tree I took down was a 12 in cottonwood that was maybe 70 feet long. It was good to use the saw again and drop trees, but I was pretty nervous with Peter watching over me.
Hmmm...other exciting things from this week? Oh so Thursday I stayed in town with some friends and had a really good birthday. I slept on a memory foam mattress and it felt amazing. Saturday the Field Supports and the Crew Leaders all did the Herbert Glacier hike. This was my third time so I was too excited. That changed when we started exploring some of the ice caves and hiking around on the ice caves. I'll have pictures up soon, I'm a few weeks behind and still trying to get Florida pictures up. I like the question comments so I can put the answers in the next week blog.